"Our Grand Adventerous Trip!!"

So, I've been meaning to write about David and my adventure recently to The Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. I just haven't taken the intiative to do it. My Blogs are written to encourage, give hope, give light, as well as to entertain. I wonder does sharing a Blog about an amazing trip fill any of that for anyone? Maybe....hopefully. I guess that's why I've put it off.
So here's hoping . . .

About 2 weeks ago, give or take a day, David and I had the opportunity to take a trip. And this trip came about because David was not paying close attention to the man on the other end of the phone conversation. As he was booking reservations for another trip we took, the man on the other end talked him into committing to a timeshare spill. Yup....just give us two hours of your time and look what we will give you! Um...yeah.
Regardless of THAT part of the trip...we had the most amazing and wonderful time!! So sit back and come along and enjoy our trip with us won't you. :)

Tuesday morning came bright and early - we saw the sun rise as we traveled - something I never see. Such an awesome thing to see how God orchestrates this world He has created! As we traveled, we saw many weather conditions. The chart topper of the day - RAIN. As I mentioned in a previous Blog, rain seems to be the order of the day when we are making a big trip. In fact, there was a stretch of 145 miles of almost solid heavy rain at one point....never seen anything like it. Even our cell phones were sounding off the Emergency Alerts of flash flooding! I decided not to tell my Mom how our drive was going until the next day when all was well....much better that way. :)

So God washed our little Green Ark safely into Pigeon Forge, Tennessee at 11:58pm, after traveling all day for 17 hours! All of 950 miles!! What a trip! As I've said....David loves to drive and I love to ride....but 17 hours IS a really long time.

Wednesday morning was upon us and guess what else was too? RAIN. This was the day that we had planned to hike. Our options were to stay in town and decided on a show or activity there OR go ahead with plan A and hike. Plan A it was!! We traveled to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Rain or not we were determined.

Once in the park, the Ranger was surprised, when David told him we were going hiking, due to the rain. I would say most of all the people there, at that time, were there to only go on the car tour of the historic "Cades Cove" loop. O we were too....but hiking was in our agenda as well. :) We like to be different.

Below, is some of our first sights of the park. How little did we know that those sights would only become much more beautiful the farther we traveled and hiked!

We entered the "Cades Cove" 11 mile loop. This National Park was once a home to many early settlers long ago and there stories and homes have been preserved through time. History is a chart topper for David and I!

There were stops along the loop that you could get out and walk up to the homesite. Many cars were passing that opportunity up due to the rain. Not us! That just meant I got to try out my new raincoat my sweet husband bought. I didn't understand WHY we needed to buy me a raincoat before we left home on this trip.....and now I did! He's so good......

He also made sure we had stay dry hiking clothes and hiking boots.....which all came in so very handy! :)

This was the home of the very first white settler. He lived there 200 years ago! Can you even imagine being the very first white settler on a giant mountain?! We were the very first settlers of our cul-de-sac almost 19 years ago....I'm thinking this was just a littttle bit different. Ha!

And on we traveled......



Next stop? One of my favorites! Old churches and graveyards! Of course!

Someone had a really NICE green Camaro there...I'm just sayin'. ;-)

I found these old tombstones to be interesting. They were so old no writing was visible whatsoever. But they represented a life that was once here. A life that was loved by another.

And on this mountain....if you weren't Baptist then you were Methodist. Here lies the Methodist.

 We arrived at our destination of the day and set off for our much anticipated hike to Abram's Falls! Two things to see 1. the great and mighty falls. 2. BEARS! What an adventure to run into such a wonderful creature!! But first, it was lunch time and my David had prepared a wonderful lunch. He found us a wet log to sit on....but he covered it first with a blanket....and then he fixed our lunch. It was the most delicious peanut butter and banana sandwhich I had eaten. We also had fruit, chips, cookies, and coke. Couldn't have asked for better!

Now....we were ready!

We walked across these streams and the water was AWESOME!



The sights were becoming that much more beautiful with each step we took! But what waited ahead would even be so much more!

Along the way, I took various pictures of plants and flowers I found.

I did this also in memory of my dear Auntie....who also loved to take pictures of flowers along the way of life. :)

And after a hike of one hour and thirty minutes, straight UP a mountain, we arrived at the mighty and majestic Abram's Falls! Absolutely powerful as well as gorgeous!!

