We managed to sneak in a summer vacation

Normally, we would have tried to take a beach trip / stay in a condo... but I wasn't really comfortable with that a couple of months ago.  We were trying to think outside of the box... maybe camp - tent.  Oh wait:  public bathrooms.  Hmm..... this led us to looking into renting an RV.  

We thought we could sanitize it before we rented it... wipe it down (although now we know surfaces aren't as dangerous in transmitting Covid)… sanitize it and feel more confident about travelling. We started planning and made some modifications to Todd's truck: added a tow hitch... added some engine coolant thing... installed some sort of brake controller (which is removable).

We found one that looked OK, good price, booked it and started planning where to go.

We haven't been to the Great Smoky Mountains before. It's drive-able... not too far. So, that's what we did! We picked up the RV trailer on a Friday afternoon, I wiped down everything, sprayed Lysol on the soft surfaces, dish-washed all of the dishware. Also, it was fantastic that no one had rented it the week before us. Packed it up Friday night and Saturday morning, then hit the road.

Our first destination was to a place called "Imagination Mountain" in Cosby, Tennessee.  We were so packed in / had no privacy, but the campsite was beautiful.  

We had a space on a little mountain stream - and - honestly, that's where Isabella spent much of her time (in the frigid cold mountain water).  She made immediate friends with the little girls in the yurt across the river from us and they "fished" with plastic bowls (and headlamps when it got dark).  

She was - at first - satisfied with little tiny fish about an inch long.  Then, she was determined to catch larger ones.... and was sometimes successful.

One night she tried to catch salamanders in the river.  

Most mornings, there were kids in the stream near our RV... so Isabella usually wanted to join them!    She definitely found her happy place in the stream.

We went for several hikes.  The first one was not so successful.  (It was long and uphill at a very steep incline.  Todd looked it up after we "gave up" on trying to get to the waterfall several miles away from our campsite. There was about a 2000' elevation change!)  We did get to see a cool log cabin, though.... and a really small dry stream that was full of moss-covered boulders.

I wasn't planning on going inside, but Isabella saw the open door and went for it. So I had to follow her in. The doors were open on both sides. I'm surprised there weren't animals or critters in there. The wood floors were not fantastic.

The rafters were low (maybe about 6 1/2' tall).  The front door was short.  I'm kind of glad we went in.  It's not something you can look at from the outside and "feel" how the people lived (Isabella asked where the kitchen was... where is the bedroom?  It was just ONE room about the size of our living room!)


The placard outside says:
"Willis Baxter Cabin"  
"Built around 1889"

There were some fantastic textures along the way too. So - even though we did not make it to the waterfall, there were some great things to see in nature.

The next day, we headed to Smoky Mountain National Park.  So - one thing that we didn't know... dogs are only allowed on 2 trails.  The trail closest to us, thankfully, was one of them.  The other was 2 hours away in North Carolina!  The Smoky Mountains are huge!  

The Gatlinburg Trail was a nice, flat trail along a river.  This river had large tumbled boulders in it too - like the one at our campsite.  They're so beautiful!

We played in the water.  Skipped stones.  Played with butterflies.

The hike was nice 'til we were pretty close to the edge of the park / to the city limits of Gatlinburg.  Isabella shut down.  She was done.   Todd and Mercer had to hike back to the Visitor's Center a couple miles back while I waited with her at the end of the trail.  We met at the "Welcome to the Smoky Mountains" sign.  

It was too bad.  This was a beautiful trail, but... she's little... and we probably do push a bit to hike too far!  

The next day, we went to one of "the top things to do" in the Smoky Mountains:  we went underground to explore the caves and caverns.  The caverns that were closest to us were closed for the season due to Covid.  We ended up at the Tuckaleechee Caverns about an hour and a half away.  Here are some photos.  (Todd has some additional ones... I had to take Isabella to the restroom and she/I had to leave mid-tour.)  I'll try to get them and add to the blog.  But -- what she and I got to see was pretty cool.  (We were masked up, of course!)

I think Mercer liked the cavern -- he took took some pictures and then texted to a friend of his.  It was certainly unique.  We've never seen anything like it!

There were stalactites (hanging "tight" to the ceiling of the cavern) and stalagmites coming from the ground.  There were also columns -- where stalactites and stalagmites meet up.


