Happy Thanksgiving!

Our table won't look like the famous Norman Rockwell image. As a matter of fact, we still don't have a table in our dining room. The one we had was damaged beyond repair in our move a couple of months ago. At the time, it was a very sad day. That big table was usually only used for festive occasions and represented many happy memories of gatherings of friends and family. I was so looking forward to planning and preparing dinners to gather around that table again after our 2 year adventure in the RV. I loved the time spent travelling and we have many happy (and a few not so happy) memories from that terrific journey. One thing that was quite impossible was to have a big dinner. The tiny oven and scant counter space was fine for our every day meal prep and I learned a lot about efficient space management! Special days like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter all have entwined a special meal with some family traditions well established in our minds. I truly enjoy planning and preparing those special meals for my family. The clean-up, not so much, but my family - especially my husband, takes care of that for me (what a blessing!). So, the table being damaged was a temporary painful blow as it was so much more than a piece of furniture in my mind.

As part of the many things for which I am thankful, however, the realization that even that table was just a 'thing' and my very special memories are more about the people and more importantly the love for and from those people in my life is the treasure that I value.

As we sit down today around a fold-up table with a tablecloth thrown over, I will have so many rich blessings for which to be thankful to God:

• God Himself, with His everlasting and ever plentiful provision for all our needs (spiritual, emotional, physical and material)
• my husband - such an amazing blend of strong and sweet
• my kids - each with their unique personalities that bring joy to my life
• my family - most reliable in their ongoing support, not always for everything I do - but always there for me
• my friends - wonderful companions in this life, whether near or far
• my country - with its' own set of challenges and worries at the moment, but by far the country that provides us with liberty 'to pursue happiness'

So, whatever your table looks like on this day, however the meal turns out, no matter who wins the football game - it is my hope that pursuit of the 'perfect' Normal Rockwell table in the photo doesn't get in the way of being blessed by remembering what you have to be thankful for. I know that I am so much more thankful for this little fold-up table than I ever would have thought!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Losing weight (about 12,0000 lbs.!)

Long time, no post! We've been very, very busy. We looked in all kinds of nooks and crannies in Eastern TN for a home with a view of the mountains. We found plenty, but scared ourselves half to death on some of the climbing roads! We also found many that just didn't fit the foggy idea in our heads of our future home.



Finally, on a trip back from Nashville to Bristol, we scheduled an appointment to see a home near Crossville, TN. We loved it! It fit everything to a tee except for being on a quiet road. It's on a fairly active highway, but everything else was so perfect that we made an offer before the end of the day. Within 24 hours, the offer had been countered and we accepted the counter. Now, about a month later, we have closed on the property and look forward to moving in within a month or so. We've got a few hurdles to overcome, including getting our two storage units full of stuff from Texas to Tennesse. We remain in absolute awe of our God and His amazing blessings for us!



Now - about that title! Our 5th wheel has a gross vehicle weight of around 15, 500 lbs. We've loved travelling in it and have appreciated the space and conveniences that it provided for our family to dwell in while seeing all kinds of sights around the country. We remained comfortable in temperatures varying from 14 F to 105 F and enjoyed the enhancements of cooking in a well-equipped kitchen, showering with a decent amount of hot water, watching TV and movies, hauling our 4 bikes and 2 dogs all over the place, and laundering our clothes whenever needed. For our next season, however, we don't really require those conveniences and didn't want to deal with maintaining the trailer in storage for most of the weeks of the year. We decided to downsize and put a minimal amount of effort into selling the RV. Cory made a flyer that we left in a couple of RV Park offices, we posted advertisements in a couple of online RV forums and posted 'FOR SALE' signs on the trailer.



