Hi Prims, I missed you all very much! I am back from the most beautiful,wonderful vacation that we ever had!!! Tennessee was everything we dreamed of and more. I have some pictures to show you all so grab a drink and enjoy the jounrey through the mountains of Tennessee! It took 2 and a half hours by plane then we rented a car and drove 3 to 4 hours to the condo we rented,it went fast because stopped at different places and we enjoyed being together, it does help when you ALL love and like each other, LOL!
Tennessee is a LONG state so to the people that said you won't like it there it wasn't true because where we are buying land it is breath taking and about 30 miles away is your stores, post office, police, fire dept. etc..... and let me tell you ther were antiques shops EVERYWHERE so the person that said it is a dump maybe where they were it was, like I said it is a LONG state!
Here are some picutres we took.
There were rivers everywhere and we did go in them, well I should say the boys and Mr. Hillcrest did. I took pictures.
Here are my three favorite men in the world! The boys really enjoyed this vacation.
Here is Mr. Hillcrest and I, I don't like my picture taken but our sons and Mr. Hillcrest kept saying you have to put it on your blog!!!!
This man was so kind. It was the fourth of July and VERY HOT and we were down town walking around the shops with AC, because it was VERY HOT, and we saw this gentlemen making walking sticks.
Mr. Hillcrest wanted a picture with him. The gentlemen told us he lived all his life here in the mountains and lived off the land, it was very interesting.
These two people were very good. Remember it was the fourth of July so we were down town but I did try to get into shops because it was 100 degrees just like it was down here in Mass. Way to HOT for me.
It was very pretty down town.
We are getting ready to see the fireworks and what a show they put on!
They are hard to take pictures of but the show was about 30 minutes long it was worth the heat, I think!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We went to the caves and YES I did the caves too. The story is two six year old boys found this one part of the cave and kept digging and then the family started helping and it was on their land and today it is still family owned and run.
The cave was amazing! There is Matthew to your right.
Another picture inside the cave!
My three favorite guys in the world, they had the best time!
Another picture of the cave!
Here I am doing some shopping. I didn't buy much. The only things I did buy were some antique jars,that are blue and a antique bowl but we shipped them home! Also t-shirts for all of us!!!
I thought you would LOVE to see this kind of jam they make!!!!!!
Here is one antique shop we stopped at and you can see Matthew and Steven already walking around looking to find something cool! This is where I bought my bowl and I will take a picture of it and post it later!The shop was HUGE inside, there were all different dealers inside there! It was like the show on T.V. called The American Pickers which we do watch!!
There were quilts, quilts and more quilts. Can't you tell by my hair it was HOT outside. I would run in the store or where we were going then RUN back to the car with the AC on HIGH!! Our oldest son Steven over heard me tell Mr. Hillcrest I am sweating and he felt me and said it is 56 degrees down here well heck it didn't feel it and Steven said Mom do you have a built in HEATER!!!!\
Mr. Hillcrest and I looked at each other and just started laughing!!!!!
Here is the steaks and hamburg we bought at the slaughter house!
That is how thick they were. Matthew our youngest ate the whole thing, I couldn't!!!!!
Here they are going to do the zip line. I didn't, I took pictures of what I could because then they are zipping through the mountains and I couln't see them anymore. One of the zips they were on they were upside down and about 400ft. in the air, HECK NO!!!!!!!!
Here is Matthew, this is when they started off and just so you all know there were two people from the zip line that were with the group the whole way!
You all can tell by now it is Mr. Hillcrest!!!! He had a BALL!!
Here is Steven, he loved it!
This is as far as could see them, then I ran back to the car and you guessed it put the AC on and read a book, the zip line was and hour and a half!!!! Matthew had soooo much fun on the zip line that he wanted to do it again!!!
Here are the boys in the river. Matthew wanted to catch crawfish and they did another day and it will be on here!!!! Also cook them and eat them and Mr. Hillcrest and Matthew did!!!
Just beautiful!
Here they are catching crawfish and they did!!!! Mr. hillcrest use his hands and they are sooo fast, but he did it!!!! All three of them caught some!
Here they are cooked. Mr. Hillcrest ate one and Matthew ate the rest. Talk about living off the land!!!!
On the way through the mountain we saw this, can you see it is a bear and there were two big ones and three small cubs, they were across the street and we park the car and we took pictures and when I say we I mean Mr. Hillcrest!!!
It was an amazing sight to be outside and to see a family of bears and NOT at a zoo!
This picture was unbelieveable!!!!!!
This was an old school house, Mr. Hillcrest found it!
There was also an old grave site right there! There were mostly children and as we expained to our sons it was a very hard life back then and no were NO medications like there are today!
This is inside the school house!
Mr. Hillcrest took us for a drive through the Cades Cove and you can stop and see where the people lived back in the 1800's.
This home was where John Oliver built his home and he married and had 9 children,, YES 9 children!
They had a great view!!!
There is a built in fireplace behind the guys and there was an upstairs also!
The story of Cades Cove is the story of the community that existed in the valley for 115 years around 1821,when families began moving into the coves to settle!
Here was their church they went to and then behind the church is were alot of them are buried!!!!
Here is Elijah Oliver's home where he married Sara and had 7 children and the children back then did ALOT of chores like farming,cooking,canning for the winter months,chopping and splitting the trees for firewood for the hursh cold winters,killing animals for their meat and preserving the meat was a long process,and they made blankets out of the fur. They didn't waste much of anything!!!!!
In the kitchen you see a huge built in fireplace where they cooked but not only cooked they also ate and bathed there also. They also had their family time there. they played games, the father always told stories, the table they used to eat from they would lift the table up and it was a bench to sit on near the fireplace and inside the bench was a place to put their blanklets and supplies remember they didn't have closets like we do!!!!! They had very little but they had each other!
On our way to the John P. Cable Mill, which still works today!
John and his wife lived here with their 8 children!
The Tipton family lived here! They had 9 children.
I did take over 480 pictures but I just wanted you to see some pictures and history of this beautiful state of Tennessee. I hope you enjoyed your jounrey and the next post will be colonial and prim things!!!!
Also I have hit 200 members WOOHOO so I am doing a giveaway, something from my selling blog so please make a comment if you would like to be entered in this GREAT giveaway!!!!!!! You will LOVE this GIVEAWAY!
Thank you to all my Prims that stop by and read my blog and make the sweetest comments, it means alot to me! I wouldn't have a blog if it wasn't for all of you!!! I am soooo blessed!
Till next time prims
Blessings,
Tricia