It may have not been the tallest waterfall, but it certainly was the most powerful. It had more water rushing over at greater speeds and power than the others.

Yes....it was worth the hike in everyway!!

As we came down the moutain, we got to encourage a man on his way UP the mountain. I had written about this encounter in my most previous Blog. "we were on our way down the mountain and a man was hiking alone up the mountain. He was growing weary from the hike and wasn't so sure his efforts were even going to pay off. He questioned us as we were in passing saying "Is there really a waterfall ahead?? I keep going and can't find it!" We both assured him "Don't stop now, you're almost there! It's just a little farther ahead. Keep going." Later....as we had taken our time coming down off the mountain, we see this man once again. He was SO HAPPY! I asked him "Did you find it?" He excitedly replied "YES! and my friends are never gonna believe I did this! But I got proof....there was a girl there and she took a picture of me on my camera!!!" It was so awesome to be able to encourage this man to "Keep keepin on!" when he could have easily given up and not reaped his awesome reward! In much of life we can apply this mentality - - one step at a time. And in that one step at a time, you know what happens? You get closer and  closer to all that God has waiting for you ahead!! We know that our ultimate reward will be when we see Jesus' face and he wraps his arms us around us welcoming us home! But there are many "rewards" here on this earth as well. Keep keepin on, my friend. Don't stop....you're almost there!"

While on the way down the mountain, I got my hiker husband to stop and pose. Something he doesn't care for, but was pretty darn sweet about it.

The temperature was only 60 degrees, and amazingly it was NOT cold at all!! This girl would have been freezing to death back at home....but thankfully not so here! We noticed that even though we had kept a good pace on the way up the mountain as well as on the way down....we STILL got passed! We chalked up with the assumption that.....Texans must just be plain ole slow. They take their time to take it all in I guess. Ha!

Although, we weren't "fortunate" enough to see any bears....dad-gum-it!! I did take a picture of a picture of one!

We returned back to our car and resumed the car tour of "Cades Cove". We got to see some more beautiful history.



After our tour, it was getting late and dark. We still had to come the rest of the way down the mountain. As we twisted and turned through the paths of the mountain....it began to get dark and foggy and raining again. It made for another nice adventure! :) Back in town....we ate at Big Daddy's Pizzeria << very GOOD! with Baskin Robbins for dessert! Yummy!

The next morning, Thursday, we were off for another hike. Today's hike would be an "easy" hike. We found sunshine after leaving house 3 days ago....Yay!!

Such beatiful scenery we encountered! If only a camera could truly capture it!!

And we arrived to the beautiful Laurel Falls!!

 Note to my Mom:: Don't look at this picture. Or the next one.....

Still keep your eyes shut.....

Laurel Falls was absolutely gorgeous!! And now it was time to come back down the mountain.

I love him SO VERY MUCH!!!!

Mom, the true Mountain Woman!!

Now it was time to get the 2 hour presentation back in Gatlinburg.

Note to self: I do NOT like 2 hour time share presentations and find them HIGHLY a GIANT waste of our time. But we did what we had to do and it was done.

While in Gatlinburg, we found ALL the many tourists!! It was far too crowded for our liking and left quickly!! Back to the mountains for us!!

We were headed to our last and final hike to the waterfalls. This would be Grotto Falls.

I love some of the beautifully twisted and mountainous paths we traveled by foot to get there.

And finally we were there!! It was so freaking AWESOME to actually walk behind this waterfall and stick my hand in the powerful water coming so forcefully down!!!

Ok.....I can NO longer continue this Blog.

There are more stories to share to finish up our grand adventures, but my computer is totally UN-cooperative. You see....I've been working on this Blog for a continuous 5 1/2 HOURS. No lie. I'm ending this Blog and will finish it ......later. I'm pooped!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for reading thus far!!!

"I Went to a Strongman Competition!!"

Yesterday, David and I had the opportunity to go and watch a "Strongman Competition". Our daughter, Savannah's, boyfriend was in it. It was quite interesting to watch. The human body can display such amazing strength in unbelievable ways! These men, young and old alike, were phenomenal! I do well to just carry a full load of laundry, in the basket, upstairs!!