We had a couple of nibbles in the last month, but no offers. We were beginning to contemplate where we were going to put the thing after a couple of weeks when we will begin moving items to the house. As we headed out to do some shopping yesterday, we decided to drop in an RV showroom to browse smaller trailers and even pop-ups. We found a pop-up right away that was only slightly used and met our idea of how we might camp for up to a week or two. The sales staff was very attentive, as you might expect. When asked what our plans were, we chose to be brutally honest with them, expecting that they would not be interested in a trade in which they would have to fork over cash to us for the difference in our current, really large 5th wheel for the rather diminutive (by comparison) pop-up. There was the typical 'I'll go talk to the boss in the back room' series of events. We weren't expecting anything to come of it. Lo and behold, the offer came back in favorably. By favorable, we mean that they offered about what we hoped to gain in a FSBO (for sale by owner) arrangement. We lose about 12,000 extra lbs of trailer, that we don't need, and gain enough cash to help out with purchasing a 2nd vehicle or a tractor or something yet unseen for our new home!



Talk about our cup running over! Only one day after closing on our house, we couldn't have even come up with the idea that this could be handled so quickly and generously! We accepted the offer, made a deposit for the pop-up, and agreed for a representative to come back and verify the value of our 5th wheel.



Here's a link to our new camping buddy:



http://www.cheyennecampingcenter.com/HW27SC



This post is not the dealer we're talking to, but they have some nice photos of the camper and it's exactly the same model.



Now, what say you about our God's ability to absolutely knock our socks off with His blessings that are above and beyond what we ask or even think?!? We are so amazingly blessed and hope our little story provides a testimony to you of how generous God can be in all the little (and big) details of our daily lives!

Now what?

We're complete with our journey...for now. We had a goal of 48 states in 2 years and we completed 47 states in 17 months. We found that each state has enough unique attributes and attractions to easily absorb at least a month, if not six. We do not want to dedicate that much of our time to travel in this season, so we will call this journey done. Our biggest disappointment? That we didn't figure out incorporating Utah! We will not rest until we return to the west and see that terrific state and it's unique beauty. But, we have not tarnished our desire for travel, as a matter of fact, this journey has whet our appetites for further journeys in states we have already visited and yes - return to Utah!

As of this writing, we still need to post pictures and a few paragraphs of our visit to West Virginia. On the heels of that trip, we began exploring eastern Tennessee as a prospective home site. We love all mountains and have been drawn to the beauty of the Smokies and the Appalachians. The state favors well economically with a reasonable cost of living and favorable tax laws for stretching our dollars further than some other areas. In case you are curious, other contenders for our home state included New Hampshire, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Although Texas holds a warm spot in our hearts, there are precious few mountains and they are in rather desolate areas of the state. Several of the states fell in priority as having laws that are unfriendly to home schools. States that assess income taxes, including retirement pensions also fell to a lower ranking. When I say ranking, I mean just that - we made a spread sheet! Imagine two engineers doing anything without a spread sheet!

We're continuing to pray and browse this beautiful state and all the property listings. We'll not enter much of our deliberations here, as we don't see that as fitting our intended purpose of the blog. As truly newsworthy events transpire, we will post here.

Thanks for reading our travel blog. We plan to review it at a future date and publish it for our own memoirs. It's been a terrific adventure and we likely will do a '17 months reflection' post. We're a little road weary and happy to move into a new season full of things we cannot see from here!

Smoky mountains round 2

Hello, it's Cory again. My parent's didn't have the courage to write this post, so I decided that I would take one for the team and tell it like it is.

We went back to the National Park yesterday. The weather was slightly rainy, so we decided instead of hiking to drive up to the highest point in the park to see the view.

The drive up was pretty, with all the flowers, streams and trees. We also saw some poor guy trudging up the mountain with a lawn mower (in the rain). On a slightly scarier note we also saw a car wrecked on the side of the road with windows that appeared to have been shot out with a shotgun.

