Thanksgiving Is Not The Only Time To Give Thanks

When we are driving the Coach through all these different towns we see some absolutely gorgeous views and sights. We have seen beautiful mountain vistas and desert landscapes that seem to stretch for miles. It has been such an amazing trip so far, but some of the things you also see on the drive, are poverty stricken areas, dilapidated homes and abandoned towns. When we drove through New Orleans on the earlier part of our journey, we saw people still living in tents and rusted trailers almost three years after Hurricane Katrina. When we see some of these living conditions it makes us so thankful for all that we have. Sometimes you need to get out of your comfort zone to realize what is important. Because this is our journal I wanted to take the liberty to share what we are thankful for. We are so thankful for each other, our family and friends that have been so supportive of our journey, a roof over our heads and the means to take this trip...and on, and on and on...

I would love to get comments from you and read what things you are thankful for.

Burning Up in Sedona

The temperature differences in the desert are amazing. If you looked at our pictures from the Grand Canyon you can see we were all bundled up because it was freezing out. At night we had to unhook the water line from the coach because of freezing temperatures. So we thought when we headed to Sedona the next day, it would be just as cold. Think again, we had to stop at a store and buy some touristy Sedona t-shirts, because we were sweating like crazy.

Sedona was beautiful. We absolutely loved it. We only had a couple of hours so we hit most of the scenic picture spots. We went to this beautiful chapel that was up in the mountains and looked like it was built right out of the rocks.

The mountains/rocks of Sedona had this rich redish-orange coloring. It was different from the Grand Canyon but just as beautiful. I could probably spend a month in Arizona alone, but unfortunately we need to move on. California here we come!

Click here to see all our photos from Sedona

The Grand Canyon

We made it to Williams, AZ which is just an hour outside the Grand Canyon. All I can say about the Grand Canyon is, wow it is beyond words. Probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It really does make you realize how small you are when you look out into this enormous natural wonder. We took about a million pictures (see link below), but they can't even possibly capture the beauty of the canyon.

We stayed on the rim of the canyon, hiking and sight seeing most of the day. When we were on our way to a lookout point we saw a couple of cars pulled over, so we slowed down. I looked through the trees and saw this deer-like animal. I thought it was a moose at first. Scott got out to take a picture. It turns out there were two Elk, a male and female, just munching on some grass. Very cool.

Can I just take a side bar and mention how out of shape I am? We walked on paved paths along the rim of the Grand Canyon and I don't know if it was the altitude or what, but you would have thought I was 90 years old (no offense to all the in shape 90-year-olds'). By the end of the day my back and neck hurt, gee whiz. I'm going to need to get back in shape if we are going to be doing all this outdoorsy stuff again. Anyway, tomorrow we go to Sedona to look at the red rocks. I can't wait.

Click here to see all our photos from The Grand Canyon

Albuquerque Blows Us Away

Initially I was going to title this blog, "The Elusive Tumbleweed". Let me tell you those things are pretty hard to take a picture of, from a moving vehicle. This is how much of a city girl I am. On our drive out of Amarillo, TX towards Albuquerque I kept seeing these small dried stick bushes rolling or "tumbling" down the road. I asked Scott, "Is that a tumbleweed"? I had Scott watching as I pointed the camera at the road trying to get a picture of this thing. They are not as soft as I thought they would be and I thought that they were pretty cool to see, until they kept "tumbling" into the side of the coach. It is hard to avoid a moving abject when you don't know which way it is going to come at you. What a tourist.

By late morning the wind started to pick up pretty significantly. Then the wind, dust and tumbleweeds became almost scary. I found out that we were in the middle of some sort of storm with sustained winds of 20 miles per hour and gusts up to 60 miles per hour. Not fun. We had a little technical difficulty with the slide out awning, so we decided to pull into the Flying J (For those non 'Big Riggers' out there a Flying J is a trucker gas station) to wait it out. We got back on the road, but decided to take it slow. It was a pretty long day, but we finally made it to Albuquerque. Tomorrow we leave for the Grand Canyon. By the way I checked the weather and it is 27 degrees there. Oh no!

