Several days in the Smokies

Yes, we took another trip. It is summer after all. Went to visit my mom in the Smokies. We took one day to visit Jonesborough(oldest town in Tennessee) and Chuckey(a town my ancestor started up, Henry Earnest-his log home fort and burial place). One day at Dollywood(and saw the awesome Kratt Brothers in a show(and I took nearly 200 pix of them, yes, MOSTLY of Chris, sigh...). Rode the new awesome Mystery Mine-loved it. And the Tornado and Thunderhead-both awesome. Had fun until the end when it began raining and we got trapped in the parking lot for an hour because traffic going out simply did not move an inch. No idea on that one, sucked rocks though.

Next day we saw the Exotic Deer Park and Petting Zoo. It was fun, though they could really use some place to wash your hands along the way-those animals slobber and walking around with your hands like that is GROSS!

Last day was putt putt golf(which would have been funner if the morons ahead of us would have been a bit faster, spent too much time waiting, and waiting). And then Cades Cove. No bears this time, but some nice shots of deer. And a nice drive.

And now I have almost 800 photos to go through and figure out what to do with. Maybe add some here.

Oh, and since we got back and before we left, we've been playing A LOT of World of Warcraft. The expansion is in Beta testing now and between pouring over every website I can find and reading everything about it and playing our characters and wanting to get everything ready for when the expansion comes out, well we've been busy. Of course, being summer, I've been playing quite a bit alongside my kid's characters. I am hoping to get back to working on the website more when she gets back to school. Fingers crossed!

Trip to Kentucky

Long trip to Kentucky last Saturday, made even longer by unforeseen circumstances.

First stop: Wigwam hotel in Cave City. Just wanted a few pix of this classic roadside site. Lots of the folks staying there were sitting out in their jammies and whatnot and I felt odd taking photos of them, so I only took a few from the car and we left.

Second stop: Stonehenge replica in Munfordville. Yep, it's right there in someone's side yard. Not a complete reproduction, but close enough and at least half full sized! Pretty cool.

Third stop: Hubby spotted a sign in Munfordville that said "Civil War site 2 miles" so we went to check it out. (there is a website but it doesn't seem well put together) "Battle for the Bridge" site consisted of a home that the skirmish was fought near and a few signs. I think there was a monument, but the sign at the home said it was on private property so we didn't even go looking for it. We saw lots of Amish in this town too.

Fourth stop: Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, 'symbolic' home. Maybe it's the same logs from the actual home, maybe it isn't. Nobody knows. Still interesting to visit.

Fifth stop: Lincoln's boyhood home. He lived in a log cabin like this from 1811-1816. This one belonged to a neighbor. When I came here in 1996ish, it was only the little home that you could walk inside and all. Now they have built a visitor center(though it didn't appear open yet) and the home is closed off because it needs major repairs. And only about 25 miles down the road from where my 3x-great grandfather was living at the time. Interesting.

Sixth stop: Lutheran Church Cemetery, Bardstown. My great-great-great grandparents, Samuel and Elizabeth Hefley are buried here. Shame that the little historic cemetery(no church any more) has seen such vandalism, almost made me cry. Luckily I took lots of other photos of the graves around them, Elizabeth's father, Conrad Mathes, was there-and possibly a Revolutionary War soldier! There are no military markers or anything to note this or the fact that Samuel was a sharpshooter at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814. Shame.

Seventh stop: Frankfort Cemetery, grave of Daniel Boone. Very interesting. Great view of the Capitol building across the river. Would love to spend more time there. Took lots of photos of the Kentucky War Memorial as well. The man who wrote "Bivouac of the Dead", Theodore O'Hara, is buried here. Incredible.

Eighth stop: the Castle of Versailles, just outside Lexington. It burned down a few years ago, but it is being rebuilt to look similar but bigger and better! Pretty cool place.

Ninth stop: Disappointedly driving by the farm where Affirmed, Triple Crown winning racehorse, is buried. But alas, there doesn't seem to be public access to the grave. Big fancy gates, some big event was going on. At least I got close. I loved Affirmed.