There were different levels represented: Masters, Light Weight, Novice, Middle Weight, and Heavy Weight. And there was six events required to participate in: I'm not going to try to guess at the names of those. I'm sharing a picture of Savannah and Taylor and the 5 of the 6 events he paritcipated in.

A funny insert:: I had to tell my Mom, when she saw these pictures, that No Taylor did not tattoo his face. Haha! Rather he has a signature look at each competition and this helps him to stand out and be remembered.

Taylor did very well and placed 3rd in the Middle Weight division! YAY!

As I thought about sharing this Blog, I could see how this competition related to life itself in different ways.

1. All men were strong, but not all men had the same strength.

We all have strengths, but not all of us are strong in the same areas. Does that make one better than the other? No, not at all. 

2. It wasn't always about the strength that was required, but rather about the technique.

If the technique was wrong, often the strength didn't matter. Your approach/ways/technique to handling life matters more than how strong you may view yourself. One example:: How do you handle stress in your life? Is your first resort to handle it the best way you can yourself -OR- to seek God and his grace, his guidance, and his help to help you with it?

3. The men pushed themselves farther when given encouragement.

We all need encouragers in our life. Whether they be a spouse, a parent, a friend, a teacher, a grandparent....and the list goes on. God plants those people in your life to spur you on....to go farther....don't give up.....keep trying.....you ARE going to get there!! David and I recently had the opportunity to go on a beautiful trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. While there, we hiked to 3 different waterfalls. These hikes were NO easy walk in the park....in fact it was downright exhausting (but great excitement too!). On one such hike, we were on our way down the mountain and a man was hiking alone up the mountain. He was growing weary from the hike and wasn't so sure his efforts were even going to pay off. He questioned us as we were in passing saying "Is there really a waterfall ahead?? I keep going and can't find it!" We both assured him "Don't stop now, you're almost there! It's just a little farther ahead. Keep going." Later....as we had taken our time coming down off the mountain, we see this man once again. He was SO HAPPY! I asked him "Did you find it?" He excitedly replied "YES! and my friends are never gonna believe I did this! But I got proof....there was a girl there and she took a picture of me on my camera!!!" It was so awesome to be able to encourage this man to "Keep keepin on!" when he could have easily given up and not reaped his awesome reward! In much of life we can apply this mentality - - one step at a time. And in that one step at a time, you know what happens? You get closer and  closer to all that God has waiting for you ahead!! We know that our ultimate reward will be when we see Jesus' face and he wraps his arms us around us welcoming us home! But there are many "rewards" here on this earth as well. Keep keepin on, my friend. Don't stop....you're almost there!

As I shared earlier, we all have many strengths and all they all vary from one another. But just as we all have strengths, know that we all have weaknesses too. Never use your strength to look down on another brother or sister who may not share that strength. For you may be the very one God uses to encourage and lift them up to be all that they can be. And as we all know....the tables can turn and we too may find ourselves needing the strength of another to pull us up. For it is by God's grace that we are who we are, where we are, and all that we are.

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped."

Psalm 28:7

Trust in the very One Who is your strength and shield.

"Wilderness Camping - 101!"

IF I were in girl scouts today, I believe I would have earned the "Wilderness Camping - 101" badge! Surely there has to be one. If so. . . I know I would proudly wear it. But the more I think about it - girl scouts probably never accomplished the "Wilderness" thing. Soo...I guess I would drop them and have to join the boy scouts instead. Ah well. . .

This past Wednesday through Friday, my husband and I got to experience an AWESOME adventure together!! <Whispers: I now know the absolute best time to go to Garner State Park! But don't let word get out to all those Garner lovers...or they'll know too!!> That's right....total contrast - as night and day - between going in the Summer verses going in the Summer AFTER school has started!! Unbelievable. . . 

My story takes place on a sunny Wednesday morning, as two happy people pack down their Jeep for the adventure that lies ahead. We headed out at noon and ate at a Subway in Katy. Yes...the trip would not be complete without a stop at my beloved Subway first. Why is it, for two people alone, you still must bring everything but the bed to go camping?? The packing alone is a real test of knowledge, skill, and strength I tell ya! But, I've also told you how wonderful my husband is. . . so you know he handled the job well.

Good thing the kids didn't go. Who knows where we would have stuck them!