***Retraction from The Greene Journey Blog***

We at the Greene Journey must make a retraction to the prior blog entry. The song "On The Road Again" was sung by Willie Nelson not Kenny Rogers. We apologize for any confusion which this may have caused and meant no harm to the Willie Nelson company. Please accept our admittance of wrong doing. However, we at The Greene Journey do feel that the joke is still funny.

Thank you and keep reading.

Sincerely,

Editor in Chief

Kelly Greene

On the Road Again

In the infamous word of Mr. Rogers...Kenny that is, not the Mr. Rogers from the kids show that would change into his "around the house" sweater and shoes as opposed to his "outside" sweater and shoes. I never really got that. Anyway, I digress, the Greene's are "On the Road Again" and we are super excited.

We are three days into the trip and all is smooth so far. I was nervous at first if we would remember how to hook everything up and even drive the rig. But it was like riding a bike... a forty foot bike, that is 13 feet tall and is towing a smaller bike with a kayak on top. Yup, just like a bike, no biggie.

Yesterday we visited my cousin Monica and her husband Brad and two beautiful girls Emerson and Elise, in Georgia. We had a great time. Today we are heading towards Arkansas just for a brief stopover and then back on the road again. By next weekend we should be in the Grand Canyon. We cant wait! Stay tuned for updates on our adventures.

Happy Holidays!

Just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone Happy Holidays! For those of you who are new to the blog there are links on the right side of the page which show all our stories dating back to the beginning of the trip. Just click on each month to read them. Some of the older stories are the best.

And for those of you who are faithful blog readers (you know who you are), I want to say thanks for keeping up with our journey. We are so glad we could share some of our life with you.

We hope your holidays are filled with laughter and that you have a fantastic New Year. Try doing something out of your comfort zone in 2008, it just might be the best thing you ever did.

;)
Kelly & Scott

Where's Waldo...I mean Kelly

Wow what a crazy week we've had. After we got back from Costa Rica we found a renter for our Palm Beach Gardens house, which was a relief and a nightmare all at the same time. It meant that we had to clean out the whole house before we went back to Orlando in five days. We had already done a pretty thorough job before we left on the trip, but there was still a lot left to do. We rented a Budget truck and with the help of my sister Brandy and some day labor we managed to get most of the house finished.

The truck was jammed packed with stuff and we still had a ton of boxes that needed to go to the storage unit. We decided to leave them at the house and just concentrate on taking the truck to my mom's house for a garage sale the next morning. For those of you who have had a garage sale before, you know how crazy it can be. It does not matter what start time you put in the newspaper add, people show up whenever they want. Case in point, our start time was 8:00A and we started setting up at 6:00A, thinking we had plenty of time. Our first "rush" came at 6:45A, when we hadn't even put all the stuff out yet. It was bananas.

Around the afternoon Scott remembered we still had all the boxes at the house to deal with. Thank goodness my sisters boyfriend Mark was there and he and Scott went from my mom's house in Stuart back to the house in Palm Beach Gardens to load the rest of the stuff. After an exhausting day we made a little over $1,000, which I thought was pretty good. Now we had to drag our tired bodies to the storage unit and unload the rest of the truck. Pop came to the storage unit to help us unload. There would have been no way that Scott and I could have lifted all the furniture and boxes without him. I can't thank my Mom and Pop enough for all their help.

The next day Scott and I went back to the house for the last of the stuff and to clean up the house. We did not realize how much more was still left to do. We had stuff that had to go to the storage unit, and stuff that had to go to the RV and only our little Jeep to do it all in. Scott ended up taking a load to our storage unit in Stuart while I stayed and cleaned up the house. When he came back we loaded up the Jeep with everything that had to go to the RV. The car was so loaded (see pictures) I couldn't see Scott in the drivers seat. I don't know how we made it back to Orlando, but we did, thank goodness.

