Tallahassee Trip

Valerie and Michael celebrated their 5 year wedding anniversary by taking a trip to Gatlinburg, TN.  They rented a nice cabin for 5 nights.  Being Chloe is in preschool, that meant I had to be in Tallahassee to take care of her.  Much to my surprise, they had their Thanksgiving program.  Just what Grandmas love to watch!

They sang a variety of songs.  This brought back memories of when my boys did this in preschool!  It doesn't seem that long ago.

Sorry, I forgot that my camera has to be landscape position for the video.  It will get there 1/2 way through the taping.

Once she was done performing, it was time to enjoy the treats.  Chloe is doing very well in school. And best of all, she loves it!

 I celebrated my birthday while in Tallahassee.  Chloe was on a kick where she was watching Dumbo over and over.  As a result, she was also singing Happy Birthday, only to my surprise the day before my actual birthday, she changed the words to "dear Grandma!" Oh how that made my heart soar!

I let her know my birthday was "tomorrow", and I would love for her to sing it again then.  She did. 😍

I asked her what we should do.  She quickly responded, "eat pancakes and have chocolate cake."  Well, I didn't have stuff in the house to make pancakes or chocolate cake so I let her know after church, we would go out for breakfast, then stop at Publix to pick up a cake.  She liked the idea.  I haven't eaten at IHOP in probably 20 years.  Oh how I scarfed up my yummy breakfast.  She chowed down on hers too, much to my delight.

At Publix, I saw a single serving of chocolate cake.  That would be plenty, but when we went over to get her free cookie, she spied another chocolate cake.   I asked which one she wanted.  Her reply was typical for a kid..."both".  We went home with both and split them so we could each have a taste.  YUMMY!

  

Michael and Valerie made it safely home.  They shared what a wonderful time they had.  Michael said the only complaint was the amount of smoke in the area.  He whimsically commented, "it is after all the Smoky Mountains".  

The good news is that the devastating fire in Gatlinburg didn't happen while they were there.  The bad news is that it happened. We were all doing the "what if".  The restaurant they celebrated their anniversary at burned to the ground.  The cabin they rented was miraculously okay.  The cabins on the other side of the hill he was on all burned.  Too close for comfort you could say.  Our prayers are with everyone involved.  I am grateful my sister in law, Cindy, who lives in the area is safe and sound.  Thank you Lord for protecting our family.

Halloween 2016

We got home from vacation Oct 30.  That gave me 1 day to prepare for the little goblins that would be visiting our door.

A special treat was that Levi spent his evening with us!

We went around the block collecting our treats.

Amber's birthday is Halloween so she will always have a special day with Levi!

Cliffside Lake, and other sights

Last of the vacation photos.

We were all set to hike around our camp area the last day because we wanted to get to 5:00 Mass before heading home on Sunday. We woke to the smell of a forest fire, somewhere, but didn't think anything of it. We started off with a hike around Cliffside Lake.

We were greeted by a US Forestry agent.  Come to find out, on the other side of the river over that mountainside was a BIG fire!

Not as big as the one recently in Gatlinburg, TN, but big enough, it had already claimed 5 cabins.  They had to close down the hiking trails in the area so the helicopters could make their water drops.

We have never seen that before, and asked if we could stand next to him to watch.  He allowed it.

The first helicopter in was with the bucket.  It only took it about a minute or two to fill it.

Next in was a helicopter that pumped it right into itself!  In just a few minutes it was loaded and ready to go!

Hmmm. Don't know how to get the video to turn the right way. Ugh!

We went ahead and explored other area sights that had gone overlooked as they weren't a priority for our trip.

For instance, there is the Cullasaja Falls visible off Hwy 64 south of Franklin.  You don't see it going northbound, and can miss it when not paying attention when going south. 

We traipsed around Bust Your Butt Falls, and no, we didn't fall and bust our butts! Evidently it is a popular swimming hole in the summer months.  As you can see there were many ropes tied to the trees on the opposite side of the river.

We had seen an abandoned cabin up on a hill.  We explored that too.  What we found out from a local resident is that it was relocated to that spot with the intention of it being a museum with a large parking area to give additional parking to Dry Falls.  People would be able to walk across a pedestrian bridge.  Obviously, that never materialized.  That's too bad because parking at Dry Falls on the weekend is sheer chaos.  So much so, they have park rangers to direct traffic!

Meanwhile, back at camp, the helicopters continued to make their water trips and flew directly over our camp.

We had a wonderful week camping at Van Hook Glade Campground.  The campground hosts were informative, and kept the bathrooms spotless and well stocked with toilet paper!

Standing Indian Basin

We also explored the Standing Indian River Basin.  They had lots of fun hiking trails to scenic destinations.

First up, Big Laurel Falls.

Mooney Falls was the next stop.  It was a very short and steep hike.

We ventured to another Fire Lookout Tower.  The views were amazing.  I didn't realize we were in an area that experiments with forestry verses watershed.  They clear cut several areas of mountainside, then replanted each area with specific trees, some areas only evergreens, others  deciduous trees.  What they found is evergreen trees hold more water therefore not allowing as much into the watershed, whereas the deciduous trees allows for a greater flow.  It was quite amazing to read and see.

This area was clear cut and replaced with all deciduous trees.

A look to the north.  Not sure if that is Wayah Bald off in the distance or not.  The highest peak does have a tower on it.

Our last stop was to Pickens Nose.

This hike was the most fun.  Clif and I were trying to get pictures of each other on different outcroppings.

I decided to head over to the first outcropping behind Clif and get a picture of him from there.  He was to get one of me standing on it from where he was, only all his pictures turned out blurry.  

 I eventually had to sit down because I was getting dizzy and didn't want to plummet down the mountain!  In a couple more pictures you will see just how small and dangerous this outcropping can be.

Does that not look like a human's profile?

He decides to come join me and pretends to fall of the ledge.  Needless to say, I didn't think it was very funny.

It was a great place.

On the way back to camp, I was in a zone that allowed dozens of texts to come through on my phone.  As any traveler knows, this is short lived especially in the mountains.  Why am I telling you this?  Because in my endeavor to respond to some of them, we had to travel beyond our camp and head into Highlands.
On the way, low and behold, a bear comes out of the woods, crosses the street and heads straight towards us!
I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself let alone get the camera to take pictures!

It was amazing how it crouched down and crawled under the guardrail.

Come to find out, someone had thrown a bag of fast food trash onto the embankment. It didn't want to have anything to do with posing for a picture!

After that great adventure, I forgot all about responding to the texts!
We decided to head back to camp, being it was only a mile away, and let the camp hosts know.  What we didn't know, is the bear had been visiting the campground nightly unbeknownst to us!
Can't see anything beyond the campfire anyway.