After our short visit to Crater of Diamonds State Park we made a run for the boarder to escape Ike's furry. We overnighted in Jackson, Tennessee. Yes, I did say overnighted. As in set up camp in time for dinner and a brief sit around the campfire before zipping ourselves in our tents only to have to wake up at 5:00 am to once again run from Ike before he dumped another boatload of water on us. Hey, what can I say, it was definitely an adventure!
We ended up in beautiful Boone, North Carolina. We were hoping we were out of harm's way as far as Ike was concerned. No such luck. Of the five days we were there, three of them were wet and cold. I was miserable, but like I said I now see that we really did have a great vacation. See the last half of our vacation fun for yourself.
We stopped by this little church just off of the Blue Ridge Parkway that has a beautiful fresco of The Last Supper.
 While driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway Tom spotted an apple tree growing wild with tons of apples on it. So of course we had to pull over and pick some to bring home. His hand isn't that big...the apples are that small!
 We discovered this neat old homestead.
 Tom couldn't resist taking a peek upstairs. And this is what he saw...
 The spring house. Here is Cool Springs Baptist Church. The sign says the church goers usually met outside, but when the weather wasn't agreeable they met in this church.
During our vacation TJ turned six years old! So of course we had to celebrate it in really fun way. We ended up doing some more gem mining, although we were guaranteed to find some beautiful gems since it was a rigged mining event.
Then we walked about ten feet over to another counter and went fishing...at a rainbow trout farm. Once again, we were guaranteed to catch a fish...or four!
Here is how you make a birthday cake when you are camping.
 Finally, we had a fun and beautiful day just before leaving. We found this neat little park to eat lunch at. While Tom roasted hotdogs on the camping grill the kids had a blast walking barefoot in this creek...just like Laura Ingalls probably did!
One final note about our vacation. We saw TONS of mushrooms growing both in Arkansas and North Carolina. Tom did a great job at capturing on the camera all the different types we saw. I plan to do a study and post on mushrooms one day, probably later rather than sooner. We were simply amazed at how many sizes, shapes, and colors mushrooms come in.
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Sep. 29, 2008 - Untitled Comment
You mentioned that you and your sister-in-law were going to post some money saving ideas? I'm always on the lookout on how to save money and had thought of doing a post myself on some of the ways God has led us as a family to become more frugal.
My last post about saving money really was a rant. I was complaining about some that I know that are constantly spending money on the unimportant but complaining they never have enough money. I know not very nice on my part, but I feel like I'm having to bite my tongue so much of the time when they are complaining. So what better way to object but to blog it :-).
Blessings, Julie