Pura Vida in Costa Rica

Okay, so I know we are supposed to be traveling America, but Scott's dad asked us if we wanted to go to Costa Rica for a week and we couldn't pass up the chance. What a great week it was. We stayed the first night in San Jose. Dad renovated a house there and it is really cute. We got to see some of the local culture and even found the Walmart. I know, our favorite store, it felt like home. The Walmart is a little different in Costa Rica. The name of the store is Hiper Ma's and there are police there. They also have two employees that stand in every isle. I don't know if they are making sure you don't steal or if they are there to assist you in finding the right brand of toothpaste. Being that I only understand un pequito espanol and they understood nunguna engles I was on my own picking out the toothpaste. Good thing "Crest" looks the same in any language.

We went to Fortuna the next day and stayed at Los Lagos hotel, which is practically at the base of an active volcano named Arenal. We drove up to the observatory created by the Smithsonian for volcano research. It was a little cloudy at first but then, as the Greene luck would have it, it cleared up and we could see the volcano perfectly. In fact, the weather in October is usually very rainy, but we had fantastic weather practically the whole trip.

You just wouldn't believe the different kinds of foliage in Costa Rica. The bromeliads, orchids, and dad's favorite the tree fern . He is obsessed with them. "There's a tree fern", and "look, there's a tree fern". It is really cute. You can just tell how much he loves it there.

Let me first start out describing the next leg of this trip by saying that I woke up in San Jose with a pinched nerve in my neck. So the next day we headed up to Monte Verde. Dad warned us that the roads were not paved and were pretty bad, but I figured, how bad could they really be? (famous last words) We started on the three hour drive and it wasn't too bad. The lushness of the foliage and the green of the valleys was breathtaking, but the pain in my neck was torture. I was a good little trooper and didn't say much, but the road got worse and worse. At one point a tractor had put new rocks on the road and we barely made it over them. I tied a dish towel around my neck, trying to create a neck brace, and it worked a little. Again not saying a word, popping Advil like candy, humming the theme song from Gilligan's Island (the three hour tour, the three hour tour...) we made it up to the top of Monte Verde. It was beautiful and so worth it. We stayed at a great hotel and Scott and my neck got a much needed massage at the spa.

The next morning we went zip-lining through the canopy at the top of the mountain. Zip-lining is very popular in Costa Rica. They have them in many of the towns, but Monte Verde is the most popular because it has the best views and the most lines. For those of you that don't know what zip-lining is, basically you are strapped into a harness and then "zip" down a cable that has been strung between two trees. It was awesome, zipping along. On one of the longer lines, I took the time to look around and take in the beauty of the rain forest. Wow what an experience! Scott had a funny thing happen. As he was coming in on one of the cables the guide didn't tell him to stop until it was too late and Scott came crashing into the guide, knocking the wind out of him. The guide had to take a couple of minutes to catch his breath. Fun for Scott, not fun for the guide.

The next day we headed to th coast. We stayed at a beautiful property called Los Suenos, which I call the Disney version of Costa Rica. It is like a resort, with golf, pools, a beach club, and much more. Don't get me wrong, it was super nice, but I like the lushness of the mountains better.

We had such a fantastic trip and have plenty of pictures to share, if you click the link below. It looks like we have a renter for the Palm Beach house, so there will be plenty of work to do when we get back.

Click here to see all our photos from Costa Rica

We are Family...I've Got All My Sisters and Me!

Man o' man, have we seen some family lately and we love it! After South Carolina we stopped in St. Augustine. My Dad and Sue came over and we grilled hamburgers and visited. What a fun time. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. They also gave us a Coach-warming present, which was so thoughtful and beautiful. They had one of our pictures from Maine engraved in a piece of wood with a quote that says, "We took the road less traveled and it has made all the difference." I was really touched. Thanks Dad and Sue.

We also got to see Scott's mom and Bobby. They drove over from Jacksonville and spent the day with us. It was great fun. We had lunch in downtown St. Augustine and went to Camping World to pick up supplies. (You can't buy biodegradable toilet paper just anywhere.)

Then it was off to Tampa for my cousin Becca's wedding. We had a blast that weekend. The ceremony was right on the beach, and it was beautiful. One of the highlights of the weekend, was singing karaoke with my cousin Ronnie. It was quite a scene. Picture two white girls singing "Whoomp there it is". I thought we brought the house down, "boyeee". It was so great seeing everyone again especially my mom and sisters. I've really missed them. Unfortunately Rachel couldn't make it. She just delivered baby Lily on October 16th.

