Pigeon Forge, TN and Asheville, NC

 This is the old mill in Pigeon Forge. We visited the pottery shop across the street and had a snack at a very nice restaurant next to the pottery shop. Lots of shopping in Pigeon Forge and beautiful mountains.

 This was taken in the garden area of the entrance hall of the Baltimore Estate. Not the greatest picture, but what a house! The largest house in the United States!

 The house itself covers about 4 acres and is 5 stories tall! There are 101 bedrooms and 43 bathrooms inside. The dining room was so big that the 4 elk heads and 1 moose head mounted on the wall looked really small!

 We climbed over 400 steps to get to the top! The view was beautiful. This is close to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

 This was the view from where we had lunch after the climb. The barbecue was excellent, the restaurant very quaint.

 We drove south on the Parkway the first day. The Parkway was closed just north of Asheville and about 20 miles south of Asheville. It was a beautiful drive!

 This bridge is a mile high and joins the two peaks on Grandfather Mountain. We had to drive on I-40 a bit then cut over to the Parkway, but it was worth the drive!

You can't see it really well, but the top picture is of the viaduct. That's where the road is suspended around the base of Grandfather Mountain. This tree caught our eye as we were driving to the Parkway and I had to get a picture of it. The trees and bushes have been beautiful!

Grand Ol Opry

We got to go to the Opry twice this week. Tonight Little Jimmy Dickens was on. He's been I'll so this is his first appearance this year. He's 92 years young! What a great night and a great line up! We're having a great time on Nashville!!!

The General Jackson

We got to take a dinner cruise on the General Jackson last night. We cruised on the Cumberland River and we got to see downtown Nashville at night. They had a really great show highlighting the distinct music from each of the three areas in Tennessee. There were music students from two high schools in Pennsylvania in the audience and the teacher's and some of the students got to get up and demonstrate the Gunky Cjicken . We thought of John!! Tonight we're going to the Opry again. It's a really cool experience.

Tuscumbia, Alabama

We got to visit Helen Keller's birthplace in Tuscumbia last week. Pretty cool to see the actual dining room where Annie locked Helen in, the fountain where she said her first words and the house she was born in and lived with Annie in (Howard's standing out front.) Pretty cool visit. I got a nice new winter coat while we were in the area and we had lunch at a "good oil' down home restaurant where the owner can to our table and visited with us for quite a while. The coat has come in very handy. We about froze for a few days in Nashville! There are some hardy folks here though--there were three tents set up when we got here. Very brave souls!!

Brunswick, Georgia

On the way to the islands. This is low country!

Pretty canopy over the road!

Pretty lighthouse.

This whole island is a state park.

The beach (my artsy craftsy picture!)

Looks like Florida!

Another canopy picture!

William Horton was an officer with General Oglethorpe and built this house in 1736. He was the first settler in this area and brought his wife and children from England to join him here.

The house had shells in the grout and the bricks.

Brunswick is a major port for shipping cars from Europe.

The port sign and a car carrier. Just in the time it took to take 2 pictures, 4 car carriers left and 2 empty ones came in!

Don't know if you can see this very well. We drove from Brunswick to St. Augustine's today and in the first 30 miles we must have seen 50 utility and tree removal trucks! On the news tonight they said about 300 have been sent to the northeast.

These are the tree trimming trucks. A cold front is moving in tonight and we actually have the heat on -- yes, we're in Florida!! Lows tonight are supposed to be in the high 30s! That's really cold for here this time of year!

Nashville and Okefenokee Swamp

The Country Music Hall of Fame. Only about 10% of all the inventory in the museum is on display at a time. Lots of stuff. We tried to go to the Opryland Museum again, but it was flooded out a few years ago and lots of the inventory was lost! When we were here a few years ago we kept seeing "Rand Hats" on display. When I looked them up online I discovered they are made in Billings, MT and the CEO is Rich Rand. I graduated with Richy Rand from NHS! Pretty cool.

Sunset over Nashville. Pretty cool! We had lots of fun visiting with Loriann and her friend, Jody, and we got to eat at some really good restuarants!

We kept hearing about this park in south eastern Georgia. It's pretty cool. We spent several hours here. We got to go on a little train ride, watch a wildlife display, and go on a boat ride.

Makes you think about Stephen Foster doesn't it?

Love the Spanish moss on the trees!

This otter kept posing for pictures!

Looks like a swamp cabin right out of a movie!



Thought this was pretty cool! Thought the grandsons would like all the bees.

The biggest alligator in the park. He's killed about 20 other alligators that they know of.

Here he is again a little close to the boat!

A nonpoison snake on a tree stump

The channel we went on in the boat through the swamp.

These plants eat bugs!

This is an alligator nest (the pile of weeds and dirt on the bank) about 20 baby alligators were hatched in the nest.

Just thought this was cool.

Walking out to a 90 foot tower to look over the swamp.

From the tower looking south.

Looking more east.

From part way down the tower through the trees.

For Di! Lots of spiders on this trip!

Here's another one on the tree stump! We had a great time and after spending a few hours here we went into Waycross, Georgia and had lunch.