Finally, we reached the top observation point. The bad thing about being really high up is that the most likely view is cloud. Which is exactly what we saw. So we decided to wait a bit and see if the cloud would blow over. While we were waiting, I was listening to the radio and looking around the parking lot. There weren't very many cars. Then, a guy got out of one of them and walked to the back (hang on, this story is actually going somewhere). He then took off his shirt and started rummaging around in the back. He came out wielding a bar of soap. Logically, I thought he was heading for the public bathrooms that were less than 50 yards away. Apparently, however, this guy has nothing whatsoever in common with logic. He walked around to the side of his car and started splashing himself with water from a puddle (he was standing in the rain, by the way. As if he wasn't wet enough). I ask myself why I kept on watching. Perhaps it was due to boredom. Perhaps I was just too shocked that this guy had no common sense. Whatever the reason, I will regret it forever. Why? Because after he finished splashing himself, he walked to the driver door, opened it, removed his shorts and threw them in (sadly, he was wearing no underwear). Screams echoed throughout the car as everyone ducked for cover, sheltering their eyes from the horrible hind end of Sir Showersalot. I will never get that image out of my head.

Once we were assured that the horrible scene was past and Mr. Free To Be Me was back in his car, we dared to look around once more. After a bit, the cloud did blow away a bit and the view cleared up slightly. Then it truly was a beautiful sight.

Again, I felt an odious and evil presence. My gaze was drawn back to the car of Mr. Mooner. Where just before the windows had been mercifully fogged up, there he was, cleaning them with his sock. I squealed and hit the floorboard again.

Needless to say, we did not linger on the peak. We may go back again today, and hopefully no one will get any ideas about taking a public shower.

Coragon, over and out.

"Blue moon. I saw you outside your car. Without a brain in your head. How very naked you are."

Smoky Mountains

We toured through Tennessee several months ago, but we didn't see the mountains in the northeastern portion of the state. We had two reasons: 1 - snow was still hitting various parts of the country and we had seen quite a lot of it, 2 - we wanted to visit portions of Georgia and South Carolina before tornado season hit. We've been pleased with our planning in that regard but were anxious to return to one of the most beautiful sections of the country. We waited out the weekend crowds with necessary chores of laundry and checking out the layout of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. The closest comparison we've seen to those areas is Branson, MO. A long strip of theaters and bizarre attractions line the main roads. Live musical performances, themed miniature golf courses, go kart tracks, 'Believe It or Not' venues and buffet restaurants all compete for your entertainment dollars. We're not planning on pursuing any of those and choose instead to focus on seeing the Smokies, specifically the national park. We've not been disappointed and are thankful that we can visit the park during the week when the crowds are a little smaller. We wove our way to do the auto tour of Cades Cove. A lot of folks visiting the park don't get out of their vehicle, but we truly don't believe you get the best appreciation without a walk or two. Our destination was about midway around the drive with a 5 mile round trip hike to see one of several waterfalls in the park.

Along the way, vehicles were stopped to see these deer in the forest. As long as we were stopped on the one-way drive, we took our own photos too!

The shade of the forest is so dark that we have trouble adjusting our flash to reflect the true colors of green.

The mountains are visible across meadows from time to time. We'd experienced a lot of rain over the weekend and were glad to go on a clear day for our hike.

After parking at the trail head, we were met by a couple of rangers. Several hikers had reported bear sightings along the trail and they were passing along warnings to hikers just arriving. While encouraging caution, they were not at all discouraging folks from carrying on with their hiking plans - so off we went.

Several of these single log creek crossings appeared along the way and we really liked the trail. Classified as moderate, most of the path is downhill to the base of the falls leaving the return trip as the more difficult portion.

The creeks become rivers and provide the refreshing sound of small rapids and a cool breeze all along the way.

Near the falls, the large boulders in the creek were irresistible to Cory.

The park map and other signs warned of the danger of climbing on the wet rocks, but this one was more pointed!

Our reward was well worth the 2 1/2 miles to the falls. Upon reflection, the 2 1/2 miles back was also worth it!