Speaking of kids - we did indeed leave our teenage son home on his own. He was to take care of the animals as well as take care of getting himself up and TO school for the following days.....and to stay in contact with Mom. Little did Mom know - there would be NO contact whatsoever when "Wilderness Camping". Worried - No. Concerned my son might be trying to stay in contact and can't and now is a tad concerned himself - Yes. I will tell you upon arriving at home later, it was neither a concern or a worry to him. His statement - "Mom, I knew you were camping. No service when you camp." It was one of those duh moments. Yes, my son - I belittled your intelligence.

Moving along - -

Upon arriving to Garner we were met with rain. Why does this not surprise me? Each of the last two big trips we made - we were met with rain. David was saying "Well, maybe we won't be able to set up a tent and have to find a hotel." Whaaaat? that's no adventure! We didn't travel all this way for a hotel!" :) No, I'm not spoiled....just expressive.

As we got inside the entrance, we noticed not much of anyone else was around. In fact, as we walked up to the door we noticed a sign that nicely says "Closed". Did anyone know that a State Park would be closed after 5pm?? Umm....not these people anyway. It was 5:30. Now what to do? There was a phone number, but no cell service. Next. There was a After Hours Check In with no visible check in means. Next. My smart husband found a box attached and opened the lid to find slips of paper. BINGO. You were to place money inside and state the site you would be staying at. And...register the following morning before 9am. What a honor system they have! 

I haven't mentioned that we had previously been to Garner, just a few years ago - 13 of them, and camped with our 3 kids. THAT was not wilderness camping though. I will explain shortly.

With that being said, we knew we wanted to try and remember the same camp site as before. David and I both came up with the numbers 3 and a 7. So he guessed and checked camp site #337. I suggested that we possibly should go and look first to make sure. He agreed and we drove through to find our site. Afterall, no one was there to care. We spotted #337 and decided - no, that's not it. Driving on, we interchanged the numbers and still came up short. Finally, we drove on the back side of the camping areas and what should we find? Our camp site!!! Number 449! < no 3's or 7's HA!

We made a new slip, gave our money, and excitedly went to unpack!

Did I mention that we were the ONLY human inhabitants in our entire camp?!?! And this is where the "Wilderness Camping" comes into view. Yes....out of close to 120 camp sites we would be camping ALONE ! In fact the entire population of Garner consisted of somewhere around a possible 2%. A definite new experience was fast on our heels and we were taking it on...... a tad bit nervously on my part, I might add. As I mentioned, we were the only human inhabitants, but we were NOT alone. There were animal critters everywhere. We saw packs of young deer in so many directions - funny looking jack rabbits hopping in many directions - cute, but stinky skunks in all the other directions -  and man eating wild turkeys...just to name a few from the start. As far as the eye could see to the left and to the right and behind and in front - no one.....just us and God. Ok well, technically there were two houses across the river and not in the state park....just to keep it truthful.

But, what we did see was beauty. God's beauty that he beautifully created for us to enjoy in so many ways.

 

A long ago memory of our children naming this tree "Grandmother Willow"

And so we set up camp, got our grub on of delicious hamburgers made by my hubby, and settled in for the evening. What the evening held for us.....God only knew.

O wait, I almost forgot to tell you!!
We got in the Jeep and went "spot-lighting" that night and would do it again the following night! It was so freakin awesome !!! As we would drive through the dark, we would shine our flashlights out into the night and see alien-looking eyes of the night piercingly looking back at us!! Talk about adventure....who knew what all was out there among us!!! O my gosh....such fun it was!!! 

At all of 9:15 pm, David and I stood out on the now very dark road, lit only by the less than half of a moon, alone staring up into the vast sky, filled with thousands of stars. It was a wondrous feeling....it was a nervous feeling. Knowing that not a single soul knew we were here and yet God knew all along right where we were. If you've never had the opportunity to have such a situation, I recommend you try it.
The utter and extreme silence was beyond imagination!! My kids would have went literally CRAZY (they can't stand even the very word: silence)
We were living in a more than perfect Sasquatch moment indeed!!! :-)

Shortly after, we decided there was nothing else but to go to bed for the night. Can I just say 9:30 is a never happen kinda thing back at home unless you're sick. Yes....it was early....but yet at the same time.....all around us told us it's LATE! We zipped ourselves into the tent. We had no light left on - I did not want any crazies to know we were here. The dark, our black jeep, and our well set back tent hid us quite nicely. But, then there was the fact that we also had no electricity - meaning we had no fan to mute out the imaginative and REAL sounds of the night. You see there was sites with electricity, but we chose this one out of sentamentalness of days gone by. Soooo....with all that said.....this girl could hear everything known to prowl the darkness. My sweet husband told me we may not be able to get our KSBJ Christian radio app to work, but that he did have some christian music previously downloaded onto his phone. He played the music and held my hand. It helped..... and I thanked him.

