Fourth of July

This 4th of July turned out to be a different one for us--no friends and family and no BBQs. So, we decided to get out (and stop working on the house) and head for the mountains.

We found some beautiful places and had a great time. So, if you're looking for a new tradition on the 4th -or any day- I'd recommend a Pettit CD and mountain roads. There are several waterfalls (maybe hundreds) in this area. Here are some of the places we stopped, but the battery on the camera died, so there are some that we missed.

Issaquenna Falls - beautiful to look at and an easy walk to the overlook. You will notice someone's eyes are closed in every picture - with 5 kids, it's just inevitable. Stump House tunnel - a RR tunnel started by hand before the Civil War. The state ran out of money about 1/4 of the way thru the tunnel and then the war broke out so it was never finished. You can walk into it 1600 ft, but we really needed a flashlight and couldn't go that far. This picture looks fine when you take it, but the light bounces off the mist coming out and the picture ends up looking white. Rush and Ryan run back out of the tunnel This one is for Erica and Rebekah - my flower photographers. This is all over the mountains and they call it mountain laurel. This was taken at the Fish Hatchery -which the kids loved. There were some beautiful trails there and they were able to feed lots of trout.

One overlook along the road gave us this gorgeous view of Lake Jocassee. Across the lake in the opposite mountains would be the Wilds. You'll overlook the lake if you take the hike to the falls.

We pulled off at this overlook and were admiring the ok view in front of us when I turned around and saw this view behind us. It was beautiful - but it's hard to tell from the picture.

We ended up in Highlands, NC which I just loved, being a woman. Daniel's opinion would be less glowing! Cute shops and neat places to hunt around for hours. We found a great pizza place --called The Pizza Place--best pizza I've had in a long time. Outside of Highlands, Bridal Falls was neat, because you can drive under it, but not alot of water because of the drought up here.

The last fall I was looking for was closed for parking improvements (I think Dry Falls was the name). You can actually walk under it - which Daniel was very excited about b/c he could act out his favorite "Last of the Mohicans" scenes. Anyway, that one we'll get back to some other day.