Kristen Blog

 Smoky Mountains Family Vacation Day 5: Baskins Creek and That’s a Wrap! A lovely view from early in the trail.  Since it was all uphill heading back, we were even MORE grateful to see this the second time around! At this point, I finally found a reliable website for analyzing trails.  Hiking in the smoky’s ( hikinginthesmokys.com ) includes a succinct overview of each trail, including total trail length, features you will see and (THIS IS KEY!) elevation gain.  (The site then continues to offer a very accurately detailed description of the walk-through…and I am not getting paid to advertise!)  I found the elevation gain stats to be much more useful than the overall trail difficulty rating.  I mean…I don’t like to consider myself completely out of shape (and there were others less fortunate than myself on many of the trails we conquered), but what many websites rated a 5 or 6, I would tend to give a 5,000.  I don’t know upon what type of person we tend to base these difficulty ratings,

Smoky Mountains Family Vacation  Day 4: Arts, Crafts, YARN, and…Cataracts??? Grateful for these views every morning and evening.  There is no better place to reflect on the goodness of God. I read the faces and spirits of my weary travelers very carefully to decipher I had pushed them hard enough.  We took Day 4 nice and easy.  That was the whole point of spending extra on a self-entertaining cabin, right? We let the kids sleep in, and we spent the extra time relaxing on the deck.  It’s not really a vacation to me, if I don’t take time for peace, rest and reflection…and appreciation.  We definitely had a view worthy of appreciation. So, we took the time.  And the kids, literally, thanked me. We waited until they started to stir before Breakfast Man treated them with his speciality.  Then, we took them shopping in Gatlinburg at the arts and crafts community strip.  Afterwards, I FINALLY got to visit the last of my three destination goals: Smoky Mountain Spinnery. ⓒ Smoky Mountain Spinne

Smoky Mountains Family Vacation  Day 3: Clingman's Dome and the Appalachian Trail A kiss to build a dream on... I had high hopes of following the guidelines of arrival suggested in the “literature” for Clingman’s Dome.  “Plan to park around 8am.”  No problem.  Right? Who am I kidding?  You know me. We, finally, left around 11, and I decided noon would be a good time for everyone else to go have lunch, so we could have the place to ourselves. No dice. Given I left my phone in the car, I was at the mercy of this guy 👆for the entire "Clingman's Dome Camera Roll." If we hadn’t passed the entrance to Alum Cave and (rather arrogantly, I admit) marveled over the abundance of poor fools who missed out on our much-less-crowded rainy adventure, we might have been discouraged when the cars stopped moving about 3 miles from the entrance to Clingman’s Dome.  Our spirits remained high until, after about a half hour (that seemed like 10) and we had only crept maybe 10 ft.  It was a

Smoky Mountains Family Vacation: Day 2 Alum Cave The boys conversing about their misery, just before the "storm" (i.e. near meltdown), in the midst of the storm. With my first goal of vacationing met (the cabin chosen and reserved), I moved on to my next goal: Strategic Research. For me, this element - the research - is a long, slow, drawn out process.  It is, first and foremost, a brainstorming session.  I make a few initial searches, save a few tabs and begin to get ideas.  I am apt to be flexible to the desires of the day, so I am not one of these committed schedulers.  I get a general idea of the things we would all most like to see and do, I select my “lean-to’s” in the evenings, and I solidify plans (with clauses for adaptation) the morning of.  I’m not sure this is the way most people would handle vacation, but…let’s face it.  I am not most people.  (And that is OK! 😉) I had a surprise early morning with the squirrel lying next to me come full day one.  He was 4:00am

Day 1: Traveling KC, MO to Smoky Mountains at Pigeon Forge, TN So…the drive down was L.O.N.G.ggggggggggggggggg, and Evan is NOT 3 anymore.   If you’ve been around awhile, you will remember our 4,000 mile Yellowstone and more road trip.  …the one where Evan was in the way way back of our over-stuffed Explorer when he said: “How many more minutes?” And I replied, “About 7 hours.” And he said, with all the cheer and goodwill of his sweet, precious, happy, contented, enthusiastic heart, “OKAY!” (I don’t think I ever did finish that blog, but you can get a few days overview  HERE !) We had to drive 2 cars to fit the people and bags.  The smartest idea I had was a last minute grab just before we headed out.  I sent Dillon in to grab their walkie-talkies...Jurassic World, no less.  Those walkies were great for communicating between cars...especially during the no service zones! Well, Evan is now 8, and he is changing, my friends.  He has been working on a little bad habit I (very inappropriat