About an hour into our journey of the night, I decided I wasn't going to make the night without going to the restroom. Just as we were about to venture out into the night, we both heard a cry shrieking out! No lie!! I said "Ok...so we are not going now!" David insisted we were. He knew there was no choice. He gave me a flashlight and togther we scurried to the Jeep. Yup....bathrooms were NOT in walking distance for the nightime. Did I mention we were "Wilderness Camping"?! Once we got to the restrooms, David had to scare away a skunk in the darkness. First rule of thumb, humans do not SCARE skunks....thankfully skunk scurried off. With business taken care of, we drove back to eerily dark and very silent camp site.

Needless to say....this girl didn't get much sleep that night. I heard coyotes.....I heard posinous dart blowing animals....<<if you're saying "HUH?" on that one - don't ask me, all I know is in the middle of the night I heard an animal come by our tent and shriek twice and it sounded something like what a posionous dart blowing animal would sound like>> and YES David heard the coyotes too....but not the posinous dart blowing animal. Ha! I could hear creeping, crawling noises along the ground too. All the while, I did not move for I didn't want to scare whatever the heck was out there and make it come eat us! :-) David and my son would later tell me "You WANT to make noises so they will run away....not come eat you!" Silly Mom.

I must have got some sleep though because I distinctly remember a baby leopard sitting on top of our tent while the mother leopard was coming for it and we were frantically trying to shoo it off. :-)

All in all....we did survive the night. No animals ate us.....and we lived to tell about it. No crazies found us. God was so good. Even in our fears and doubts - He still holds us and carries us through.....whether it be to the other side....or just the morning. But, I did have one small suggestion for the next night. Let's move to where there is electricity and maybe some people. :-)

Upon registering, we did find out that the employees were a bit confused to see someone actually at the spot we had designated. That's ok....we do like to do things differently. We had driven around, before registering, and had our pick of the park as to where we would move next. We decided to still remain in the vacant area of the park, only this time - we had electricity! And with electricity comes this beloved machine!!



Hooray!!! Now I could sleep!! And all those man eating critters out there would just have to find something else to chow down for the night!!

Next order of the day - - go hiking of course!! Hiking is one of our absolute favorites and we try to do it often!! In fact, we are in training for an up and coming BIG hiking trip we are taking that is just around the corner!! We are going to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and hiking to as many water falls as we can!! So, this was a great opportunity for us to try out our new hiking adventure clothes!

We hiked....and we hiked......and we hiked...... it was truly awesome!! We made it to the top of the mountain and found out that we had a temporary signal to reach anyone back home that we needed to. We continued on ..... It was really GREAT training, and I felt often like the mountain goat that apparently had been following us at one point. Steep and rough terrain......AWESOME!!

This next sequence of events is a true highlight to my story. . . . too awesome for words, in fact!

We hiked to a cave....Crystal Cave. We had been here before with our 3 kids, and about the bravest we had been was to simply stand several layers up from the cave entrance. Sooo....that was about as far as we thought we would go this time as well. Actually, David may be a little farther into the opening than before.



 

I decided to get my "brave" goin on and took my shot at posing in front of this menacing place too!

Little did I know what lay ahead. . . .



