Kentucky's Appalachia Museum, con't...

Gift Shop entrance...

a little rustic wagon, I absolutely adored...

pieces of American history, native to the Appalachia region...


and look at that beautiful old seed counter!
The first thing outta my mouth was,
"Hello! May I take pictutes, please..."

Some of the displays scattered about the Gift shop...

beautiful glazed pottery...

The Museum of Appalachia...

As we left Pigeon Forge, early on Monday morning, the skies were cloudy and threatening to rain, but as the day progressed the skies cleared, and it was absolutely beautiful as we travelled north in Tennessee, heading back towards Kentucky. Once back on I-75N, we began seeing signs for the Museum of Appalachia so we decided to go check it out.

The entrance sign as we pulled onto the property,

featured beautiful county scenes that took us back in time...

Like this rustic log cabin...

Grist Mill...


a working farm...

and the Gift Shop.

Come on.... let's go look around!

Summer '09

Our summer has been amazingly wonderful to us! We were able to take a road trip, attend a summer concert, had some backyard barbeques, hung out with our family and friends, celebrated everyday to the fullest, enjoyed our garden and rear deck, paused for a moment to complain about the weather --- although, we realize it beats some of the alternatives, LOL! and said, "Thank you to God for blessing and enriching our lives."

We've reconnect with some old friends, make time in our lives for a few new ones, had an unexpected mishap that we continue to "just deal with" for the time being, and Wow! What else?! There's still items a few things we've yet to do yet... like swim in the Lake, making that "promised trip" back to Headlands State Park and Beach... hooking up the cable from the computer to the big screen so that we can have our own little "drive-in" party in the backyard, and sleep at least one night out on the deck, just to stargaze....

But today, I spent some time editing more of our photographs from June's Gaitinburg and Back road trip, that I'd love to share with all of my friends. May you find as much peace in the journey as we did!

be back soon...

Sorry for not updating sooner...

what can I say except, "it's summer!"

Don and I have been loving life and living it to the fullest,

the Fourth of July has come and gone,

and on July 9th we had a most amazing and beautiful time at

Country Concert '09

Ft. Laramie, Ohio

We enjoyed listening to and partying with Joey & Rory, Little Big Town, and Sugarland!

More of Gatlingburg, Tennessee...

It was a beautiful morning just to stroll along the streets of Gatlingburg, enjoying the warm weather, cool gentle breezes, and this spectacular view...

we ventured into beautifully decorated courtyards,

and in and out of a variety of little shops picking up a few souvenirs,

sat and rested on the little benches that lined the streets along the way...

we took photographs of more beautiful things,

I especially loved those mountain views...

which we quickly learned were used to lure you in with things like,

"Free Tickets!" and "Dinner and a Show!" By the end of the day, both Don and I were

dodging those sort of things!

By the time we finished walking through most of this, we headed back to our motel for a nice evening swim before heading out again for dinner.

Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, Tennessee...

The one thing that I wanted to do more than anything else! Can we say someone was scared of heights and that it wasn't me? LOL! I can only imagine the views and the photographs that I could have gotten...

...moving along...

On Sunday morning, we drove to Gatlinburg, paid for all day parking,

shot this photograph so I could recognize where we parked...

{see, honey, my photography skills do come in handy sometimes, LOL!}

and the ball sort of reminded both of our hometown's mysteriously revolving ball...

and I could have stood here half of the day,

just breathing in the rose-scented mountain air that morning...

or took in more of the small, scenic, secret little hide-away's nestled in here and there...

We loved the views as we once again continued south on our journey.

Closer and closer to the edge of the mountains...

and would you believe that somewhere along I-75 S and once we'd crossed over from Kentucky into Tennessee, we see a welcoming wave coming back to greet us?

Can you believe we ran back into our buddy, JB! He saw us coming up behind him and we just had to pull up beside him and wave once again! I told you it was destined to be...

{sorry, I didn't capture that event on the camera but it wasn't too far down the road from where I captured the photograph of this one...} And as early evening began to fall, we arrived safely in Pigeon Forge...

obtained us a room for the next few days and nights, and after settling in, we ventured out for a nice ride into Gatlinburg, before returning to Lonestar for amazing Rattlesnake Margarita!