Going Cow-a-Bunga in Kiawah

This week we are in one of my favorite places, Charleston, SC. I love the architecture, history, food and the nature in the surrounding areas here. We have had a great time this week.

Yesterday we took the kayak over to Beachwalker Park on Kiawah Island. It is a really great spot to kayak because you start off kayaking in the marshy river and end up in the ocean. We saw all sorts of wildlife. We even saw dolphins and a Bald Eagle. We talked with a student from Georgia, who was doing turtle research on the island. He found a Glass Lizard and showed to to us. I'm not an reptile expert, but it looked more like a snake to me. Once we reached the ocean, the waves were pretty big. We were actually able to surf a couple of the waves. I think kayak surfing should become a new sport. It was so much fun.

I must say that when you are on a budget you will do just about anything to save a buck. Case in point, we sat and listened to a two hour time share/vacation rental sales pitch just to get some free stuff. We ended up getting two free passes on the ghost tour and $75.00 in gift certificates to any restaurant. Even though it was long and I was trying to plan my escape the whole time, it was worth it. The ghost tour was fun and we had lunch at Wasabi, a great sushi restaurant and even had enough left over for dinner at Hyman's Seafood.

We leave for St. Augustine, Fl tomorrow for a short trip to visit my dad and Scott's mom. Then we go to Tampa for my cousin Becca's wedding. I'm excited to see my family again, but it is such a strange feeling to be going back to Florida.

The BBQ Mission

We have been in Asheville, NC for a week and have really enjoyed it. When you mention Asheville to most people they say, "You have to go to the Biltmore. It's so pretty. You must go". Being that we are on a budget and the tickets cost about $40.00 a person, I wasn't that crazy about going. But we ended up getting discounted tickets through the RV park that we stayed at, and we decided to check it out. Wow, was it amazing. I would have really missed out by not going. We ended up going two days in a row, because there was so much to see. We toured the enormous house and the beautiful gardens, drove around the estate through the lush forest and stopped at the winery for a tour and free tasting. We had a blast and even made time for a seminar on wine and chocolate pairings, yummy!

We also went to a place called Chimney Rock (elevation 2,280 feet). It was a total tourist trap compared to most of the places we go hiking, but it had beautiful views. The town of Chimney Rock had a great little barbecue place where you could eat right beside the river. I must take a side bar here and mention to you our obsession with barbecue lately. There really isn't good barbecue in West Palm, unless you go to a place in Hope Sound, locals aptly call the Barbecue Nazi. (If you have ever seen the Seinfeld episode with the Soup Nazi, then you know what I'm talking about. If not, never mind, the joke has passed you by.) So it has been our mission to hit up every little local barbecue place we can find, and boy have we conquered that mission. I think we have found a barbecue place in every town we've visited. My Pop from Texas sure would be proud.

Next stop is Charleston, SC and I can't wait. I hear they have great barbecue...

Click here to see all our photos from Asheville, NC

A Relaxing Time in Virginia

We spent the week in Urbanna, Virginia and I don't have too much to report. It was a pretty relaxing week. We checked out Historic Williamsburg, which was neat. We grilled hotdogs and watched the Gator game. I don't really have too much to say about the game either, except...bummer.

It was nice to sit back, read books and relax. Oh, and of course we fit in some kayaking time on the 'Rivah'. (For you Floridians, who aren't on the up and up with the lingo, this is how Virginians pronounce river. I am learning so much on this trip.)

The highlight of the week was when we got to go see some of my old friends, Dawn and Trip, that live in Richmond. They have a beautiful baby girl named Isabel. I wish I had a picture to show, but she went down for a nap before I thought to take out the camera. We sat on their sun porch, ate lunch and talked. What a great afternoon.

After an 8 hour drive, we made it to Asheville, NC. I am really excited to explore this town. Stay tuned...

America the Beautiful

We have friends that vacation at their parents cabin in Maine and they have always talked about how beautiful it is there. They are actually the reason we decided to make it part of our trip and I'm so glad we did. It is beautiful here. Right now it is considered "out of season", but with the leaves changing and it being much less crowded, I think Fall is the perfect time of year to be in Maine.

