heading for home (with a few stops along the way)

The last few stops of our 2023 travels as we visit some friends and family, hit a couple national parks (one new, one repeat visit) and head for home so we can arrive before Thanksgiving.🦃❤️

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountain National Park, TN

We had an overnight stay at Cades Cove, the section of Great Smoky Mountain National Park that is in TN. We had both spent time here when in the Ft. Campbell area and again later with the boys, but it had been a good fifteen years since we had last visited. It was very heartwarming to see the Appalachian mountain range and catch some fall colors after our travels across the country.  As we drove the loop we also had a chance to see something besides the colored leaves in the trees …

we saw bears!!!

A mama and her three cubs, who were pretty good sized since it was November but still small enough to reach up and out to the ends of the smaller branches without breaking them ...

so they could reach all the nuts. We then got to watch as they gobbled them up by the pawful!

It was just an incredible sight to see them scamper around that big tree.

At the visitor's center.

They had a farmhouse, barn and mill.

Ludlum, SC

Our next stop was Ludlum, SC to visit my niece, Becky Sue! ❤️ She moved there a few years ago from Vermont and I was so happy to be able to see her new abode.  It was just a quick overnight visit, but from what I saw, Ludlum appeared to be a charming town, she and Steve have a most comfortable, creative and unusual house (it used to be a gas station that Steve bought a while ago and has been arranging, converting and redesigning ever since) and the area is very reminiscent of Vermont only with significantly warmer and shorter winters and significantly longer and warmer growing seasons, which Becky with her landscaping / gardening business loves.

We did a lot in a short period of time: touring, eating, meeting neighbors, petting the pups, laughing, talking … but for some reason, these are the only pictures I took the whole time I was there. 🤷🙄       Big fail on my part!

We found these chickens out and about on one of the roads as they were giving  us a tour, so of course, I asked Steve if we could stop so I could take pics.            Gorgeous Plymouth Rocks

twinning 

the big boy struttin' his stuff

Congaree National Park, South Carolina.  

What? SC has a NP? It's ok. You can say you never knew there was a national park in South Carolina. Or one named Congaree. Or have absolutely no idea what part of the state’s geography and/or culture it preserves. It's ok because I'm going to tell you about it right now. (And besides, I only heard of it a few years ago myself.)

Congaree is located pretty much in the middle of the state, the swampy area between Congaree river and Lake Marion. The northwest border of lake Marion is somewhat vague as it just sort of slowly dissolves into swamp and the levels of water vary greatly, dependent on the season. The park has a series of continuous elevated boardwalk trails so you can walk in amongst old growth cyprus, down to the river, through palmettos and live oaks. It is cool, shaded with a filtered light casting an almost greenish light and most of all it is quiet. Even the sluggish river makes very little noise. What you do hear are the birds calling, the occasional rustle of some small creature and your own thoughts. Oh and one more thing, the whine of mosquitos. 🙄 This is an ideal environment for mosquitos. They even have a mosquito monitor (it's like a fire danger monitor) right outside the visitor's center! Haha.

a very happy and healthy squirrel 

moss covered roots

cypress knees

cypress and knees 

reflections

leaves in the dark swampy water

reflections in the river

Myrtle Beach,SC

We stopped at Myrtle Beach to visit some friends we've known forever, Jim and Kim Cooke. Jim was a housemate and army buddy of Martin’s when they were stationed at Ft. Campbell. 

The boardwalk at Myrtle Beach decorated for Christmas.

And some shots that just caught my eye …

gulf fritillary butterfly

magnificent flowers still in bloom along the board walk 

 I thought this was quite amusing ...🤣

Carolina Chickadee 

house finches, coming and going

 

And that was it. We dropped Myrtle off at a storage facility, told her to enjoy her well deserved break, no outrageous partying with the other RVs and boats and we'd be back in January. 

Then we tootled straight up the highway in our red truck to see our fam, our pups, our house and church and town and friends and beloved State.  

Our traveling adventure for 2023 was at an end. We had seen so many things and people and places in this country of ours and we had much, so much to be thankful for. ❤️