(This funny formation - Mercer coined as the "Lorax's mustache.")

We had a neighbor at our campsite who - when we told her what caverns we were going to - she told us to also go tubing.... the particular town we were at for the caverns was well-known for their tubing river.  So, we went for it.  I suppose sometimes it's nice not to have everything all planned out so that - when - opportunities arise you can take them!  

Isabella and Todd were tied together.  Mercer and I hung out off-and-on during the 3 hour float.  (It was only supposed to be 2 hours, but there had not been a lot of rain there so the river was slower than normal.) 

We did not take our camera on the river -- they told us it would end up in the water.  (I took a dump in the river thanks to Mercer.... so it's good that I didn't have my phone on me.)  Here is a photo I found on the web from the rafting company so that we have some memory of our float down that river.  :) 

We created another memory tubing down the river that none of us had done as a family before.   It was a really unique day starting in the cave, then ending up in the water floating.

It was a long day after the cavern tour and the floating.... then driving back to the campsite.  We had to pack up and leave the next morning.  The campsite was crowded -- they packed in a lot of RVs, tents and yurts, but the property was absolutely beautiful!

The kids really liked this place.  It had a small pool, a small putt-putt course, and a little arcade.  The people at the site were really helpful and - thankfully - walked, literally, Todd into the RV spot / helping him back-in / helping us set-up because we told them it was our absolute first time.  (The RV rolled off of the block at first, but they helped us with that too!)  It was a good first experience.   

The kids would like to go back to that spot. 








We did not spend as much time in the Smokies as I thought we would, but, we enjoyed the other things there were to do in the area - so it was OK to move to our next destination:  Fall Creek Falls State Park.  This state park has one of the largest waterfalls.  We, of course, hiked to the name-sake water feature... but it was not so easy:  this hike was somewhat like rock-climbing.  It was rated as strenuous -- but it was oh-so-worth-it!  

Because Blogger is messing up, I am just going to drop a lot of photos from that hike here.

Getting close.


















Just need to walk down all of these rocks to get to the pool at the bottom.




















Once you're there - all you feel is mist on your face and your hair is blown back.  It's so refreshing -- and that's before even sticking your feet into the water (or more than just your feet).

Above: You can see little tiny people climbing on the rocks (to the right) of the falls -- to offer some scale for this waterfall!

There was a LOT of "rock climbing" -- well -- not the crazy dangerous kind where you have to wear harnesses.  But - navigating over loose boulders, figuring out where to put your footing in some cases.  It was tricky and challenging, but kind of fun!  

There was another smaller water fall that was easier to get to.... so we went there as well.  There was only an overlook and a place to get into the water ABOVE the falls... not hiking down to the bottom of this one.  

Here is the pool at the bottom of this 2nd (smaller) fall.




We did not go down there, rather, to the  "pool" above the falls where the river was calm.  



Of course, we did not get too close to the edge!  You can kind of see the line going across on the right side of this photo... nope - no guardrail installed to make sure no one goes over the edge!  (Hence why we stayed where we did where this photo is taken... very far from the edge.  There were people close to the edge.  NOPE!) 

Isabella tried to catch fish again.  (This little fish net was a hard find - but when we did finally find it, it was her prized possession / she took it everywhere with her!)

At the top of this 2nd fall.... you're sort of in a canyon -- surrounded by tall walls of rock. 

Unfortunately, both of these "pools" and places to play in the water were SO CROWDED.  We did keep our distance as best as we could... but in such beautiful natural places, it was noisy which distracted from the experience.  (It was still great to go, however.... imagine how much MORE GREAT it could be if not so crowded.)  :) 

There were a lot of rock stacks here and in the National Park where we were.  There were just rocks everywhere -- so why not.  Todd hiked with the dog.  I laid on a rock and closed my eyes listening to the water.  Isabella tried to catch fish.  Mercer stacked rocks.  It was a nice resting spot!

At the bottom of this waterfall was the pool in the photos above.... it then tapered off to another mountain river.  There are SO MANY falls and rivers to explore at this park.  We would like to go back and see more.

This park also has a big lake.  When we asked the kids at the end of the trip what was their favorite thing that we did -- they BOTH said "fishing!"  Who knew?!  We can do that here -- closer to home!  

