Continued Hiking and a Birthday

Here are some more pictures from our stop at Fall Creek Falls.  This is one of  my favorites from the entire trip.  I love how the girls are gazing out at the mountains with the little waterfall in the background.

One thing that amazed us at this park was the lack of  safety railings.  While it certainly did make us feel like we had discovered some new, it made this mom incredibly anxious having her girls hanging out near the edge of cliffs with no railings.  

We discovered a suspension bridge that went out across a VERY deep gorge.  Here is a photo that  Sissy took from the bridge of mom and Sweet Baby.  She was hoping the photo would communicate exactly how high up we were, but all it really shows you is the beauty of what the mountain was made of - rock, lots of rock.  It was amazing.

Daddy is afraid of heights so it was quite a stretch for him to even attempt the suspension  bridge, but honestly, he knew he had happened upon something that was amazing, so he tried it.  He only got about half way across before he had to turn back.  Sissy and Peanut really wanted to try to make it all the way across so I went with them.  It was awesome.

After our walk across the bridge and back, we continued hiking a bit more.  Here is a shot of the girls and I.  

I love these shots, they really shows you what the terrain was like.  LOTS of rock, LOTS of roots.  It was a very invigorating walk to say the least.  Daddy and I really enjoy hiking, Peanut usually gets excited when we say we are going to hike, but the other two usually groan.  They did agree though, that this was one beautiful place to see.  Someday I'd like to go back and spend a couple days exploring.

We made our way back to the condo and slept really well that night.  The next day was Sweet Baby's birthday.  She isn't a baby anymore!  She turned 8 while we were in Tennessee.  We gave her the choice of driving into Knoxville to go to the zoo (where they had elephants, her favorite animal) or spending the day at the condo for swimming and mini golf.  She chose sticking close to home.  The morning was lovely so daddy wanted another hike.  We drove just 15 minutes from our condo for an hour or so hike.  

As we came out of the woods we were underneath a bridge which mom found cool since it had many arches made of brick.  It fit in really well with our study this year - roman arches was one of the things we talked about.

We returned back to the condo for lunch and presents.  The sad thing was that at this point Sweet Baby began not feeling well..she spent the rest of her day in bed - no swimming, no mini golf and only a smidgen of cake.  Unfortunately she spent the remainder of our trip not feeling well.  Poor girl!