Day 3

We're back in civilization after a few days deep in The Smokies with no wifi, cell service, or electricity.  It was wonderful!  I'm writing about those days now, but for now here's Day 3.....

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I was up with the sun this morning desperate for a shower and ready to get packing. Each year I have been able to refine my packing routine where we could pack up and roll out of a site within 30 minutes.  I think it's going to take me awhile to get even close to that with things stored all over in different places.

My tent mate was up shortly after so we got to work packing our tent and getting laundry going. Once the other two go up they had a big breakfast as we discussed plans for the day. They weren't thrilled about the 4 hour drive we had today but their eyes lit up when I said they could watch a movie for the first part. Amazing how that can motivate some kids to help pack!

Once we cleaned, packed, finished laundry, and got kids showered it had been about 3 hours. We weren't in too much of a hurry to leave because the kids needed to turn in their junior ranger books and of course we had to say goodbye to Ninja the squirrel.  The kids just about melted as they watched him eat and bury some of his favorites.

Once we got on the road I checked the GPS for the total miles of the trip and smiled when I saw only 200 miles to our next spot. Normally that wouldn't take 4 hours on an interstate, but I knew that meant we'd be spending a lot of time on windy mountain roads and switchbacks - my favorite!

Before we knew it we were in Tennessee.  We stopped at an overlook with a hydroelectric dam. The kids were just asking me the day before what the purpose of dams were so this was the perfect opportunity to show them one of the uses! I do believe The Smokies are way back there where we're headed (and why it's a 4 hour drive!)



Just a short time later we were in North Carolina!

We reached the park about an hour later after driving through Cherokee.  The kids were super excited to go back later and see all the Cherokee crafts and pottery.  But this is what they were excited to finally see!

We have visited here the past two years and it's always a favorite place to go for the kids.  Once we got close to the visitors center they remembered passing through here 2 years before when we camped in the northern part of the park. There was a mountain farm exhibit they were very excited to see, but first we must pick up junior ranger books and get our National Parks pass.  Thanks to the girls who are now in 4th grade, we get a pass for free for the whole family.

                       

And if there's moving water nearby my kids are throwing sticks into it.

The farm exhibit was very interesting with original farm buildings from all over the park put together in the way a farm may have looked in the early 1900s. There was a house, meat store house, corn house, a huge barn, blacksmith shop, gardens, an orchard, and pens for chickens and pigs.  The poor pigs were named Honey Smoked and Maple Bacon.

 The kids were amazed at just how much work the families had to put into their farm just to survive. I was especially adamant to point out how many of the jobs the children helped with or completed independently. The kids were shocked!! They were also excited to see real apples on a tree - something we miss out on completely in Florida.

We finally decided to check in and set up our site. Earlier in the day we had planned to make the drive to Gatlinburg as Brayden has wanted to go there since we drove through 2 years ago. By the time we were settled though, it was time for dinner so once we ate the kids decided to go back to Cherokee to look around.



And on our way out of the park, look what we stumbled upon!

             

I couldn't believe the size of the antlers on the elk lying down! They were all so calm as all the noisy tourists slammed their car doors and clicked away.

Once we made it back to Cherokee many of the craft stands had closed so we only spend about an hour shopping. Brayden was excited to spend his money on a bow and arrow set. Ryan bought a gift for an native american-loving friend of hers. Laney was struggling with her desire for just about everything she picked up.  She decided to sleep on it and make sure before she spent her money.

We were all yawning as we pulled into our driveway, so we went for a family walk then settled in to read a chapter of our current book.  We are on our 56th book on the list we started about five years ago.  That seems like such a long time for a list of just 100 books!  We are constantly reading, but there are just SO many good books out there I veer off the list for months at a time.  Hopefully we'll finish it by the time Brayden gets into high school!

We were all excited to settle down into our sleeping bags tonight with a low of 62. We even bought firewood for warming up with breakfast!

Thanks and Lessons

So we've been home for almost a month.  It takes about that long for us to get through the laundry and stowing of camping gear, get back into a routine, and start missing the road again.  I was looking through some pictures from the trip yesterday and the beginning seems more like 6 months than 3. We might be changing up next year's summer trip plans.  Kinda spread out the fun a little bit.

My list of thanks is very similar to years past:

• Thank you first to Dave who works all the time to make these trips possible.  As grumpy as he gets while we are away I do believe he might be getting a tiny bit used to them.
• Thank you to Grammie for traveling along with us and making our adventures way better along the way.
• Thank you to the inventor of the stinky stick up.  I'm not sure it really made a big difference, but Dave did not complain when he got in the car the first time so possibly it did. 

• Thank you to all you readers checking in and keeping up to date on our adventures.  And thank you for all the comments, texts, and messages of advice, encouragement, and laughs.
• Thank you to all the children's authors out there as my kids devour books, especially on these trips!  This is a quick picture of some of what was read along the way not counting audio books and a few we donated to the libraries we visited!

