Wild Kindness Family

Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Day 1 (Laurel Falls, Appalachian Trail, and Cotton Candy Burritos)

We spent 5 days in Gatlinburg, TN with Dave’s parents and the kids’ DC cousins (who were probably sick of us by this point but were gracious nonetheless). We stayed close to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and spent most of our days seeing the park. The last time Dave and I were there was a few years before the girls were born.

The first thing we did was this beautiful hike up to Laurel Falls.

Laurel Falls

He’s just the cutest.

Some cousins and Aunt Melissa on the trail. She was a park ranger here years ago.

This is at Newfound Gap in the middle of the park. We had great visibility while we were there. This is looking over the Tennessee side.

We walked a little bit on the Appalachian Trail!

The park straddles NC and TN.

The North Carolina side

Hiking up to the observation tower on Clingman’s Dome.

The tower was kind of amazing.

We had beautiful views in all directions.

We took a little detour to hike a bit more on the Appalachian Trail.

My forest nymph in her element. It was really so gorgeous.

Another beauty on the trail.

This was a little hike behind the visitor’s center.

I think this girl had just scraped her knee.

After all that hiking we needed an ice cream snack. This is a donut ice cream sandwich.

And this is a cotton candy burrito, which is as delicious as it looks.

Three scoops of ice cream wrapped in cotton candy.

We finished off the day with soak in the hot tub. It was a pretty great day.

West Virginia!

From northern Virginia we took the long way to Tennessee, through West Virginia. I had never been and reeeeally wanted to scratch it off of our travel map. I was pleasantly surprised by its beauty and now have to go back someday.

Lunch in Lewisburg at Jim’s Drive-in.

We stopped for a short hike at Bush Creek Falls.

We were impressed with the rhododendron bushes everywhere.

It felt way more tropical than I had anticipated.

Free time by a river is always so fun.

Washington, DC: Day 4 (Archives and National Gallery of Art)

We started out our last day in DC riding the train as usual, and stopping for second breakfast at McDonald’s (as usual). It’s safe to say that we won’t be visiting another McDonald’s for awhile, though we thoroughly enjoyed our breakfast sandwiches and cinnamon rolls.

McDonald’s Twins!

We waited in line in the cold (didn’t bring the coats this time) to enter the National Archives Museum. We weren’t able to take any photos inside but we saw some pretty amazing things, like the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There were some other impressive documents there too like the original 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote. The entire exhibit about Records of Rights, covering all kinds of human and civil rights, was fantastic.

Then we finally got to see the National Gallery of Art. I had been looking forward to it all week. It is unbelievable how much incredible art they have in there. We had to cut it a little short because Juniper had an awful ear ache (and was such a trooper), and a few of the things I had hoped to see were off exhibit, but I am still really happy with what we were able to see.

Ginevra de Benci by Leonardo da Vinci. I might like her even more than Mona. It is the only painting by da Vinci on public display in the US.

We have the same shape 😂

The creepiest twins with the cutest twins.

This giant rooster was pretty fantastic.

And 1, 2, 3 - triplets. If I had a dollar for every photo Else walked out of I would be rich. Haha.

There was an entire room of art by Mark Rothko!

We had planned on renting paddle boats and enjoying the cherry blossoms that way but the weather continued to get colder and windier and Juniper was pretty miserable so we just walked around a bit, enjoying the cherry blossom “snow” that was blowing around. It was so beautiful.