We have been in Bar Harbor, Maine for a week now and I am a little sad to leave here tomorrow. We have spent most of our time in Acadia National Park and really enjoyed it. We went bike riding through the park along the carriage roads. There are 45 miles of carriage roads throughout the park that are for bikes, pedestrians, and/or horse drawn carriages only. They are really scenic and pass by several lakes and through the mountainous woods. One thing you don't get too much of in Florida are hills. Well, here in Maine there are plenty of them. On the carriage roads we were either riding up or down hill. It took me awhile to figure out the gears on my bike, being that it is used to traveling on flat surfaces. I must also confess that the driver of the bike (me) is also used to traveling on flat surfaces and let's just say my legs were on fire after 11 miles! I went through a mix of emotions on that bike ride. I was either that girl that drives me crazy wining, "I can't make it" to gritting my teeth and saying, "This hill is not going to beat me"! (I know that my friend, who rides bikes all the time, is probably calling me a wimp right about now.)

We also did some hiking while in Acadia. I should call it 'clim-king,' because it was part climbing and part hiking. It was awesome and the views were amazing. We made our lunch beforehand and ate it at the top of Acadia Mountain. It was just so wonderful to sit there and look out at the valley below. It really made me so grateful to live in such a beautiful country. We ended the day with some ice cream at the local Dairy Bar. What a wonderful day!

Of course a trip to Maine wouldn't be complete without some lobster. So we made sure to ask the locals where to go. We ended up at a place called Ruth and Wimpey's. I got lobster, steamers and corn cooked in boiling saltwater, complete with a lobster bib. Yummy

Click here to see all our photos from Bar Harbor, Maine

Canada, eh?

We decided to go over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. On our way, we stopped at a fruit stand and bought the most delicious apples picked right off the tree. We thought about it later as we were at the border, that bringing fruit into another country probably wasn't the brightest idea, but they never checked our car. They mostly mentioned the bright yellow kayak on the top of our car and what we planned on doing with it. Scott joked that we were going to take it over the falls. Let me just mention that the people they employ at the border aren't so big on jokes and actually on the way back into the states I found my palms getting sweaty as the border patrol interrogated us on what we did while in Canada. I almost blurted out, "Okay we have fruit in the backseat!" But thought better of it.

The next day we were on the road again, heading for Maine. We decided to try and save a little money and stop at a rest stop along the way instead of paying for a campsite. It worked out okay, but those rest stops fill up quick with all the truckers and we ended up at a less than desirable rest stop that was close to the road. The traffic noise was so loud with all the semi-trucks whizzing by at 70 miles per hour. So when we woke up at 6:30am, we weren't surprised that we were groggy. Scott got up and walked the dog and I looked out the window wondering why it was still so dark out. When Scott go back we were getting ready to get in the shower when he noticed that the microwave clock was different. It said 2:30am. Did I make that clear enough, 2:30 IN THE MORNING! Ahhhh! No wonder it was still dark out. (Note to self, make sure the clock is correct before going to bed.) After going back to sleep for a couple of hours, we were on the road and arrived in Maine by afternoon. I can't wait to explore Maine this week!

No Wet, No Fun

When we were on our Honeymoon, eight years ago (wow, has it really been that long), we went to Dunns River Falls in Jamaica. The tour guides loved to push the tourists into the cold water of the falls and then say, "No wet, no fun". This is a saying we have carried on our adventure, especially in Niagara. Sure, you can see the falls and not get wet, but what is the point?

We went to Niagara Falls on Friday and it was breathtaking. I can't even express how awe inspiring the falls are. Just the force of the water rushing down is amazing. The weather couldn't have been more perfect the day we went to the falls; sunny, clear, and just slightly cool.

First we went to the area called Cave of the Winds, where they give you ponchos and water shoes to wear, then take you in an elevator down to the base of the falls. All I can say is wow, did we get wet. They have a Hurricane Deck (or Hurricn' for those of you Southern folk) where you are practically standing underneath the falls. We also rode the Maid of the Mist boat right up to the base of the falls. You definitely need to click on the link below and look at more pictures.

