Trip to the Smokies

We met up with John, Joie, Mark, Maureen and Hailey in Charlotte North Carolina. We went on to the Smokies and met up with Cleon, Carla, Dominique, Alicia and Amanda. We are standing by the highest waterfall in North Carolina 230 feet.

Dominique and John were best buddies because Dominique LOVES his cowboy shirt and boots. As soon as he saw that John was wearing the same thing as him, he latched onto John and asked if they could be buddies. It was very cute.

This is the Billy Graham Library. This place is a wonderful tribute to Billy Graham and the ministry that he has had all over the world.

This picture is where our friends live. They built this house. They also have two beautiful cabins that they rent out to tourists. They sleep eight. I loved their cabins. Ginger decorates the cabins with fresh flowers in season, decorates them for the holidays and makes them very welcoming!

This is an old grist mill in the Smokey Mountains National Park. They still grind corn at certain times of the year. The grinder has been disconnected for the winter.

An old church in Cades Cove. Notice the two entrances...yep, one for the women and one for the men. They couldn't walk into church together. Cades Cove is a valley where people lived until the area became part of the national park service in the 1930's. When the area became a NP, they had to move.

This is in the living room of the house where Billy Graham grew up on their dairy farm. It was a very nice home.

Alicia took this picture of the buddies


On our way back to Charlotte, we got into a terrible rain storm. We were going 15 mph on the freeway and you couldn't see a thing. Tornado warnings were issued around the place where we were. The next morning when we went to the airport, our plane was delayed by at least three hours because of a bad storm in Minnesota. They told everyone who was passing through Minn. to try and find another way home. We ended up going to Atlanta where it started to rain when we arrived and our plane was once again delayed by one hour because of the rain. There was a break in the clouds and the crew was told to "get these people on the plane and out of here while you can." There was tornado warnings outside of Atlanta also. We were glad we were able to get to SLC the same day.

telephone booths, carts, etc

I have had the privilege of going to the Amish country in Ohio 5 times now. I've been enough times that I know where the cheap China shops to avoid are, and I know where the good quality "locally made" shops are. I have enjoyed every trip and find more little shops to go to every time.

These people don't have phones in their homes or businesses, but some of them do have a phone in a phone booth where you can call and leave a message. They will get back with you at their convenience.
This is a telephone booth by some houses

They put up earlage into these corn cribs.

We took a ride in a buggy

We usually eat a meal in an Amish home. This is a fun time to get to meet new people and have DELICIOUS food! I just took a trip with Joie, Sharla and Loretta. We had dinner in an Amish home. She had 27 people that she cooked for that night. She had also made over 600 doughnuts in the early morning for a big bake sale they were having. Once again we had a great time.