Then came the ride home. It was about 3pm and we ate lunch in Lexington at an Arby's. Then caught I-75 south to Knoxville and then I-40 west to home. Because "going back the way we came would be boring". Wish I hadn't said that. Not far past Knoxville, but PAST the 40/75 split, and a few miles past the Clinch River we hit traffic. Not just traffic but actual STOPPED traffic. It was right at 7pm. After an hour and we hadn't moved much, I called mom(who lives near Knoxville). It wasn't until 9pm(yes two hours) and we hadn't moved but a mile or so that mom called back to tell us what the local news told on the problem. A truck had crashed with a few other cars. A tanker carrying Titanium tetrachloride. And the interstate was shut down for 10 miles, the accident being at mm331. We would be rerouted off at exit 338. Onto a two lane backroad of Highway 70. It took us another two hours to get to the other end of 70 and back on to the interstate at exit 229. FOUR HOURS. The accident happened at TWO PM!! There could easily have been a sign before the 40/75 split in the FIVE hours after it happened and we could have gone south on 75 to Chattanooga and gotten home sooner! But noooooooooooo! As it was, we sat on the interstate and inched down a hilly backroad for FOUR hours and got home close to 1AM! Yes, thank God that nobody was injured seriously in the accident. And the tanker never blew up though they eventually closed Hwy 70 because it runs right next to and under the interstate right where the wreck was and rain was coming and water mixed with this stuff creates Hydrochloric Acid! Great, good to know we were that close to DANGER!

I think THP could have done a much better job rerouting way earlier than they did. They would have known right off the bat what was in this tanker. And that rain was COMING(hello? supposedly they hydroplaned in the RAIN and caused the wreck in the first place!). Guess I just chalk it up to a very interesting experience. And I got some interesting night photos of the traffic with my camera, playing with the settings until I got them just right. Had plenty of time to do so.

This past week

It's been a busy week. With the Fourth of July and the weekend, here is what I have been up to:

Fourth of July:
We grilled out, and watched "1776", a classic and a must for watching that day. And we played a LOT of Warcraft. All weekend.

Saturday:
We drove out to Wilson County to visit a cemetery that hubby had come across. And what luck, a Revolutionary War Soldier buried there!

John Williamson, Green's North Carolina Regiment. I will be adding more info about this cemetery to the website soon, I hope.

Sunday:
We went down to Manchester to visit the Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park. It was a very nice mile and a 1/4 hike with a few waterfalls to stop and photograph. Got to play around with my tripod and using slower shutter speeds to get those cool blurry water shots. Not extremely thrilled with how most of the photos came out, but I am still learning, it was my first try doing that. The site was very interesting, completely not what I had expected before visiting. But I love to learn and it was fascinating. I want to make a resolution to visit every park listed in the book "Hikes of Middle Tennessee". I should post about that tomorrow maybe, list the ones I have already visited, list the ones I want to visit the most. Man I love to travel.

No more Flickr

I have deleted all the photos I had on Flickr. It wasn't very many, but I don't want to do business with them anymore. I was listening to Kim Komando show this weekend and she talked about how Flickr is not a very trusted site. I know I can't keep my photos completely safe, but seeing as how it seems people troll that site for photos to steal, I'd rather not have any of mine there.

I will continue to watermark my photos as well as post a photo a day on my other blog(when I am available to do so), and eventually add them to my private website. Not interested in hosting them somewhere else for now.

Guess I'm a dummy!

At the library today. Checked out "Digital Photography for Dummies". Huge, thick book. I'm about halfway through it. Learning alot. I suppose I could just point and shoot all the time, but I'd like to be able to control how the shots look at times-when I have time to think about it. Still get so confused over all the f-stops and shutter speeds and ISOs and what the numbers mean. And I've been taking photos for over 20 years. Sigh. I guess I've been mostly lucky up to this point. I hope this book will help me take much better photos. Still adding a photo a day at my other blog. It's fun looking back through photos to find something that matches the theme. Have not had the chance to go out and take a photo that applies-only using old ones. And I have quite a few to choose from. Used one from 1989 yesterday! Fun times. :)

Playing too much Warcraft

Just in case anyone is wondering. I got sort of hooked on getting something done and lost track of time. Sigh.

