Day 6

We were up early after a great night's sleep with very little rain throughout the night. It was pretty hot and humid so I think we all slept on top of our bags. I made a big batch of pancakes for breakfast with yogurt and strawberries. I will never hear the end of the Vanana-yogurt-wishes as they settle for plain old Trader Joe's vanilla.

Once we were cleaned up the kids put on their water shoes and we headed to the creek next to the campground to climb around. As all the adults talked with some full-time traveling dudes, the kids scrambled around the slippery rocks exploring the creek.

The ever-cautious Brayden sat with the adults for awhile until I handed him the camera to capture the events on the creek. All the kids ran up at one point claiming they had found their pet for the trip. Once we compromised to have him only for our timem at hte creek, Laney ran to grab a little bowl from our site for his temporary home.  They carried this guy all around the creek for the next hour for his field trip.

I visited the kids at the creek after a little while to take a few more pictures. Just seconds after this picture was taken Brayden slipped on some rocks and by the way he was looking at his hand when he got up I knew we'd be taking a trip to see a doctor. Luckily we all believe it is just a pinky sprain so I taped it to his ring finger and even though it felt weird he did say it felt a little better.

I fed the kids a quick snack lunch and Ryan and Brayden piled in Otis's car to go fishing. Laney, Emily, and I opted for a 3-mile hike down to the lake. Laney can walk for days and once I told her we'd be crossing the creek and going under the road a couple times she was excited.

Emily and I chatted a lot along the way and we made the hills easier by teaching Emily how to play Contact. We even got to wish a girl happy birthday as we walked by their neat celebration in the woods.

We found the fishing people by the lake having a snack. We were greeted with, "Guess what we caught?!" follwed quickly by, "NOTHING!"

The kids walked us down to a little spot with rocks and a waterfall. The kids enjoyed exploring and climbing all around the area. At one point I spotted a snake that had caught a fish so we followed it to see what kind it was and watch it eat. He was a teenager but with the fish in his mouth we couldn't really see the shape of his head to tell what kind he was.

Emily and I decided to hike the 3 miles back to our site while Otis piled the all the kids in his car. Within 10 steps of entering the woods, the downpour started. It was 3pm in the South so we should have known better. The rocks were more slippery, the roots were more slippery and we became way more slippery! We made it back in record time though feeling squeaky clean like we'd just had a shower.

We waited a little while for the rain to stop but it wasn't letting up so we all decided to head to a nearby town for dinner. I set our GPS to a random Italian spot and we were on our way. The drive was nice through a little tiny town. Once we pulled into the parking lot I noticed the restaurant was in a strip mall so I wasn't thinking it would be the best place to eat. We decided to go inside anyway and instantly felt underdressed and out of place. If we hadn't already felt that way the hostess asking, "How can I help you?" instead of "How many for dinner?" should have given it away. We opted for a Chinese place a few doors down and felt much better!

We were all starving and the food was delicious so all our moods changed dramatically. We took the opportunity to do a load of laundry to dry out all of our wet clothes and shoes as well. And of course on our way in Brayden spotted an ice cream spot so we stopped there before heading back to our site. The kids were thankful we'd finally found an ice cream spot and kept reminding me it was crazy it had taken so long!

As we headed back through the mountains, we were treated to a beautiful sunset displayed along the range. Being down in the woods we don't get to see the colors like this as a backdrop to the mountains. I'm hoping at least one of our next sites is near the top!

Once we reached our site we got ready for bed and read another chapter of the book. We were ready for a good night's sleep as the temperature was somewhat cooler this night with the rain. We did decide however that Chinese food wasn't good for Ryan's stomach as there were all kinds of noises coming from that side of the tent!

Day 9

We are finally near wifi after being in the mountains for a few days....
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This morning I was up early again to try to get a few sunrise pictures with the rocks. Unfortunately, it was a very cloudy day so I didn't get much but I did like watching the fog rise up from the valley with each picture.

We didn't have terribly far to go to our next spot so we slowly packed while cooking breakfast. Once we were all loaded up we took a minute to say good by to our neighbors and got on the road. Aout 20 minutes down the road I noticed a sign for Blackwater Falls State Park so we pulled in to check out the area. We were the first people in the parking lot and we had a couple visitors!

We were excited to learn these falls end up in a river that joins with the Mississippi then to the Gulf of Mexico. The kids thought it was neat they could be swimming in the water they were seeing today! On most hikes the kids end up grabbing a walking stick from the side of the trail. Today there was an unspoken competition for the biggest.  I'm thinking Ryan won except for the fact she could barely hold it up by herself!

 

They were all super excited to be in a new state after being in West Virginia so long, but not so excited about the strong cow smell in the air!

About 20 minutes from our campground we ended up in an adorable little town that just happened to have a farmer's market on Wednesdays so we took a few minutes to walk through. All the produce looked so nice! Without an oven though, I wasn't sure we would eat any zucchini, corn, squash, etc so we just bought some local raspberry jelly.

We also spotted a library so we took an hour or so to jump on wifi to update the blog and check email. The kids were dying to see all the replies from their hilarious-to-them emails to everyone. While we were there Brayden finished the next Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales (thanks Lydia!!) he was so excited to see.

Everyone was getting a hungry so we stopped at a farm-to-table food truck for some hand cut fries and fried pickles - yum! The kids begged me for ice cream they'd spotted around the corner so we decided this would be a good opportunity since it was so hot. We all ordered a sundae that we could rotate around and everyone could try. I didn't realize they would be quite so huge, but we all made a valiant effort and I definitely wouldn't be eating again until the next day!

We were all stuffed as we set up the tents so I decided we should all hike down to the waterfalls in the park. Our hike started through a beautiful forest of 300 year old hemlock trees. Many had been tagged for what we later learned was treatment for yet another invasive bug. Many of these trees had already died from the insect that basically cut off it's food supply. Hurricane Sandy had also caused some major devastation to the forest from heavy snowfall. There was a large amount of new vegetation flourishing because the hemlock canopy had opened up.

        













We hiked around through the first 2 waterfalls which were facing the way we were going. Once we got to the third I noticed it was facing the opposite way and again with the fourth. I guess we've never seen that before with waterfalls so close together.




At the last waterfall, the kids wanted to walk down so we found a trail and headed to the water. They were thrilled to see this teepee of sorts set up and it became an immediate play zone. They would have played for hours had I not reminded them about the empty amphitheater we'd passed.















Yep, it's time for a play. Or five. It was a good thing the benches were relatively comfortable!

                  

With still a little daylight left, we tested the bandaids on Brayden's foot with another game of campball. The teams today were me and Laney against Ryan and Brayden. Laney got some crucial hits when we needed them and we ended up stopping the game at 10-10 amid some frustration. That's a score our family of sore winner and loser kids can't argue with!

They played games while the they ate a snack (I can't believe they're still eating!) and I prepped a few things for leaving early in the morning. There was a science museum to get to so everyone was up for breakfast in the car to get there as early as possible.

While Brayden cleaned up the dropped snacks, the girls and I did the dishes and we were all snoozing quickly after a quick chapter of our book. I'm not sure about this book as it seems a little mature for the girls, but it definitely is opening up the opportunity for conversations so that's good.