In the Mountains

We were welcomed into the Smoky Mountains with, well, smoke in the mountains.  Or clouds or fog I guess, but it was beautiful and definitely earned these Tennessee mountains their nickname. 

By the time we drove to our campground, which was well off the interstate and through an "interesting" little town, we needed to get the tent set up in a hurry because of an impending storm.  

We made it, barely.  Within minutes of getting the tent set up, it started pouring.  Thunder, lightning, and the seven of us a little nervous in our brand new tent, hoping it was as waterproof as it said it was.  

Luckily, it was.

I tried to read from our summer read aloud (The Narnia Collection), but trying to be loud enough to be heard over the rain wasn't working, so I gave up and we eventually fell asleep.  It was kind of nice, for although the kids didn't like how loud the rain hitting our tent was, it was too loud for them to be heard above  it and they gave up complaining and went to sleep.  

It was actually a pretty relaxing sound to me.

And then the next morning we woke up to clear skies.

Oh, and an ear-piercing scream coming from my oldest son. 

Chris had went to use the restroom a hundred or so feet away with the boys.  I heard Christopher scream and thought he had just fell and scraped something.  I didn't jump up right away.  When the screaming didn't go away, and I heard my husband yell for me to bring paper towels, I knew it was more than just a little scrape.  I ran up with the paper towels and saw the blood pouring out of Christopher's hands as he held his forehead.  They pressed the wad of paper towels to the cut before I could see it and my husband said to me, "He's going to need stitches.  Don't freak out."  Since I already knew it was bad because of that warning, I didn't freak out as much as I would have it I hadn't been prepared.  

Chris pulled back the paper towels from my oldest son's head and I only half freaked out.  I probably would have screamed myself if I hadn't been prepared.  Instead I whimpered a cry and an "Oh, my God, help him," for a few seconds before I regained control of myself and we started making a plan.  

I'd stay at camp with the four little kids while Chris took Christopher.

No, I wanted to make sure they'd give him enough numbing shot before they started stitching (an issue in the past), so I'd go and Chris would stay at camp.

No, our phones didn't have reception at the campground so we all would go and Chris would take the four little kids to breakfast so we'd have communication.

This took about 15 seconds to figure out.

The 25 minute drive to the hospital back up by the interstate in Newport, TN, helped us to calm down.  Trying to get our minds off the long drive to the hospital, we again admired the fog in the mountains that gave them their nickname.  Christopher pain lessened a bit, as well as his bleeding.  We followed the GPS through downtown streets that went at 25 very slow miles per hour and finally ended up at a good size hospital's emergency room.  Chris dropped us off, we walked into the ER, was asked what the problem was, Christopher showed them his cut and they immediately led us back into a room.  It was that bad.

We ended up with a really great doctor (PA) who sewed Christopher up.  He turned out to be a retired Navy medical guy and had fun stories to keep us distracted while he worked.  

And this was the final product...

I do have a "before" picture, but it's pretty gross and I'm sure it would be appreciated if I didn't post it here.    Christopher wouldn't look at it until after he was sewn up, and even then it distressed him pretty badly.  And the poor guy, the whole time they were prepping him for the stitches, he was most worried about the numbing shot and how bad it would hurt.  

And this here...the curb he tripped over at running speed and the step he hit his forehead on.  

But he was a trooper and was okay with still hiking that afternoon.

The name of the trail that would take us to the waterfall was pretty cool.

I bought these water bottle holders from Oriental Trading and let the kids each decorate their own before our trip.  They worked really well and they could all drink whenever they wanted.

This trail was a lot more strenuous than we thought it would be.  I had Anna on my back in a toddler back pack but we had planned on Leah walking the whole way.  She did really good, but I didn't realize how different 4.5 miles hiking in a mountain is from 4.5 miles walking on flat land.  It was hard, and there was complaining (and not just by little people), but I'm so glad we did this together.  What a great memory to have!

Finally, our turn-off!

Time to head back now.

Spontaneous sister hug.  

And Anna didn't quite make it the whole way back.

It took a lot longer to hike that 4 1/2 miles than we were anticipating...about four hours!  When we got back it was getting close to dinner time and we were all to exhausted to do any sort of camp-ish cooking.  We drove into Gatlinburg, which normally would be such a fun place to park and walk around, but considering the soreness from hiking that was already setting in, we needed a restaurant with its own parking lot, which wasn't very easy to find.  We finally ended up at a Texas Roadhouse...it had it's own parking lot and we knew our kids would be happy with the food there.  

After a yummy dinner in the air conditioning, we took a scenic driving trail near Gatlinburg.  It was beautiful and while I was really really hoping we wouldn't encounter a black bear on our hiking trail earlier that day, I was really excited to see one in the road in front of us while we were in the van! It was scrounging for food or something and had to cross the road in front of us to go down the mountain on the other side.  He was so neat to watch.  

And while we got a little mixed up (lost?) on our way back to our campsite, this was the view from the road for most of the way.  Very beautiful.

We got back in time to roast marshmallows on our fire before bedtime.  It would have been smores, but the chocolate bars melted and we didn't want to deal with that sort of mess.  The kids were promised microwave smores once we got back home.

And this is what I love so much about going outside our comfort zone and doing things like camping...look how close we all get to be.  It may not be the best set-up for a good night's sleep, but I hope that being together all the time while they are young will make them want to be together all the time as they grow up.

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On the way back home, we stopped in northeast Georgia where my little brother is stationed with the Army, and ate lunch with him.  It was so good to see him after many years of not being able to.  After living in Germany for three years, and two tours to the Iraq War, he's back in the U.S. and I hope we get to see him more often.

And now we're back home, and ready to start up a new school year.  And not-so-ready to start a four month deployment coming up soon.