It has rained here in New York and brought a cold front in. It was a chilly 44 degrees, burrr. We had to run the heaters in the Coach last night. Tomorrow we have a quick stop over, then make it to Maine. I can't believe it has only been a month and we have seen and done SO much.

Click here to see all our photos from Niagara Falls

The Greene's Are The New Rainmakers

I don't know if I've mentioned it or not, but the Greene's bring rain. Many of the areas we have visited were experiencing a drought. No worries, Scott and I came to town and it rained. Arkansas...rain, Memphis...rain, Virginia...rain, New York...you guessed it, rain. But the best part is, that none of the rain has ruined our fun. In Virginia we kayaked down the James River, in the rain, and had a great time.

Just to recap, our trip to Virginia was great. We stopped and saw Scott's Granny and Papa, who live in Bristol, VA. It was really nice visit. We got to get off the road and have lunch at Cracker Barrel. They showed us their beautiful home and we got to show them our new home "on wheels". After the visit it was back on the road so we could get to the Natural Bridge campground before dark. The city is called Natural Bridge because there is this bridge that was formed out of rock thousands of years ago when a cavern collapsed. It is 215 feet high, taller than Niagara, and 90 feet wide. It is considered one of the oldest tourist destinations in the US and one of the the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Just to give you a little history. A young George Washington carved his initials in the bridge which can still be seen today. Thomas Jefferson purchased 157 acres that included the bridge from King George III before writing the Declaration of Independence.

We did a lot in the four days that we were there. We explored the caverns, saw the Natural Bridge, went kayaking and even had time for a quick trip into the town of Lexington (Which you'll be happy to know has a Super Walmart, yippee!). As you can see in the pictures, we saw all these geese on the river that must have been getting ready to fly south for the winter. It is starting to get a bit nippy here for the thin blooded Floridians. Hopefully we can finish exploring New England before we join them on the trip south!

We are in Niagara, NY today and plan of seeing Niagara falls. I can't wait!

Click here to see all our photos from Virginia

Another Greene Adventure

Before I talk about the crazy morning we had, I want to mention that the people in Tennessee are super nice. One of the days we were in town, Scott started craving homemade candy. In Gatlinburg there is a candy cookery on practically every corner. The only problem is that there is no place to park and just run in. You have to park in a parking garage and walk. It was almost 6:00P so we just gave up and started heading back to the RV park when we spotted a artist plaza with a candy shop and even better, a parking lot. So we got out and started walking to the shop. When we got there it was 6:00P and it was closed. We were pretty bummed and started walking back to the car. In the parking lot a woman and her son were sitting in their car. Her window was rolled down so I said to her jokingly, "it's closed". She asked what was closed and I said "the candy shop". Then she said "Oh, you wanted candy. How bad do you want it?" I told her "real bad". It turned out that she was an employee in the store and had just closed up. She then offered to open the store. How nice is that. She wasn't the owner, just an employee on her way home. But instead of just leaving, she took the time to open the store for us. I now have some renewed faith in customer service.

And now, on to the adventurous morning we had...
On our way to Natural Bridge, Virginia, we had a couple of hurdles. Unfortunately, I sent us on the highway heading east instead of west. So we decided to get off at the next exit. What we did not realize was that the next exit was the entrance to the Foothills Parkway, which does not allow commercial vehicles. We figured the only choice was to make a u-turn. We started to make the turn and realized that we are so long that we filled up the entire two lanes and if we kept turning we would have ended up rolling into the ditch. We had to make the split decision to unhook the tow vehicle and get out of the road. Thank goodness it was a Saturday and there wasn't much traffic. Scott and I rushed into action and started unhooking the tow vehicle as fast as possible, as cars started to line up. We got it done and got the car out of the road. We gave each other a high five and started to rehook the car, only to realize that one of the pieces of the hook up equipment was missing. We started looking for it on the side of the road. As we were looking for the piece I said to Scott, "We probably ran over it with the car and it is under the tire, but what are the chances of that?" Well let me tell what the chances of that are, 100%. It was under the tire. After a good laugh, we got everything hooked up and headed back towards the highway.