We were getting tired on our return and met folks in flip flop sandals that were going to struggle. While not too difficult of a climb, sections of the trail were climbing rocks and picking your way through tree roots. Traction from at least athletic shoes or boots was needful! We wonder if the sandal bunch was able to make it to the falls or if they had to turn back?

While stopping for rest and water at this spot of rapids, we spied river otters across the way. Two large and one small, they kept their distance but carried on with dipping, diving and climbing over tree branches and rocks. They are impossible to pick out in our photo, but we were so delighted to spend a few minutes watching their playful maneuvering we wanted to share.

We're taking a day to rest, tackle studies and see Knoxville but will return to the park again while we're here. It's absolutely irresistible!

June 5, 1993

Celebrate with Craig and I - it's our 17th wedding anniversary tomorrow!

For some reason, this song has been on my mind frequently and we've chosen it as a virtual anniversary dance. While the message of the song must be balanced with the appropriate source of our peace and existence with God first, the haunting melody of this music reminds us of sweet gift of our spouse as the answer to God's observation that 'it is not good for Man to be alone'....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Inb4jomYtcc

What are you doing for the rest of your life?


North and south and east and west of your life


I have only one request of your life


That you spend it all with me





All the seasons and the times of your days


All the nickels and the dimes of your days


Let the reasons and the rhymes of your days


All begin and end with me





I want to see your face in every kind of light


In fields of gold and forests of the night


And when you stand before the candles on a cake


Let me be the one to hear the silent wish you make





Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes


In the world of love you keep in your eyes


I'll awaken what's asleep in your eyes


It may take a kiss or two...





Through all of my life


Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall of my life


All I ever will recall of my life


Is all of my life with you

Mammoth Cave

We landed near Bowling Green, KY to take in the sights around Mammoth Cave National Park. The cave is reputed to be the largest in the world and we have no reason to doubt. The fee structure for visiting Mammoth Cave is different than Carlsbad Caverns. The park requires no entrance fee, but tours have fees and guided tours are the only way by which to gain access to the caves. We took in two tours during our stay (not on the same day!).

The first tour was labeled the Historic Tour and took about 2 hours to cover the 2 miles in and out. Unlike Carlsbad Caverns, there's no elevators to help you out of this cave. The routes do not change elevation so drastically either, so they are actually much more friendly to those averse to a continuous stair-master exercise to exit!

Here's a couple of photos that we copied from the internet:

While the formations are terrific, there are not as many of them as you might imagine. The cave is 'dry' for the most part, so formations are only in limited areas. We enjoyed the temperature inside the cave (54 F) as a break from the 85-90 F temperatures outside in very high humidity!

While we had a good time, we did not enjoy touring with the large crowd. Some of the tours allow as many as 120 people at once to accompany the ranger through. There are only a few stops along the way with discussion from the ranger, so most of the way is filing through in single file and browsing as you go.

There were several places where the passageway was very narrow - the one below was titles 'Fat Man's Misery'. We didn't think it was a tough as several places where the height of the opening required stooping as while walking.

We took another tour in an evening. Some of the path was the same as our daytime tour, but we liked it better for several reasons:

1. The group was smaller - the size was limited to no more than 40 people and we toured with about 20.
2. The atmosphere was very different - no artificial lighting! Lanterns were provided to every 4 people to share and the interior of the cave was completely different. The limited lighting heightened our sense of hearing and smell!
3. The tour was more of a historical presentation than geological. With the fresh dose of the Creation Museum, listening to the millions and millions of years talk gets really tiresome to us. Presentations of factual information regarding the cave's discovery and visitors since were very interesting!

The rangers conduct frequent programs that are educational in nature. We attended an evening session with a discussion of bees and beekeeping that was very enlightening and enjoyable.

The park itself is very pretty with heavy forests and surface trails. We're planning to enjoy at least one surface hike which will require no guide. Private concessionaires provide rental canoes or horses for alternative touring, but we didn't choose those.

Next stop, the Smoky Mountains!