Abrams Falls

This post could have easily been called Cades Cove...but I'm pretty sure I have a number of posts named that already.  But this one is special, because we kind of on the fly decided to tackle Abrams Falls...the kids' first 5 mile hike....I think.

Before we got to the beginning of our hike, we got to see a young buck.  I gave Clyde the camera for this one....

Then we saw two red-headed woodpeckers....unfortunately, this was the best I could get...

Here we are near the beginning of our hike to Abrams Falls.  My uncle Norman took this picture.

Norman and Iris skipping...

Iris and Clyde...

Stephen and Lucy (I was worried about how Lu would do with her breathing and light-headedness, but she took the lead and set a rather challenging pace for the majority of the hike)....

Norman, Sherry, Mom and kids...

Once we got down there we snacked and took some pictures.  Sherry took this one of Stephen, the kids, and I beside the falls...

The kids with the sign once we got back.  They're holding up 3 finger because we made it in 3 hours, actually it was 2 hours and 50 minutes, but we rounded to the nearest hour ;)

Here's what they actually felt like before I made them smile...

We finally saw a large group of turkey!!  Good thing too, Iris really wanted to "track" some.

Here's my doe...she was quite close to the car.  I literally took this from my driver seat window.

And then Uncle Norman bought each of the kids one of these!  They were excellent troopers!  Very
proud of them :)