As we sat down to rest, another human soul appeared to be hiking also. Wow, someone else inhabited this mountain afterall! We made friendly talk with him and then down he went, just like that, into the cave....alone....no tour guide.....Heck, I didn't even see a flashlight on him!! At that point, I was determined to wait for him to come back out and tell us of his adventures!! He finally appeared.....he told us it was a really awesome place! I told him thanks for being our eyes and that he won the bravery award for that day! As he walked away, David said "Alright, are you ready to hike on?" That's when my adventure chromosome really kicked in.....I wasn't ready to leave! I kept looking to the mouth of the cave, and David saw the direction my eyes were directed to. He said "Are you wanting to go down in there???" I shook my head yes and got up with all the go-girl power I had summoned up. I was going to do this!! Have I mentioned that there is a "slight" fear of the fear of enclosed, dark, super creepy places?? As well as a fear of fear of claustraphobia?? I say a fear of the fear because David says I don't really have those things, but rather I'm just afraid that I do. Haha! I'll go with that. Since I was going, David decided he would join me. I was going first though. I climbed further down into the darkness. Upon peering inside for the first time, I noticed just how LOW the ceiling was....that was when I started balking at the decision. David coaxed me on and before you knew it my legs had carried me all the way into that deep, dark hole!! David came and walked further into the cave. Shining his flashlight up on to the ceiling, he said "Did you notice all these bats up here?!" I freaked out a TAD....."What....NO!!" He laughed and I came to where his light was. Although it was NOT bats it WAS spiders!! The ceiling was literally full of crawling spiders scrambling over one another!! How nice.....

As we stood there, I decided I wanted David to take my picture of my bravery!! I think it's such a COOL  picture. . . .

Shoot!! This girl was ready for more adventure!!

That's when I told David dear to go up and out of the cave and take more pictures of me....still inside the cave!! And.....he did......

I was just a speck and still very much inside that cave - hopefully just me, God and well - the spiders!

You can still see me only because I'm shining a light on myself. IF something decided to appear, out of the darkness, I knew I was not getting up and out of there anywhere fast! The rocks, climbing up and out, were slippery!! It was such an exhilarating feeling though!! O my gosh....I love feeling brave and adventerous!! :-) I do and can draw the line on some things, but this one...I didn't....and I was so glad!! 

I did climb out.......

And we continued our hiking. 

Afterwards, we had a nice lunch back at our camp site, and then we were off to have a bike ride. By the way, bike rides rate up there with hiking also....another favorite of ours. Riding on mountains of ROCK though can be rather B U M P Y! After the bike ride, we did indeed make it to the water. For those of you who may of thought that Garner is simply all about the water - there is so much more! :-) 

Although the water was waaaay down and we saw that floating it on our tubes pretty much wasn't going to happen....we had the best time! We found our own oasis. A pool of water with small waterfalls cascading around us. When we weren't in the "pool" we were in the "spa". The water was perfect too.....not too cold and not bath tub temp either.

That evening, we had a nice dinner of hot dogs, an adventure of spot-lighting, and then to bed.

This time, we had an elderly couple show up and camp within sight of us. We were not alone anymore. We did have a strange encounter though, as time went by into the night. A very odd couple with 2 kids seemed to want to arrive late and try out several different sites. They would drive ever so slowly by ours, and more than once it appeared they were pulling into our site. Great....just when you think all is gonna be well and settle down for a good rest....you get the strange ones coming out. By morning I don't know how many sites they had tried out ...they were still on the move! That's when the mysterious stories start conjuring in your mind....kidnappers? aliens checking you out from every angle? camp site testers? Haha! Life's always an adventure!

A new day dawneth and we were off on another hike!!

We hiked way up high and all around......

Did I tell you I may have seen one of those coyotes?!? We followed the way he went too!! Which was it more of.....me being tired and just wanting to go the closest way to the car OR the adventure that ensued?! Haha!

In fact, we hiked so much that David dear literally walked right off the soul of his boot! Thankfully, as he stumbled while doing so, that we were not on the moutain anymore!!  We had just come off the moutain and were walking down the road to our car.

We arrived back at our camp site, had a nice lunch, and loaded up the Jeep for our journey home.

Would you believe someone was actually waiting on our spot?!?! Out of all the countless sites available it seemed we had chosen one of the best....I guess. I think that's what those "strange people" were really wanting that night too! Haha!

It was truly a wonderful time..... a time of trust and a time of faith on our part. But, also a time of seeing God's true faithfulness to carry us through any situation in life - whether it be on the mountain tops or the valleys below. . . caves too. :-)

Thanks for letting me share as always!

And ..... live life as an adventure everyday! Even in the everyday mundane things of life there can be an adventure lurking around the corner just waiting for YOU !