Family Time and a new birth!

Hello from Georgia, Alabama & Tennessee! It's time for family as we work our way north and east now. First stop is in Thomasville, GA to see Aunt Pris. She heard a good recommendation for a new BBQ place in town so we went to check it out. It was messy but tasty, especially the sweet potato fries and brussel sprouts both Aunt Pris & I had. As always, it was good to see her!

From Thomasville we headed over to Red Bay, Alabama to get some work done on Phoebe before heading out on our big trip. It's a tough few days getting up at 5:30 am to get out of the rig so they can work on her. It's a long day for all of us, including the kitties who have to come with us to the waiting room. With our wallets quite a bit lighter we headed to Hanceville, AL to see Mom and Dad Thomas.

We are so blessed to have them at 97 & 95 years young! They are doing pretty well overall, dad could use to put a few pounds on and mom should use her walker more. She says she doesn't want to because they are for "old people"! 😄 At 95 I wonder at what age she thinks "old" is! We are very thankful that Ivy and Ron are right next door and are glad to offer them a chance to get away when we come by.

We are also thankful that Dave's brother Bearl is nearby. We got to spend some great time with him hiking around seeing the covered bridges of Blout County. It was a beautiful day with the spring trees blooming!

We had a wonderful Easter together and even got a bonus of seeing Beth (Ivy & Ron's daughter). I did my best with the meal of ham, mashed potatoes and green beans but it was definitely a "Yankee" meal!😏

We cherish our time there with family and the view from Phoebe couldn't be any prettier!

Up to Gatlinburg, TN next to spend time with Emma & Lauren plus Mom and Dad Craw who have their time share condo at Tree Tops at this time every year. We had aspirations of hiking to Ramsey's Cascade, which with all the rain lately would have been amazing, but decided on Porter's Creek. Given it was our first day out hiking in a while, we were very glad to complete the hike at 4.5 miles vs. Ramsey's at 8 miles! 😄

We saw tons of butterflies and I thought it was lovely to see them all together. Then Emma informed me it was called "puddling" which is when an animal has peed there and the butterflies pull nutrients out of it. Took a little of the "lovely" away, but still cool to see. Many of the spring wildflowers were done already (dwarf iris, trillium) but we did see lots of others like these wild geraniums (left) and showy orchids (below).

It was a perfect day for a hike, not too hot or cold and there is nothing like that fresh spring green color all around you!

That, and snack time when you reach the top of the falls! 😎

Back at the campsite we were joined by Mom & Dad and Julie & Chris who drove down to spend a few days with us. A perfect night for burgers on the grill and a campfire.

Another beautiful day for a hike (which was amazing because the forecast called for rain most of our days there), so the four of us went up to Elmont and hiked along the little river trail.

Dave won the prize for finding the pink lady slipper (right) but Julie was less than pleased when he found the black rat snake (below).

The best find of the day was this cub up in a tree. We never did see mama but that might have been for the best! 

It was such a gorgeous day in the Smoky Mountains.

Our last night we had dinner at Emma and Lauren's and I love to see all the kitties. Henri and Ansel were getting catnip treats from Lauren (right) and Ali (who is 16 years old) was posing pretty for me. It was great to see everyone before we start heading west. 

Our next stop was Nashville and the rain finally caught up to us. It poured the whole weekend we were there but we did get to go to Opryland's hotel. The theme park isn't there anymore but inside the hotel is a "river" and you can even take a boat ride on it. The gardens are amazing and have plants that have been gifted to the hotel from all over the world.

It wouldn't be Nashville without some country fun so here's Dave "horsing around" in the hotel. 

Our next stop was supposed to be Memphis but we got a call from the campground saying they were still cleaning up from the flooding and were unable to have us stay there. So, we found a Harvest Host spot in Jackson,TN called Twisted Luck and boy was it lucky for us! Around 11pm last night the host knocked on the motorhome and out we came running...one of their horses was about to give birth to her foal. It was an incredible experience! Within about 30 minutes of her birth, she was walking and nursing.  It might have been just another day at the farm to them but a once in a lifetime experience for us!

And that brings us to tonight! Another slight modification from the original plan takes us to Little Rock, Arkansas. While we were visiting Aunt Pris she gave us a Southern Living magazine that had all the "bests" in it, including Wright's BBQ in Little Rock.

So Dave got to enjoy the best barbecue in Arkansas (at least according to Southern Living) including collard greens and potato salad. Good thing as we keep heading west and it might be a while till he gets southern cooking again.😋

The rain finally stopped for a little while, just long enough to give us this rainbow.  We are reminded and  thankful for all God's promises to us! Our trip has only begun and we have been blessed with wonderful family and friends time, good food and amazing experiences! Thanks for your continued prayers as we travel west, Alaska bound.