But wait, there's more...
We decided to pull over at a rest stop to make sure that, in our haste, everything got hooked up correctly. It had, so we pulled back onto the highway. I was talking with my my mom on the cell phone,recapping the eventful morning when Scott yelled that one of our hatches opened and a bunch of our stuff flew out onto the highway. We pulled over and got out to assess the damage. I started walking down the highway towards our stuff which was being pounded by all the oncoming semi-trucks and cars. (Kids please do not try this at home.) About four of our bins had fallen out of the RV into the road. One of the bins had our camping equipment. Forks, knives and shards of the plastic bins were flying all over the place, very dangerous. We salvaged what we could and were so thankful that our stuff did not cause an accident. That second episode really shook us up. You start to feel sort of beat down when two major events happen in the span of two hours. But at the end of the day it is just stuff.

I want to share a little story with you that I heard early in our trip.

"I saw an older man walking near the beach with his wife in Hawaii. He had a cane and appeared to be having some trouble walking. He held on to my arm as I walked by and said to me, "Son, how old are you?", I responded "23 years old". He said "Let me tell you something. I saved up my whole life for this trip to Hawaii and I can't even walk in the darn sand. Live life now, while you can enjoy it."

This story was told to us by a professor we met in Jacksonville. Whether it is a true story or not, the message is still so clear. So even though we have had a few bumps along the way, we are making the most of this wonderful journey and loving all the ups and downs.

Strenuous Trail Ahead

First let me just say, I'm in love, with Tennessee and the Great Smokey Mountains. One of the most scenic drives we have had so far has been from West Memphis, Arkansas to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We really enjoyed all the mountains and the gigantic Christmas Trees (Frasier Fur Trees).

Yesterday we drove through the Smokey Mountains and up to the lookout point (elevation 6,500 ft). All I can say is wow. We took a million pictures, but they can't come close to capturing the beauty of the Smokey Mountains. It was breathtaking.

Today we decided to hike the Smokies. We got a recommendation at the visitors center for a hike with a waterfall at the end. We figured since we completed a 6.5 mile moderate hike, that a 8 mile strenuous hike would be a piece of cake. Let me tell you, when the park service volunteer tells you the hike is strenuous, you should believe him. I make the mistake about a mile and a half into the hike of saying that guy was all wrong and that this hike wasn't that strenuous. Famous last words....Hiking uphill on rocks and roots (sometimes climbing over trees) was very...whats the word..oh yeah, strenuous! I am so sore right now, even my fingertips hurt typing. But let me tell you it was worth it. We saw three of the oldest trees in the park. They were huge. There was also this beautiful waterfall. If you ever get a chance to see the Great Smokey Mountains, do it. It is so worth it. I wish we could stay longer, but it is off to Virginia tomorrow.

Before/After

Click here to see all our photos from Tennessee

Rockin' & Rollin' Down the Caddo

We decided to go kayaking today down the Caddo River. We found a canoe outfitters place that would drive in the car with us up the river and then take our car down the river to the stopping point. We don't have a river kayak, but figured our ocean kayak would work just the same. The only problem is that, as I mentioned in earlier blogs, Arkansas hasn't had rain in a while and the river is very low. Our ocean kayak has a "V" shape to the bottom. I'm sure you can see where this explanation is going. For the most part we moved along pretty well until we came to the rapids and ended up doing the "boot skootin' boogie" over the rocks.

It was really beautiful and we saw a lot of wildlife along the way. We saw Trout, a really big Heron, spotted Gar and a ton of turtles. One neat thing was there was this butterfly that rode the whole way down the river with us, either on my shoulder or my hat (see picture below).

By afternoon we decided it was time to have lunch, so we stopped in a shady spot along the river. We were half way into our sandwiches when I looked over and noticed two river snakes fighting (or at least I thought they were fighting). Scott thought they were really cool, but as they started to move a little closer I thought it may be time to get on our merry way. I don't think they cared for us interrupting their afternoon romance. We had a blast and ended up completing the 6 hour trip in half the time. Who says an ocean kayak can't handle the river!



Click here to see all our photos from Kayaking on the Caddo River