Family Vacation to North Carolina

The last week of July we went on a family vacation to the North Carolina. This trip was a first for us in many ways.

This was our first long road trip, it took about 8 hours to get to the cabin we stayed at near the town of Sylva NC. The farthest our kids have ever gone in the car is Orlando which even with heavy traffic has never taken more than 3 hours. I was pleasantly surprised at how wonderful they did. Other than needing quite a few potty stops and Avery being miss jabber jaws, all was great.

The second first of this trip was that we went with another family, our good friends the Gaineys - Jeff and Marchelle and their kids Cody (13) and Catelyn (9). We spend a lot of time with these friends and always have a great time so it was no surprise that all went as well as things can with 8 people traveling together. We even all went in one car (suburban) and besides the long trip up and back we also spent a lot of time driving each day to see the sights. Though at times we had to do some seat swapping, to keep all the kids liking each other, it went well.

Another first of this trip is that the kids and I had never been to "the mountains" before. When I first moved to Florida I was confused when I would hear many many people say they were going to "the mountains" and everyone else knew what they were referring to. I quickly learned that in the completely flat state of Florida people love to go the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. When people say "the mountains" they are referring to the area just north of Georgia on the North Carolina/Tennessee border that is made up of the Great Smokey Mountains.

This is the view from the porch of the cabin we stayed in.

This is Kyler sweeping off the porch (don't know why!)

Those little green lights are fire flies . The kids were so excited to see them!

This is Kyler, Catelyn, and Avery glad to be out of the car the night we got there. They ran around chasing the fire flies, throwing rocks into the creek in front of the cabin and crossing the street to the barn to pet the donkey and horse that lived there.

This is Kyler and then Avery (she's always the last one up) eating breakfast on the porch. It was so nice to sit out there. Especially in the morning and evening when it was cool and not humid, a very welcome change from the hot sticky weather of home.

This is why they call them the Smokey Mountains. It is so amazing to see the clouds hang on the mountains, you see it the most in the morning and evening but sometimes they look "smokey" in the middle of the day.

We went to the town of Cherokee NC, which is actually an Indian Reservation. The first stop was this place where you can feed bears. Don't really know what that has to do with NC or Indians but the kids LOVED it and asked to go back every day. They give you little trays that have bread, lettuce and apple slices.

This is Kyler throwing down some lettuce ...

... and this is the bear trying to catch it.

The bears would wave.

They did a little dance.


I loved this guy, he would grab his feet and then rock back and forth.

The bears would also clap if you made them wait to long for food. Though I didn't get a picture of it, if you would wave the food in a circle the bears would spin in a circle.

After visiting the bears we walked through some shops looking for Kyler a Indian flute, he was dying to get one. Then we went and had a picnic. The park was so beautiful and had a creek that ran all through it. We were also intrigued by an area of bamboo. We had never seen bamboo growing like that.

This is so funny to me because Avery is doing all the work of lifting but Kyler looks like he is really working so hard.

The bamboo was really beautiful!!!

The kids quickly realized that if they shook the bamboo

water would fall down on them like rain.

This is Kyler playing his new Indian flute when we stopped at an overlook.

This is on overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was beautiful!

The last stop of the day was at a place where you can "mine" for precious gems. This is something that Kyler really wanted to do and it was a lot of fun. Each of the kids got about five precious stones that are in raw form. Of course when the guy went through the stones identifying them they of course offer a service where they will break the stones down to a usable form. Kyler and Avery were more than happy with the rock form.

In front of the cabin there was a small stream, though it was surprisingly loud for its small size and we enjoyed listening to it from the porch. Since it wasn't large enough for the kids to play in we went down the mountain a little ways and the kids loved playing in the large section of water.

We drove over the mountains into Tennessee to an area called Cades Cove. This is a large valley that is beautiful and was once a settlement so there are some historic buildings to visit. At the entrance to this area is a horse stable that offers horse back riding. Avery wasn't old enough to ride the horses so she and I took a horse drawn carriage ride. This place was very popular and we had to wait for nearly two hours, but the kids were so great and patient. The carriage ride was half an hour and the horse back ride was one hour. Somehow Avery and I went out and back before the others left, but that turned out to be a good thing because I got some good pictures of them leaving and coming back.

This is Kyler with his horse, Cinder.

He looked a little nervous as they set out!

When they came back he looked much more relaxed and happy. Corey said Kyler did wonderful and that is all Kyler could talk about for days.

This is Cade's Cove

One of these deer jumped across the road to join the other right in front of us and then we stopped and got this picture.

Kyler and Catelyn look like little twins,

but are much nicer to each other than most brother and sister.

Our last day we went to Bryson City NC to take a train ride through the mountains. We just happened to be there on the weekend the Thomas the Train was visiting.

This is the train we rode. It was a four and half hour ride which was nice,

but a little to long for the kids.

I'm not sure if Avery was stomping her foot because she didn't want her picture taken or because she was tired of Kyler blowing his train whistle.

After the long train ride we thought the kids should work off a little energy,

so we played some putt-putt.

This was a stop we made on the way home at Tallulah Gorge in Georgia.

Our "mountain" trip was busy and to short but we had a great time. The kids have asked many times since we got home when we can go back, so I guess it was a success.