My family & I traveled to Tennessee. It was an active week,
Biking at Cades Cove,
Settlement, Cades Cove,
If she only had antlers…
Notice the downhill smile!
…of course lots of eating!
We all like to go, go, go…but with 9 hrs. on the road to get there who would think we’d all want to drive some more when we finally arrived?
Speed, a favorite…
Just a bit of bumping and T-boning was involved, but we won’t say by whom.
Driving Miss Chloe!
Definitely Clare’s favorite!
Dollywood is a very nicely kept theme park. We learned about wood carving, candle making, Glass Blowing, The Smoky Mountains, and lots more. It’s our second trip to Tennessee with our first trip being just three years ago. Lots to see and do!
Splash Country, part of Dollywood, was a nice place to cool down in the 100 degree weather.
Laurel Falls was a several mile hike into The Smoky Mountains. Fortunately it was uphill to get there and downhill on the way back.
White Water Rafting was another welcome wet day. We’re getting so experienced at it, this being our 4th rafting trip, that this one seemed a bit too easy & slow.
Relaxing at the end of each day was nice. David grilled on the “world’s smallest” grill, but it sure tasted good.
This is the entrance into our gated cabin community (those are man-made trees). All of us are curious as to why ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’ would be a good theme to an entrance for mountain cabins, but later decided the incredible climb to the cabins that seemed almost 90 degrees was pretty darn scary!!! I tried to get that with my camera, but just couldn’t capture the true incline. If you’ve ever had the recurring nightmare of driving up an incredibly steep hill and tumbling over backwards…that’s it!
It was a fun trip making lots of memories.
Later I’ll post my quilt shop experiences. Thank goodness for GPS. My brother David gifted me one last year for Christmas. I finally traveled to an unknown area to use it and it was great. It was especially nice in a tourist area with so much traffic that it’s hard to navigate and watch where you’re going at the same time.
Susan
Quilting my way through life! 
It is good to have pictures to remind us of the fun times:)
Your son is DWARFING you in that one family photo….who’s the photographer? You’re all in the picture. :=)
Kathy,
It’s typical to photograph others and they in turn photograph you in tourist areas. The man that took that photo barely spoke English! And yes, even Clare is really shooting up this summer. I seem to be speaking more to her eyes these days instead of the top of her head! I’ve always been one of the taller ones in my family growing up. I’m realizing I will soon be the shortest one in my immediate family…
I love the pictures, I would never have recognized Blake had I not known who he was! Wow oh wow how they’ve grown. I’m so glad to hear you’ve made a success of your quilting! You are so talanted!