Vacation

A few weeks ago Todd and I took our annual summer vacation. We usually take our vacation during our anniversary, however, we really wanted to go to our good friends' wedding so we just moved our trip up a week. It was a wonderful vacation. I forget how busy we get and it was so great to spend 5 days of uninterrupted time together. We went to Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee. We love camping and being in the outdoors.

Our first morning we decided to go to one of the planned camp activities. It was Rock Hopping and lets just say we will never do it again. It was an adventure and cool to say we did it but it was not that fun. We love to hike and are in fairly good shape, but we were not prepared for this. It was a 2.5-mile hike to the base of the falls and through the gorge, however there was no trail. The hike consisted of us hopping, climbing, and sliding over rocks and boulders in and around the creek that ran through the gorge. The ranger who led our trip even remarked that the conditions were tougher than usual due to some recent rain.

We hiked to different water falls, rode our bikes, played frisbee, read, played cards, ping-pong, Connect Four, and pool. Again, it was so relaxing and lots of fun quality time with Todd. Sunday morning, we saw two deer 30 feet from our campsite. I think they smelled our yummy breakfast. Todd got a little nervous after he yelled at them and they would not leave. He threw a stick near them and they still kept coming closer. They finally left after he hit one of them with a stick. That evening, a raccoon came to visit us. Todd had gone down to the car and I was reading in the tent. I saw a shadow go by my tent and thought it was Todd trying to scare me. So I called out his name, but he answered from the opposite direction so I got a little nervous. Come to find out it was a raccoon and he came back and visited us during the night and ate our graham crackers and marshmallows, which we obviously hadn't hidden away well enough. It also rained all night and was suppose to rain the rest of the day so we decided to pack up our stuff and go to one of our favorite places, Gatlinburg, TN. We stayed for two days and then came home.

It also was a lot of fun. We when to one of favorite restaurants, The Peddler. We also hiked our favorite mountain, Mt. Leconte, a 10-mile hike round-trip. We had a nice picnic lunch at the top. We were a little sad to see our trip come to an end, but we had a great time and are thankful for the chance to enjoy a getaway together.