Great Smoky Mountain National Park and Arkansas

Here we are on the AT.  This is a where Lee hiked, so we were excited to be on the path he was on a few years ago!

Don on the AT

Can you see the snake-?-a very little one.  We also saw a big one on the trail--looked like a copperhead, but I don't think they have those in GSMNP

This is on the hike up to Alum Bluffs Cave.  It was a great hike!

As you can see it is a HUGE bluff--see me in the red shirt?

We took the Cade's Cove Loop Drive.  It was only 11 miles long, but it took us nearly 5 hours! 

A cantilever barn

This is a cabin in Cades' Cove (where a community of people lived before this became a national park).  Very interesting to see the construction.  

 

Black Bear!  We saw 3 in Cade's Cove. 

Don with his morning coffee sitting by the campfire and mountain stream--his "happy place"

One of many beautiful sights

We met a couple at the Blanchard Springs Campground in Arkansas who had this little trailer.  He had built it and pulls it with his VW Bug.  Now if I can just get Don to build one for us!  It is built on a 4 x 8 trailer he bought at Harbor Freight--we have one of those!!!!!

Blanchard Springs Caverns--Beautiful!  This nature sculpture is 65 feet tall!

As you can see the formations were amazing.  This is the most beautiful cave we have ever seen! 

You see the staircase and handrail on the left so you can tell how huge these stalagtites are.

The ceiling was filled with hundreds or thousands of little "soda straw" formations

 As of today, we have driven about 7,600 miles.  In the past 7 1/2 weeks we have been so many places.  What a blessing to be able to take a trip like this!   I told Don that, for me, this is the best way to take a trip--camp in beautiful national parks, state parks, on beaches and islands; stay a night in a hotel every once in a while; visit friends--Pat and Carol Scherden in Michigan, and relax at a timeshare.  We just mixed it all up!  I have to say that I am a little partial to the tent and enjoying nature.   Since Don turned 62, he was happy to get his Golden Pass to National Parks, so we got in to the parks free and discounts on camping....very nice.  We take advantage of all those discounts we can get. 

 Now we have spent the week in Branson and enjoyed kicking back in our comfortable timeshare here.  We are going to see the show "Six" tomorrow night.  Friday morning we will head to East Texas--got to see our grandkids (oh, Lee and Rebekah, too!).  I have missed them all so much.

Our August-September vacations are becoming an annual event.  We like to escape the Texas heat!  2013 we plan to visit the Scherdens in Germany.  2014--maybe a trip to Alaska--???

Grayson Highlands State Park, Virginia

On a tip from a fellow camper in Shenandoah, we drove to Grayson Highlands State Park, Virginia, on our way to the Smoky Mountains.  We really enjoyed it.  We took a nice hike to Mt. Rogers.  A portion of the hike was on the Appalachian Trail.  I was most interested in seeing the wild ponies that live in the park and in the national recreation area of Mt. Rogers.  The ponies are not really "wild"--they can be pretty friendly and can be approached without running away.  They are called wild only because they roam the area finding their own food and no one owns them.  I included this picture so you can see that they are small horses.  I would have loved to have seen a very young one.

The black pony with the white mane and tail has been named "Fabio."  They were very busy grazing so I didn't get many pictures of them with their heads up.   Fabio finally raised his head and stared at me for about a minute so I got some good ones of him.  Looks like he has a wig on!

Beautiful Monarch

Catching up on the news at the campground

I love theses fences!

There were SO many Christmas tree farms in North Carolina!

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway--a beautiful drive!

Smithsonian and Yorktown, VA

Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian

 We have been looking forward to getting back to D.C. and visiting some of the Smithsonian Museums.  First we went to Dulles to the fairly new Air and Space Museum.  It is amazing!  It is hard to believe that so much aircraft is inside one building--and some of them are huge!  As always, it's hard to choose just a few pictures from the man I took, but here are some.  Check out the top speed of the Blackbird 2,250 mph!

The Space Shuttle

The Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima

National History Museum - Amazing formations from the earth!

since this is a life-size elephant, you can get an idea of the size of just a small part of this museum

American History Museum- this is the Civil War Draft Wheel

George Washington's clothes worn 1783-1789

Wow...doesn't this look real?  It is a sculpture in the Hirschhorn Art Museum.  It is much bigger than life and totally naked! 

On to Yorktown--Revolutionary Way Battleground, an original cannon, and notice the "earthworks"  They were made by the soldiers in the battle.  They cut down the trees, made big "baskets" out of the small limbs, made bundles of bigger branches and piled them all up, covered them with dirt creating ditches for protection and higher areas for firing the cannons.  All very interesting.

I just thought this was interesting.  When we hear about separation of church and state and removing God's name from government buildings, statues, etc., it's just crazy.  Our country is based on a belief in the one true God!

okay...those of you who are familiar with my photography know how I love macro photograph.  This dragonfly was just sitting waiting for me to get a shot of him!

Shenandoah and Manassas

We spent 4 days and 3 nights at Shenandoah National Park--we really enjoyed this park!  It is long (over 100 miles) and narrow and the Appalachian Trail runs down almost the entire park.  We camped at Matthews Arm Campground at mile 21.  It had very few campers which was nice.  The first full day we were there we did 3 hikes.  It was fun for us to actually do a little hiking on the Appalachian Trail.  We got back to our campground about 7 p.m. and a man came over to tell us that a bear had been in our campsite earlier--just reminding us to put all food away.  That got our attention! We were so hungry after the hikes and fixed chicken quesadillas. We didn't sleep very soundly that night.  In fact, about sunrise we did hear the bear very near our tent.  He just wandered back into the woods.  Next morning we did find some prints in the mud.   After a delicious breakfast of omelettes, we headed out for a hike to Mary's Rock.  We had an early dinner (spaghetti and salad) and headed to a lookout to watch the sunset.  As we were leaving the campground I looked over and there was a bear!  Sorry I didn't get a better picture of him--but he was really big and fat.  I was really excited to see a bear on our visit to the park.  Shenandoah has the largest concentration of Black Bears, so it would have been disappointing not to see one.  After watching the sunset, we headed back to camp to enjoy a fire.  Oh...the stars are just amazing in the park!

We met some couples who were very inspiring to us.  One couple was in their 80's.  They live in Seattle and have been traveling for a year!  They were on the hike up to Hawksbill.  Another couple was in our campground and they are in their 70's...camping in a tent, too.  They have made their home on a boat for 22 years and have done a lot of hiking.  They did an 18 mile hike in Shenandoah--in one day!  They have also hiked the Colorado Trail (over 500 miles).  So I hope and pray Don and I are still enjoying these trips for at least the next 20 years or so!!!!

Our first hike in Shenandoah!

At the top of  Upper Hawksbill

I'm so excited to be on the AT!!!  These white blazes mark the Trail.

Our home in the woods.

On our hike to Mary's Rock

A beautiful caterpillar--he was about 3 inches long! 

Here's the bear!

Sunset over the Appalachian Mountains

Skyline Drive--75 overlooks--this is one of the few straight areas in the road!

 This morning we broke camp pretty early and drove to Manassas, Virginia, the site of the first battle of the Civil War (Bull Run).  It was so interesting.  We went to the museum, watched a movie about the battle and then went on a Ranger-led talk around the field where the battle happened.  Once again, it was very moving. 

A map of the Battle at Manassas (Bull Run).  Lights show the movement of the troops.  Very interesting!

And to think that the population of the US was just a fraction then of what it is today...

The Battlefield

So...since our campground didn't have showers, we were really happy to check into a hotel tonight and get cleaned up :-) !