My weekend trip... - Mary Bonner

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the skies announce what his hands have made.

Psalm 19:1

Last week, I posted that we were taking a weekend trip. Our friends that were meeting us from St. Louis couldn’t come, then John had a work issue come up and we ended up leaving a day late, but decided to make the trip to one of our favorite camping places even though it would be short. An 11 hour drive…we arrived at our destination about 9:30 am on Friday and left about 10 am on Sunday to start home. When I commented that I wished we would have had more time, John pointed out that it is good to go when you can, even if it is for a short time. I think he is right. It was a great trip and I decided to share some pictures today. If you have the opportunity to visit Great Smoky Mountain National Park, you should. Our favorite place to camp is Cades Cove.

Once we arrived and got set up, John took off on a bike ride (short one – only 50 miles or so!) and I was going to meet him at the Visitor’s Center. The drive is a beautiful one with the road running along this stream. Not a lot of traffic, windows down, speed limit of 25-35, you could hear the stream is was great!

The visitors center was very interesting. Then I started back. More beautiful sites.

These butterflies were beautiful and they seemed to be everywhere! Sometimes they were in the grass and it looked like they were eating something. Often there were bees around too.

While having my quiet time and coffee on Saturday morning, this is what I saw. By Saturday afternoon the campground was full, but this was a great view. Then, I took a walk through a portion of the loop road. There were not too many people, a lot of the time just me, the woods, the quiet and the Lord. This stream was beautiful…the picture doesn’t do it justice.

I saw a lot of animals. Including deer, a mama bear and a baby cub. The cub was the smallest I have ever seen and I have seen several in Cades Cove over the years. Since cubs are born in April, it is possible it was only a month or so old, but it was too far away to get a picture. But I did get this picture of a pileated woodpecker in the campground.