Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Our last afternoon was spent driving through the park.  We drove a motor trail loop and was hit with a thunderstorm.  Of course that didn't stop me from jumping out of the car in the pouring rain to snap some photos.

We then headed to Cades Cove and by the time we got there the rain had cleared and we were treated to blue skies.

Driving around the loop in the cove we saw quite a few turkeys and then stopped for the horses

Cars would back up when a bear would be spotted somewhere, but we never seemed to manage to see them.  At one point cars were pulled off the road and people were grouped on the edge of a field pointing to some bears a long distance off.  I laughed and said it would be funny if all these people were stopped trying to get a glimpse of a bear a 1/4 mile off in the field and we would pass right by one.  I had no sooner said it when I glanced to my left and a bear lumbered out of the woods. I stopped the car and he meandered right behind our car and off into the woods.  I only managed to snap a quick somewhat fuzzy photo of him.

It was a fun relaxing week...after a gluten free pancake breakfast we headed it home.

Birds, Birds, Birds

Parrot Mountain was our first Saturday stop.  I had looked up the info on this site and it had received a bunch of great reviews.  Hundreds of birds to see and you were able to feed and hold some of them. Rachel got swarmed by lorikeets as soon as she walked in with a cup full of nectar.

A worker asked if she wanted to hold this bird.  After being placed on her arm he quickly made his way up to this perch!

The macaws were a hit as well

This was a very friendly guy who didn't hesitate at all when Rachel held out food.  He practically jumped right over to her.

I don't think this was Dusty's gig, but he played along.

 At one point we heard one of the birds saying "Hallelujah!"  and when I walked by another it said, "Whatcha doing?"  It was a really neat place and a unique experience.

Just a bunch of river rats

Day 4 found us in Townsend, TN tubing down the Little River.  We pulled into River Rats and got our inner tubes and headed to the put in point.  Let's just say that the initial dip into the river was a chilling experience.  We quickly got past that point and started the 2 hour trip.  It's too bad I had to leave the camera in the car because Dusty managed to do plenty to entertain Rachel and I.  There were some "graceful" moves getting in and out of his tube.  At one point his hat started floating down the river without him.  Then Rachel asked where his sunglasses were.  He had put them in his pocket, but now they were property of the riverbed!  We had a lot of fun and by the time we reached the end Rachel was ready to go again.

We grabbed a picnic lunch and started all over again.  The 2nd time down the sun had made its way out and we managed to get a little baked.  

After the 2nd trip we headed to Pigeon Forge.  Had a nice view from the motel balcony at this stop.  Once again we turned to TripAdvisor and was treated to a #1 ranked restaurant that served gluten free options.

Rachel's pizza sub got the thumbs up!  We decided to check out the #1 ranked ice cream place one the way back to the motel.  Old Mill Creamery was great!  Here we are with our "small" ice cream! I think I had close to a pint of Maple Blondie Brownie in this cup!

We enjoyed our ice cream and some live music.  Another great day!

History at The Hermitage

Day 3 of vacation and we had to switch into plan "B" mode.  We had planned to visit Cummins Falls, but flash flooding had stranded hikers the day before with one person unfortunately missing.  The park was closed on Thursday.  Our hotel was only a few miles from Andrew Jackson's Hermitage so we headed that direction.  We ended up having a lot of fun.  Rachel liked the audio tour and walking the grounds.

Andrew and Rachel Jackson's tomb

On a side note, I'm digging my new phone's panorama mode.

After our tour we dropped by Burgess Falls.  While no longer able to hike down to the bottom we could still see a great view from the observation deck

We decided against taking this bridge!

Using Google maps and TripAdvisor we stopped by Cream City Ice Cream in Cookeville.  It definitely lived up to it's high rating

Some more of Cookeville...there was a geocache on this train, but we finally gave up!

We ended the day near the airport in Knoxville.  Once again we turned to TripAdvisor and found that the #1 rated restaurant also had extensive gluten-free options.  Hot Rod's 50's diner did not disappoint!  Fun theme, great food, and gluten free to boot!

Southern Road Trippin'

The Hackney 2017 summer vacation to the form of 6 days in Tennessee.  We were down one as Aaron had to work.  So on July 4th the three of us took off for Clarksville.  First stop would be the Hunley family compound.  Rachel got in some swimming time with the cousins and then we headed out to Ft. Campbell for fireworks.

Chad, Brenda, and Brian had spent the day on the motorcycles traveling to Sikeston, MO and back.  They swung by on their way home.  My cousins are cooler than yours...I have the photo to prove it!

The next day we packed up and headed to Nashville.  We had to dodge a little rain, but had a great time exploring downtown.

Always time for a bit of geocaching!

Found some cool murals as well

Posing with the "Batman" building

We wrapped up the day with a trip to Opry Mills mall.  While unpacking at the hotel Rachel discovered that she had left a container of home made slime in her backpack and she also discovered its unfortunate results.

Cache Day Saturday

A beautiful day to start the month...the perfect day for geocaching.  We headed up to Lebanon to see how many caches we could log.  We grabbed a quick few on the way up and made our first stop Arni's for some lunch

We lived in Lebanon for about a year from 2001-2002.  Arni's was a favorite and the pizza and salad was a good as we remembered.

We had a lot of success, but trying to find a micro-cache on a camouflaged Howitzer proved to be too much.  I hated to leave this without a find. Maybe next time.

We proved to have more luck at Memorial park.  We grabbed 6 of the 7 in the park.  The one exception was in a tree that was surrounded by carnival tents for the 4th of July weekend.

And we always seem to end up in a cemetery or two 

We even found this...."Hey Chuck...if you're reading we'll buy you a Diet Coke!"

One of the more original finds...

Well look at this...it just so happened our path took us past the Tasty Freeze in Lizton.  Imagine that!

A fun day out with my guy!

The day in numbers

28 - caches found

5 - cemeteries visited

5 - light pole caches....yawn!

1 - earthcache

1 - people I explained Geocaching to after they stopped to see if we needed help when we were stopped on the side of the road with our flashers on

1 - concrete goose

3 - caches given up on because I didn't want to go bushwacking