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...

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: Smok...

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...

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 ...

Well...our last day in Yellowstone wasn't really even in Yellowstone at all.  We decided to spend the day with minimal driving, since we would embark on another long drive the next day.  We also wanted to play it rather low key, since we had worn ourselves out with touristy things the day prior.  And I officially decided I could NOT leave the Yellowstone area without having at least attempted to put a line in a river somewhere.  So...we focused on a little area in the Grand Tetons, which was close, visited a lodge to buy some permits and a little fishing rod, and we headed to Jackson Lake Dam for a little outdoor fun and fishing. Since we only had one fishing pole, we had to take turns casting out and reeling in (and that's about ALL we did as far as "fishing" is concerned at Jackson Lake Dam...cause we caught all of about NOTHING!).   There was plenty to entertain us while we waited turns to not catch fish, though...  Besides playing in the ...