Saturday: The Hike

More vacation...Saturday dawned with a beautiful sunrise, which I captured just before the sun peeked over the clouds. The view from our cabin was awesome; I can't wait to do something special with this picture.



After a yummy, home-cooked breakfast (the advantage of staying in a cabin over a hotel room: being able to cook instead of eating out for every meal), we loaded up in the van (again!) and headed for the Smoky Mountains National Park. The best trail for the kids and Mamaw was the paved Laurel Hills hike, 1.3 miles one way to a very pretty waterfall at the top. It even wore Gabe out! We climbed rocks, saw a millipede, looked for bears, touched the waterfall, pretended to swing on vines and just had a great time making memories. The last time we did this hike, Isabel was Gabe's age and Elijah was five years old. Man, the years do sneak up on you. That's one thing I love about coming back to the mountains over and over; comparing the memories then to the ones we are making now. Isabel didn't remember this hike, but Elijah did. I wonder if Gabe will. If not, then at least we have the photos and scrapbooks to remind him :)

Setting off up the mountain, Gabe in the lead (though not for long...he was distracted by every puddle, rock, bug and stick in sight!)

Once at the top of the climb, Gabe did not want to cooperate with us taking pictures. I was a nervous wreck, imagining him falling down the side of that mountain. There were Danger signs posted everywhere, and one older man slipped and fell right in front of us. Quite enough adventure for me...I was ready to face the excitement of the outlet malls after this!

Papaw didn't make the hike...after 1/10th of a mile, he started feeling short of breath and having chest pain, so he turned around and went back to the van. He is in utter denial about his health, which is extremely frustrating for the nurse in me. He cancelled his appointment for an angiogram last year, and hasn't gone back to the cardiologist since. What can you do with someone like that? He is the last grandpa my kids have, since losing my dad, my grandpa, and Joe's grandpa all in the same year ('05). I pray for him to come to his senses.

I have one more set of pics to post tomorrow...hope you enjoy sharing in our vacation. Gabe is still begging to go back to "Bo-cation" every day, and I have to agree with him; this was our best one yet! Now off to the real world of laundry, cooking dinner and taking kids to after-school events. Ahh, life.