Pink House!

Happy Father's Day - must be a holiday -we're going on a hike!

So ... off to hike "The Hump" ... no small feat, but GREAT fun. Not much farther in than the length of a soccer field, Paul startled a turkey hen from her nap with her chicks. All a flutter she spread her wings out to be as big as she could be until she realized his size ... then he went into the woods and just patiently waited for us to pass. Smart girl!

We found LOTs of these little guys --- wild strawberries. Takes a whole bunch of these to make one of our domestic sized ones. But they taste sweet and juicy ... so Paul ate a bunch while we were hiking. It was hard to get a photo before he popped it in his mouth!

There were gorgeous wildflowers every where! The black eyed susans had already begun blooming up here ... and they were mixed in with daisies and all sorts of periwinkles and such. So delightful ... wild flowers!

AND gobs of butterflies to contrast the green. Gorgeous!

Oh yeah, the token bear track. You might have to enlarge this picture to see it, but it was surely there! Put me on alert ~Paul too, he actually heard my stomach growl once... and his hearing thing is important to the jest of the story ;-)

Really cool big ole' oak trees, elm trees and maple trees. They had the coolest shapes --- all twisted and bent from years of wind and rain.

Father of the Day - isn't he cute?

Look at this blue blue sky!!!! And the moon, of course. Today is the summer solstice. Good bye spring, hello summer. With the sun burn I managed to get on Saturday, I can testify to the fact that it is summer! Hallelujah!!!

On top of The hump --- so V.A.S.T. Over a mile high. You could see 360 degrees ... South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. It was breath taking and awesome ... quite so - Mother Nature's amazing show. We actually walked a little bit of the A.T. while we were up there! So free and easy. What a lovely treat! And we picked such a gorgeous weather day! LUCKY!

The A.T. Blaze. I think at this point we were trying to name everything we recognized. I eventually just got dizzy and gave up ...

Paul is pointing things out ... but lots of times there was a definite question mark at the end of his statement. It was an Indiana Jones kind of afternoon. HaHa

Mountains for miles ... and clouds that look like angel wings ...

Another view - different state, probably ... so very beautiful. I am NOT a geography wizard ... so if you know this stuff, do tell!!!

The condo building on the far upper left is the worst thing that has happened up here EVER. Because of the uproar it caused when it was built, there is a ban on buildings like that up here. When you are here you look at the horizon and everything is so spectacular and then UGH! What is THAT? Obviously I am delighted they aren't allowing any more of that kind of building, but don't you know the views from the condos up there are incredible!?!?!?

This little lady started watching us from WAY back (far left)

She just kept walking toward us, ever so slowly, but she wasn't going to let us leave without figuring out what she was looking at!

She is one pregnant momma! Sweet as pie though. Just stood for her photo, and then we left so she could eat. It was definitely dinner time for the forest animals and I was still kind of thinking about that bear track ... and so off we headed back down toward the car. The camera was running out of battery power, starting to flash red so no use in worrying about any more pictures when ....

Paul says, "I see a cow" and I think "he's lost his mind". I thought I saw a horse in the shadow ... but Paul was quite right. He saw a cow ... and then some.

And lo and behold right in the forest were standing the biggest, scariest most intimidating Watusi Cows I've ever even imagined, much less seen. Holy Cow! (tee hee) Paul explained to these big boys that we needed to pass through while my knees just knocked together. I was frozen in place and shaking like jello! GOOD GOD they were huge! The pictures are such poor quality because the battery was dying and because there was no light in the forest at this point, but we managed to stand in amongst these beasts and photograph them, just like we did everything else. Amazing!

The baby on the left (black with white face) was eye to eye with me. Her head was level with mine (and yes, I was standing up). The gray one in the middle of this shot reminded me of a hippo. She TOWERED over me and was massively broad in the back and hind quarters. The horned ones were just WAY out of my league. It was such a gift to see these guys, in a forest of all places! It is also something words don't do justice to describing. It was a HUGE surprise.

We got back to the car all excited and absolutely glowing after our day of treasure after treasure!

We were driving down a cute little windy creek road and I said to my sweet honey "BIG cows". He looked out the window and all around and then just kind of nodded and sort of smiled, kinda. Turns out he thought I said "Pink house". This is the same man who heard my stomach growl as we were walking in forest!!

I should've just said "do the Watusi" ...

Hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day!

Paul & Cheri