Father's Day weekend

Did not get much done these past 3 days. Well, depends on what you mean "done". These are some of the things we did in the last 3 days: signed up for library summer reading; research on some Blount County cemeteries; about 10 Rutherford County cemetery pages done for website, not uploaded yet; car tires rotated; more photos developed(more hockey photos); buy Father's Day gifts; watch "Blazing Saddles"; watch Tiger come from behind on last hole to tie up US Open; watch "When We Left Earth" on Discovery Channel; and lots and lots of World of Warcraft!

That about sums it up. More work to be done on cemetery section of website coming today.

Graveyards in the Smokies

Quite some time ago I really wanted to be able to visit and photograph all of the graveyards and cemeteries in the Smoky Mountains. After spending my honeymoon hiking six miles to one-and then not being able to walk for a couple of days-I realized that I won't get to most of them. But I cannot resist the ones that are more accessible. With our visit to the Smokies a couple weeks ago, I was able to add one to the "visited" list.

Cades Cove is an area in the western part of the park, located in Blount County and one of the more popular places for people to visit. The one-way loop road attracts thousands of cars a day in the hopes of seeing bear in their natural habitat(see post a few days down). There are three church cemeteries, easily visited and well marked. There is the Cable Cemetery, located near the visitor center at the far western end of the loop road. The Lawson Cemetery is not far from the Dan Lawson home, but it is in the woods and up a hill and not often visited. I finally was able to visit one that I had not previously, the LeQuire Cemetery. It is not far from the end of the loop, in a field near a pullout. There had been a fence up(as there is around most of the inner edge of the loop), but on this visit a section of fence was gone and a large path was cut into the high grass of the field leading out to the small graveyard. Finally I was able to visit when so many times I had just looked longingly as we passed by. To my dismay, there are absolutely no marked graves here, just a few simple fieldstones. But at least I know now and have photographed it(below).

We also took a trip through the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, a smaller version of Cades Cove just outside the town of Gatlinburg. It is darker and hillier though. Many of the trails start from this area, as was evidenced by the many parked cars at each of the trailheads along the way. Parking at the back end of the Baskins Creek Trail and walking about 50 yards along the trail leads to the Bales Cemetery. I've been there previously, but had not taken as many photos. This time the gate was open and I ventured inside to get many more photos, including the "one little headstone" photo below.

A final cemetery we visited was not in the park, but certainly in the shadow of the mountains there. It was the Huff Cemetery, in far eastern Sevier County, almost into Cocke County. We went in search of this cemetery to look for Revolutionary War Soldier Joseph Large. Luckily the graveyard was easy to find next to the road, and well kept. Aside from some obvious signs of vandalism, this was a very nice little cemetery. Strange how my camera battery died JUST as I photographed the marker for the found soldier. I took it as a sign, just to say "hey thanks for looking for me". But then I'm weird like that.

Finally got the photos back!

Yeah, so Kroger was a day late with them-I will be going to Walmart and using the one hour service from now on. Can't handle waiting a week!

So what were the photos?
Roll one...Battle of Franklin/Nashville reenactment, October 2004

Roll two...kiddo playing softball, IRL race July 2005

Roll three...hockey, Predators vs Columbus Blue Jackets, ?2002 or so

Roll four...lots of pix of kiddo, Memorial Day at Henry Horton State Park, 2002

So nothing spectacular, but some good memories!

Just too hot

We went out looking for something to take photos of yesterday. We tried to find a long hidden cemetery, but were just not looking in the right place-very close, but just a bit off(I can see it in the aerial photos, but the area from the ground looks a bit different now). Then we headed in a round about way to Cannonsburgh Village in Murfreesboro. Would like to have stopped at a few graveyards along the way, but we were in sort of a rush I guess. At Cannonsburgh there was a wedding taking place, and I felt a bit odd walking about taking photos. Did take a few, but it just got so darn hot that we left and then went home. We should have left earlier in the morning. Oh well. Anxious to put my camera to really good use and don't want to drive around alone now.

I've also been really bored lately. Not "bored I need something to do" but "bored and I have loads to do but I don't feel like doing anything at all". Sorry. I'm trying.

No actually I'm not trying anymore. I am not allowed to voice my opinion anywhere, when I do I am chastised. I should just shut my f'n mouth and crawl in a hole.