"Fluffy keeps eating less and less and getting skinnier and skinnier."
the first week of july we took a trip and it went like this:
we drove to damascus, virginia and rented some bikes and rode the virginia creeper trail which follows an old railroad. a van shuttled us to the start of the trail and we biked 17 miles back down to our cars(it's almost all downhill, we're not that tough.)
there were a few rest stops along the path.
next we drove along the blue ridge parkway up into shenandoah valley national park. the park has a cool setup, the blue ridge parkway becomes skyline drive and crosses the entire park from south to north. we camped halfway across.
five minutes in and we saw lily and brooke's first bear.
too good for the backpack these days.
lily's first deer.
the place we camped was called big meadow for obvious reasons.
we're trying to teach lily how to frolic.
brooke took this. no planning. no set-up. she knows next to nothing about photography. i was just playing with lily and she grabbed the camera and took two shots. and its one of the coolest i've ever seen. it's not touched up at all. i'm almost pissed.
this kid was a real trooper. hours of driving. camping. hiking. lots of bumps and scrapes from playing outside for a week straight. she wins the iron baby award. especially after what happened next.
we drove to south carolina and went to congaree national park and rented a canoe for the cedar creek canoe trail. it was seven miles long. this shot was taken two minutes after we put the canoe in the water. notice how lily's wet? it only took her two minutes to fall in. but like i said, iron baby, not a tear. but we were close to tears a few minutes later when we saw a four-foot snake, followed by a small alligator swimming under our canoe, followed by loads of cottonmouths and copperheads sunning on logs or the bank, followed by snakes FALLING OUT OF THE FREAKING TREES INTO THE WATER BY OUR CANOE. this went on for six hours. i mean, it was beautiful and we were the only ones out there and we saw some really cool huge owls, so i'm not going to say this part of the trip wasn't fun, but i sure am going to say that i was glad when it was over.
oh yeah and twice we had to portage because trees had fallen across the creek.
lily made a friend while she was napping.
trying to catch a lizard.
like all national parks that i've been too, congaree is so beautiful and completely unique. what sucks is that it's in the middle of the ghetto so no one will visit it. also, the park is relatively young and doesn't get the funding and attention of the bigger parks so it's not as protected. this point was driven home when we started to set up camp and then realized that the guy in his truck nearby was getting a blowjob from the local prostitute. the cops pulled up a few minutes after they left and confirmed our suspicions. apparently we were camping in the swamp's red light district. needless to say, we stayed at a hotel four towns away. it sucks because it's such a great park.
saw these from the road and had to pull over.
we spent the second half of the week in gatlinburg with my family. ah, gatlinburg. the panama city of the mountains. but the place my folks rented was up on a mountain away from the strip, so we only dealt with it when we wanted too. one night, we were all in the hot tub(which sounds weird and gross) and two huuuuge bears showed up and started digging through the neighbors' trash.
on the 4th, we watched fireworks in downtown pigeon forge. pigeon forge, also to be referred to as "the rebel flag capital of the world," is like gatlinburg's uneducated slutty sister.
this place is awesome. as in awesomely cheezy. been going here since i was a kid. all automated scares except for one guy in a mask wandering around behind us growling threats in a very southern accent.
even lily wasn't scared of him.
we actually had to wait for three other families taking the same shot. we're such tourists.
chimney tops picnic area.
dad just threw a huge rock.
that's my brother-in-law by the way.
grotto falls.
biking the cades cove loop trail. much harder than the creeper trail.
don't worry, i didn't let her hurt any.
now, i really should make this next part a completely separate post but whatever.
our last stop before we went home was this jewel in downtown gatlinburg:
20,000 different sets.
yikes.
20,001.
of course i had to show the curator mine and she went nuts, saying, "oh how wonderful! they are beautiful!" she gave us a free set with the name of the museum on them and made me promise to send her pictures of mine and she'll add me to the collection. so if you ever find yourself in gatlinburg, make a point to swing by and say hi.