America the Beautiful!

Over the past three weeks I have been unable to shake the song "America the Beautiful" from my head. The author who penned the original poem was a fellow New Englander. Kathryn Lee Bates was inspired to write the poem after being awed during her western travels in the late 1800's. Being a native of New England, she felt the pride of pilgrim's journeys along with the vision of early Americans, while simultaneously being overwhelmed by the natural beauty of America. Each region so different, yet so beautiful. The words to her poem, (now a well known Anthem/Hymn) were the only words I could think of each and everyday as my family and I explored our Amazing country.


We first set foot in Smoky Mountain National Park... The rivers and streams were swollen with rushing brown water. The park was experiencing a bad flood while we were there. It was eerily beautiful to us as we witnessed the power of mother nature first hand.

We hiked to a wonderful waterfall, and enjoyed the beauty of the fog surrounding the mountains, seeing exactly why it was named "Smoky Mountains"




We saw a bear on the way out of the park. He was little and heading right towards the campground, I was glad to be leaving and safe in my car. Little did I know that I would soon have the oppurnity to have a bear in my campground as well! (More on that later!)

A woman said a few words to Dale in the parking lot, and the kids got their first introduction to a deep southern accent. asking "what language was that" and once we explained accents, Alex entertained us with impersonations of southern accents. I was really struggling not to let mine out...

Next Stop: mississippi. the kids went swimming in probably the warmest lake they had ever been in. They were swimming with some local kids and again encountered the deep southern accents. Shawn didn't understand them, and they didn't understand Shawn. Very amusing.

Next stop: New Orleans





Driving into New Orleans was interesting..you can still see so many signs of the devastation, but also so many signs that New Orleans is recovering strongly. We saw the beautiful French Quarter and the downtain Market. We walked along the waterfront. The streets were crowded with people eating and shopping. It was overwhelming to think of how much the city has gone through and how far they have come in such a short amount of time.

It is a truely beautiful city!

Next Stop: Nature Hike in a Louisiana swamp.





We looked for Aligators, but never found one...

Next Stop: Gulf of Mexico

Looking at the map, I noticed that we were 20 minutes from the gulf of Mexico...I saw a "picnic" icon right on the beach and thought it would be fun to take the kids swimming in the gulf. When we got to the picnic area, we were a little suprised to see that it was indeed right on the beach, but not exactly a place we would want to picnic.

Every place in America is unique and different in it's own way..we had found complete solitude on a beach that does not often see human visitors...

Next Stop: San Antonio

It was very hot in texas, so I was amazed at how refreshing swimming in the Guadalupe River was! It not only felt nice, it was very stunning, and even the river rocks were an interesting color green!




San Antonio was a great suprise to me! The landscape around San Antonio was dry, and brown. I marveled at the amount of work Texans go through to beautify their surroundings! From maintaining the Alamo, to the downtown Riverwalk, San Antonio was stunning and Beautiful!


Believe it or not, that takes us to day 5! I will post more of "America the beautiful" later!