Heading Home

We actually started heading home on Wednesday. Because we were in no hurry, we were able to visist the Forbidden Caverns as mentioned in the previous post which included a trip through a really cool covered bridge. Then on the way, we hit some really nasty weather which slowed traffic to an extremely slow pace.

I guess old age is catching up with me (39 this year) because we did not make the trip all in one day. Instead, we decided to spend the night in Frankfurt, Kentucky before finishing the trip.

Here is how Candy saw me for the almost 2000 miles of highway:

And this is how Lily viewed Candy during that same time: And I never thought that I would appreciate the Chicago skyline as much as I did on Thursday afternoon:It was a GREAT vacation and we had lots of fun but we were glad to get back home.

I forgot to mention that on Monday as we were going from Winston-Salem to Gatlinburg, we stopped in the little country town of Hiddenite, North Carolina to check out the Hiddenite mines. You can either dig for gems, sluice for them in the creek, or (like us) buy buckets of ore and go to sluicing tables and search for gems that way. Lily got all into the action. I put the ore in the screen and she would start shaking it in the water. When that was gone, she would say,"I need more dirt." We all had a blast and I would recommend doing it if you get the chance. The cool part is that you get to keep whatever gems you find like the clear Quartz crystal, the Amethyst, Ruby, Emerald, or the "Dog" rock that Lily found (a large spotted rock).