Week 5.5 ~ Kentucky and the Creation Museum

While we are on a role of favorites, it won't take me long to confess that Kentucky is currently my favorite state.  The reason?  Hitting Kentucky feels like we are finally popping out of our little North Carolina/ South Carolina/ Virginia bubble to the rest of the country, and it is exciting! 

While I adore the mountains of Virginia and my family there, enjoy exploring South Carolina, and love my friends in NC, it is very nice to feel like we are finally getting somewhere else on our adventure.  Where we are in Kentucky is far from the flat, Southern-feeling farm country I envisioned.  It is very mountainy, full of twisting roads, forests, cool mornings and breathtaking sunsets. One surprise Kentucky had for us is it's odd placement in the time zone arena.  While we are still technically on Eastern Standard Time, we are very close to the time zone border, making the summer evenings stay light for quite a long time.  It doesn't get fully dark until around 10pm! 

On one of these evenings, we were biking down a steep hill when Kaden took fall. I was riding right behind him when he crashed, and was amazed to see that he was barely hurt.   We turned around and got Kaden cleaned up at the RV.  His chin was split a little, but didn't require stitches.  It was kind of surreal to see the scratches on his helmet and realize how much God protected him.   

Our main reason reason for going to Kentucky was to visit the Creation Museum and Ark replica headed up by Ken Ham.  We visited the creation museum Thursday as a family, and with the older crew returning again on Friday. It was pretty amazing!  Along with the museum, they had a beautiful garden, shows, displays, and other activities. 

 (Taken Friday when just the older crew went with Mom)

Smokey Mountians Photography

The evening of the Fourth of July found us exploring a little lake about 20 minutes from our campsite.  We arrived quite early, and had ample time to look around the area before the fireworks began. It was beautiful!  The sun setting over the lake was gorgeous, and a family of swans even made their grand debut to add to it.  When the fireworks finally began, we quickly realized we didn't have the best view of them.  Even so, the beauty of the lake definitely made up for it in my book! 

 If anyone from Trinity reads the blog, guess who this building made me think of!

Week Five: The Smokey Mountains

Sunday morning we packed everything up and headed a couple of miles to a nearby church.  

To our surprise - and my delight - we were told that this week was their once-in-a-blue-moon missions conference, and several of their missionaries were speaking in the classrooms before the sermon.  It was really a treat to be able to listen to stories and testimonies from the mission field, especially from a young couple working in Germany.  As a bonus, we even got a piece of German chocolate! The missionary preaching the sermon was fairly long winded, and we ended up leaving the church much later than planned.  It was certainly a special Sunday morning, though!

After church, we drove a few hours to a campground in the Smokey Mountains.  The area was beautiful, and quite accurately described by its title.  Right behind our campsite was a creek where the younger ones spent the majority of their time.  One of our favorite activities at the campsite was riding circular tubes down the creek.  It was a lot of fun!

Monday was my 18th birthday, and I awoke to a festively decorated RV to help celebrate.  The weather forecasted for the day threw our birthday plans a bit for a loop, but with a bit of rearranging it all worked out in the end.  We went out to a cute little coffee shop in the afternoon with the family, and Mom, David and I went into Cherokee, NC in the evening to watch the drama Unto These Hills.  

The next morning I went with Dad and Bethany to go horseback riding up a little trail in the mountains.  Poor Bethany.  She was so scared of the horse at first, and cried pitifully.  In the end she loved it, and said she wished she "could keep riding for six more hours!"