I try to keep up with my lessons as I learn them along the way.  This can be difficult as I am (1) getting old and can't remember much so I have to write it down, (2) am driving on winding roads and cannot write, and (3) I ended up accidentally throwing away what I did write down.  Fortunately, I did remember some of the lessons and made sure to type them up as I wrote about our days.

• Fried food can cure a stomach that has been riding in the back of the car on winding back roads.
• Kentucky has some beautiful barns along the interstate.  So beautiful I bet there is a calendar.
• No on but me seemed to think it was strange that cows were galloping down the interstate in Alabama.
• The AT&T skyscraper in Nashville looks like Batman.
• Trader Joe's cookie butter is addictive.  Don't even try it.
• Illinois "county" roads should have a sign requiring 4 wheel drive.
• While gravel floors are terribly uncomfortable to sleep on, they drain rain exceptionally well!  Grass floors look so lush and inviting, but they are unforgiving when it comes to rain! 
• There are massive amounts of corn and soybeans grown in Illinois.
• Being on the border of time zone changes always seems to make me feel like I'm going to be an hour late somewhere.
• Putting in a cd of Brayden's music from last year's summer trip is guaranteed to get his head to pop out of a book and his hands clapping to the beat!
• Mastered the art of getting pants on in a wet shower and figured out the perfect angle to place flip flops outside the tent so I can step right in them when getting out.
• The military in the Keneewaw Peninsula could only grow potatoes in their garden.  Even our potato-loving Ryan said she would get tired of them after a week!
• The washboard in the 1850s was called the knuckle-buster.  
• Falling asleep next to the gentle waves of Lake Superior sounds very similar to those of the Gulf of Mexico.
• Copper miners only made about $1 a day for a 10 hour shift.  If their candle, which they had to buy themselves, went out they were to sit until another crew member or their supervisor came. If it was the supervisor, they would be docked their day of pay and still be expected to work the rest of their shift.  Ouch!
• It's so nice to be able to have conversations with another adult after being solely with your kids for almost 3 weeks!
• Most of my worries along the way were not even worth the attention I gave them.
• My kids will do just about anything with the promise of ice cream.
• People in the northwoods of Michigan mark their driveway with very interesting designs of reflectors and antiques.
• People in campgrounds in Canada mark their campsites with very interesting collections of reflectors, hand-carved signs and lots of Canadian flags.
• Canada highway boulders are filled with inukshuks along every ledge.
• Quiet nights and mornings by the fire while children sleep are better shared with your better half.
• If someone in the tent is about to get sick, don't let them be in charge of unzipping the door to get out.  And don't leave your keys by the tent door.
• A hummingbird has 1000 feathers and a swan has 25,000!
• There are bats that don't hibernate in caves.
• Laundry machines in Canada don't know the difference between American and Canadian quarters.
• The emerald ash borer is threatening a lot of forests across our continent.
• Given a 30-minute limit on wifi time, I can type REALLY fast!
• It is a refreshing change in Canada for every attraction not to be over commercialized. Except when Grammie would like to find a place to buy t-shirts for the kids!
• There are 44 types of orchids and 6 different varieties of ferns on the Bruce Peninsula.
• The ferry to Manatoulin Island is so large it looks like a small cruise ship!
• The call of the Northern Cardinal sounds like a Star Wars Fight.  Pew! Pew! Pew!
• The call of the Northern Cardinal at 4:45am can be quite annoying.
• A vulture projectile vomits when it's feeling threatened.
• Sometimes Ryan loses her pajama bottoms in the middle of the night in her sleeping bag.
• While trying to make our parks better by planting non-native trees, introducing non-native animals, damming lakes and completely preventing forest fires, man has had a large role in the extinction of some animal and plant species.
• Biologists and scientists are still learning and are struggling diligently to bring back severely threatened species of animals and plants as well as help forests and parks return to their more natural state.
• The world seems way bigger when your mom leaves.
• Climbing out of the tent in the morning right into a spider's web will make me do a funky dance!
• The Macinaw Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the U.S.  There are 4 larger in the world in China, Japan and Denmark.
• Deer antlers are the fastest growing tissue on earth and can grow up to 1/2" per day!
• I am a little more apt to cave in on buying new t-shirts when we are needing to do laundry!
• I found where the Bonaroo festival is held in Tennessee.
• Road kill takes many shapes and forms.
• At first I was surprised that county fairs are held in July in Michigan and Wisconsin until I realized that having them in late October like ours wouldn't work there!
• An empty laundry bag and full clothes bag can feel almost as refreshing as a good night's sleep. Like I can do this for another month!
• Residents of Michigan and Ontario take their recreation seriously!  The campgrounds and comfort stations inside them are SO nice!  Private shower rooms that can easily fit a family and power at every site!  We were spoiled!
• Fresh skunk spray in the middle of the night can wake you from a deep sleep with choking breaths.
• Grammie gets the best parking spots and if I rub her arm before she leave I luck into them too!
• Once we're home, it's so nice not to have to remember to buy ice every time we get gas or groceries.
• At home, it's so nice not to have to scramble to find quarters for laundry.
• Once we're home we head to the library pretty quickly and I realize on the way home how much I miss that quiet with three kids' noses buried in books.