Mercer caught a bunch of fish with a unique style:  just dipping his line into the little pile of rocks below him.  He said he found their hideout.   Todd fished like normal and got some nibbles, but didn't reel anything in.  

Isabella liked playing with the live worms, of course, but she also wanted to hold the fish that Mercer caught before throwing them back into the water.

She tried to catch the little fish with a net from the edge of the water - unsuccessfully - but it was worth the try!

One really funny thing that we all got a kick out of:  our really good guard dog... ha ha.

We were fishing near the dam - where there was a dry inlet and it seemed like a place where overflow would go if the water was higher.  The dam - when the water was low - served as a great place for deer to pass under. 

Our "guard dog" had NO CLUE that the deer were over there.... until one of them make this weird hissing / bleeting kind of noise and started kicking the dirt and running.  THEN, our astute guard dog turned, and let out little gruff half-hearted barks every few seconds.  The deer would hiss/bleat.  The dog would gruff and bark.  We all stopped what we were doing to watch this weird occurrence of noises.   We were all kind of surprised at the noise that the deer made!  

(The deer is tiny - next to the white "block" you see in the background.... this is the concrete dam.  In the next photo, the deer has run up the little grassy hill next to the dam -- when Hip-Hop finally noticed.)

My favorite part of our trip was 1 - the hike to the big falls (Todd said this was his favorite part) and 2 - kayaking.  I could totally kayak a lot. 

It's just so peaceful.  (Maybe it was not so relaxing for Todd.  He was in a canoe with Isabella.... and he also had to pull Mercer in when his arm hurt from paddling by letting M hold onto a rope that was in the canoe.)  But for me... it was great.  (I was processing some things that happened with the school system, so I enjoyed the peaceful alone time.  I'm sure I'll write more about that in our end-of-summer post.)

Come to think of it, I really liked crew when I was in college.  The sun rising over the marsh (no pics ever posted.... this was before I was making this blog... they are just images still in my head + sounds implanted in my brain of the rhythm of the rowing in the early morning.)    




I think we should kayak and fish more often!!

We fished another night in the same spot, but the fish in Mercer's "spot" were not biting. It was still a good, good evening.  (According to the satisfied dog.)  Interesting thing, we saw another deer at the dam.  Good times!

We loaded up the RV and went (for a quick overnight landing) to our last RV park which was getting us closer to home.  The last destination had a little pool and playground. 

 They had a fishing hole.  (I did not go to this one, instead I was trying to get some lesson planning done.)  This site was also very close to another cave that I was interested in checking out.  This one had the largest underground lake -- they called it the "lost sea." 

The history was kind of cool about how a kid found this one playing (actually the same was true at the last cave we went to).  

Over the years at this one, Indians held meetings inside.
Bootleggers made moonshine.
Kids hung out and caused trouble.

The cave wasn't as cool as the first one, but the lake was an interesting experience.  They stock it with fish as a highlight to the tour.  The water is kind of milky looking because of the dissolved limestone.  (We had masks on again, of course.)

We made one more bonfire.... ate s'mores again (they sort of lose their luster after the first couple of nights).  The next morning, we headed home.  Each time that we hooked / unhooked the camper, it got easier.  

Tired, but filled with memories of nature and new experiences.  

Mercer's favorite memory about being in the RV:  the dog slept in his bed most of the time.... bundled up in all of these blankets.   (He doesn't get the dog upstairs so this was special for him!)







It was a lot of work, but we'd do it again.  
Todd and I are still unpacking and putting things away... but we've made notes about bigger (but lighter) RV's that he can tow.  Maybe we'll check out some new spots next summer?
Yesterday, I started as my 1st contracted day as a new teacher for Marietta High.  I had a bunch of Zoom meetings (one - I sat in the same spot for 4 1/2 hours b/c of overlapping meetings).... Today, I am exempt from the Zooms that are taking place because I have a unique subject matter / there's no training for me.  But - in a little while - I go to the school, get my keys (and some Marietta swag)... and will start moving into my room.

Next week is a full week of teacher training at the school where I will get to know my colleagues.  

My summer is officially over.  The kids still have a week.  I'll do one more post before the school year kicks off for real.