Getting back to Normal??????

OK..We went on a jaunt to the Smokies for the week so Hawaii got put on the back burner~

Going to the Smokies is always fun and we do it at least once a year but we were not prepared for it being in such a mess from the bad winter we had. We were especially disappointed in that Cades Cove was closed and that Cherokee was under such mass renovation. Partly for a facelift(for the gamblers I'd bet :) and partly because they had 12 FEET of snow this winter! But we did see dogwoods,
redbuds and lots of wild flowers

and all the tree's springing forth proclaiming SPRING again.Oh and I saw Trilliums.. my most favorite favorite! We saw some little ground hogs and lots of birds. No deer, no chipmunks :( We spent a lot of time in long lines waiting for flagmen. But the Smokies never disappoint me and we came back by the Ocoee River that is just reopening from the rock slide so we saw some interesting things!

And Post offices, lots and lots of post offices. We do belong to a PO club and photograph them and we found I think about 20.
We also took a tour of E. Chattanooga where my husband grew up. It was really very cool. He commented that it was a black neighborhood now. I said, well they probably always lived near here and he said "well I never saw any in school or on the playground" LOL We just looked at each other and laughed. It seems like a life time ago doesn't it. And now I see and feel some of the hate I witnessed in the 60's creeping back.

TooSweet of course had a blast. She got extremely upset when she saw us packing the car, but as soon as she saw Penny and Spike leave she was JOYFUL! Poor Penny had a belly ache and had to be on some medicine, but she came home all bright eyed and happy. Spike just came home with the same attitude he left with :) The first thing he and TooSweet did this morning was catch a mouse and tortured it for hours! Nice aren't they?

So now back to the every day every day :) I'll try to work on a Hawaii episode tomorrow. I don't want to forget what we did.