Thanks for traveling along with us and we'll see you next time!

Day 45

Dave and I had both been semi-dreading our night the day before as our neighbors moved in all around us as well as in the middle of us!  Every since I first started camping as a child, there is a rule of a invisible boundary around campsites.  Apparently these three or four families decided that was not a rule at all!  At one point the kids even parked their bikes in our parking spot for the car!

There were quite a few kids, older teenagers, and adults in these two site so Dave and I looked at each other thinking the night was going to be quite loud.  We joked about finishing all the beers in the cooler just to have a good nights sleep.  We did share a few beers but our night was surprisingly quiet and we all slept quite well.  

The morning was chilly and Dave started on pancakes early so we could get on the road pretty quick. 

The kids were up with the delicious smell and we were packed up and on the road by 8 which is probably a record having a cooked breakfast.  It's nice having that guy around to share the load!

We decided on the first hour or so of backroads then we would stop for a stock up and drive on the highway for the rest.  We had about a 6 hour drive ahead of us so we wanted a least some of it to be enjoyable.  After about 45 minutes all the kids faces were turning green in the back and we had to stop.  Dave and I felt like we'd been on a roller coaster too!  The drive was beautiful though and we especially loved all the old barns and look what we ran into around a corner!

Dave and I switched driving so I could have some fun and Ryan decided to use Dave as a target.  We were back in an area where we had cell service so he was go through all his emails from the past few days.  Every 30 seconds or so we would be pegged in the head by taped up balls of paper!  Whatever keeps them smiling!

We stopped for a quick stock up on food for our last few days in the woods as well as a quick ice cream.  The kids and I had hit Smokey Mountain National Park last year on our way north so I knew it would be beautiful to share with Dave.  One of the parts of the park we'd missed was Cades Cove so I decided to have us camp there.  I knew it was going to be a fun drive when we still had 45 minutes and only 10 miles left!  The temperature was dropping about a degree each couple minutes too!

We checked in, grabbed some firewood, then set up our site.  Have I mentioned how nice it is to have Dave helping?  We're on our 3rd day of camping and everything takes about half as long with him around!  While I did our dishes from snacks in the car, the kids played target practice with their rubber band guns and lego guys.  

We decided on a hike of the nature trail nearby after a little while.  Every nature trail we'd ever done so far had been a flat, wide, accessible, winding path through native plants and trees.  I had everyone stay in flip flops.  I should have known better in the Smokey Mountains!   

We learned a lot about the native trees in the area as the kids read the interpretive signs along the trail.  The afternoon was beautiful  and we were getting a little relief from all the heat in the woods.

This girl is so happy to have Dave back.  She wouldn't let go of my hand the entire trip and now I haven't seen her for days!  The only way she holds my hand is if she's already holding his!

Once we got back to the site and all the groceries put away, Dave started cooking dinner.  He even had an assistant chef!  

After dinner and dishes all the kids wanted to throw the football with Dave.  I took the opportunity to get everything ready for the night.  The girls enjoyed teaching Dave about poison ivy as we've run into so many different varieties these past few years of trips.  

Our next night program was one Brayden was really looking forward to - a night hike!  We got dressed and headed over to the shelter to meet the park ranger and get on our way.  

Our park ranger was fun and he told stories at a few stops of the history of the park.  The kids really enjoyed learning about the Cherokee so we'll be sure to focus a little more time on that this year. While we were hiking there were rangers on the trail doing studies on bats we were seeing flying above us.  I was hoping they were going to take a minute to talk to us, but I guess not everything can be a learning opportunity!

We walked on a cut through road of the Cades Cove Loop back toward the park in the middle of one of the horse pastures.  There was a half moon so the sky wasn't all the dark, but it was absolutely darker than what we see at home.  The big dipper was hanging low in the sky and it looked so close as if you could grab it.  The kids were more impressed with the ranger's laser pointer as they've seen so many dark skies on this trip.  

The ranger ended the trip with a wonderful quote from President Lyndon Johnson played on a small tape recorder, "We must not only protect the country side and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities … Once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted."  The ranger then thanked us for his job which I thought was awesome and we thanked him for a wonderful hike. 

We were all asleep within minutes of zipping the tent closed.  We had a big, full day the next day as we would be trying to eek out every last minute of our last day.