travel
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Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park, Tennessee
I always try to take advantage of a road trip to visit a historic location. We have loved visiting forts on the coast and when I looked up the town where we were headed for a wedding, I looked up points of interest in the area. I came across Fort Watauga at the Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area. The visitor center hosts a gift shop, a museum and the fort is built by the Watauga River. It is a reconstruction of the original one. There is a one mile loop trail that follows the river as well as an arboretum, a butterfly garden and an amphitheater where they would usually…
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Spring is in the Air: Our First Hike of 2021
As soon as the weather gave us a taste of spring, I corraled the kids and we headed to our nearby state park for our first hike of the year. I was very nice and chose a short 1 mile hike that I knew would be an easy one for everyone and a way to ease in back into walking outdoors again. Thankfully everyone enjoyed the hike! We gave our 6 and 10 year old some old cell phones to take pictures and they thought that was really fun and spent a lot of time finding things to take pictures of. I love how when we hike, we always see…
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Tennessee Aquarium: February Visit
After our last visit to the Tenneesee Aquarium during the Christmas break, I told the boys we would take their cousin on our next visit and try to visit a few more times before our membership expires at the end of May. We just made good on that promise this past President’s day. Chattanooga is just 1 hour and 30 or so from our house so it is not a bad drive. This time around, the return trips wasn’t as fun. It rained consistently and heavily for about 45 minutes and I was also dropping my nephew home which added an hour and half total to our ride. It still…
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Finding Beauty in Small Things in Nature
While we do not have the cold and ice from up North, it has gotten fairly cold here for us in Georgia with most day temps averaging between 30 and 45 degrees. Lows do get in the 20s and high sometimes get in the 50s but add some wind to the weather and it can get downright cold. After a January with very inconsistent walking, I vowed last week to do better with getting out there and walking and hopefully back to running regularly. I did have some issue with my right shin after my first run last week so I am going to be careful and watch it with…
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2021 Travel Plans
We were able to go on vacation a few times last year, choosing spots that offered outdoor activities and where we knew we would not be around too many people. That allowed us to spend quality time as a family and gave us a nice break from our daily routine. In these uncertain times, that is how I am planning this year’s vacations: no traveling abroad but taking advantage of what our nearby states have to offer. Spring Break My husband brought home a Southern Living magazine from the grocery store last week and while I had originally planned to spend a week in North Georgia for spring break, pictures…
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Tennessee Aquarium: Part 2
Last week, I shared some pictures from our winter break visit to the Tennessee aquarium in Chattanooga. It felt good to get out of the house and do something fun. We enjoy our visit as well as a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant. We found a cool spot for pictures outside: this painting was really pretty. Now isn’t this leopard ray amazing! I shared a lot of these pictures on my Instagram and thought this was a propos for all of us lovers of prints and leopard. Did you know that this creature existed? The sea turtle was very agreeable and hung out near the window where we sat.…
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Tennessee Aquarium: Fun Winter Outing
Last January, before everyone’s life changed in one way or another, our family took a short weekend trip to Chattanooga and one of our outings was at the Tennessee Aquarium. It wasn’t much more to add a year membership to our admission (with our family of 6, I think it was only 30 dollars more) but we ended up not going back till now. Thankfully, since the aquarium was closed for 3 months, they added 3 months to our membership so we will be able to go back a few more times till the end of May. I had forgotten how enjoyable the aquarium was. It was a cold and…
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Seaside: Bike Ride and other Fun
I am concluding my Thanksgiving travel posts with a little ride through the town of Seaside. Seaside is a beach town that was created in 1981. It’s appeal is very visual with its colorful pastel cottages, a town square accross the beach, pretty shops, and parks. The Truman Show movie featuring Jim Carrey was filmed here. We rode our bikes through the neighborhoods, the children played on the playground hidden near the tennis courts and I browsed in the shops. I love how most of the houses have little signs letting you know where the owners are from. The cottages are mostly large and while having similarities are very different…
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The Adagio: Spending More on a Vacation
I have one more post to share about our trip to the beach this past Thanksgiving with little tour of Seaside. Today, I wanted to share where we stayed and discuss why I was okay with spending more than we usually do on a one week vacation in the US. As I have mentioned before, we chose to rent along 30A in Santa Rosa beach because we wanted to rent bikes, there were several pretty little towns to explore and the beaches are beautiful. The Adagio I usually pride myself on finding nice accomodations for a low budget but this year, I decided that since we were not going to…
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Gulf of Mexico: Beautiful Waters
I wanted to dedicate a post to some of the beautiful pictures I took of the sunsets and the beach during our vacation along the Gulf of Mexico in Florida for Thanksgiving. We were blessed to arrive just a little bit before the sunset set on our first day and it was the most magnificent sunset of our vacation. My son actually took this particular picture and I love how the sun reflect on the water and the breaking wave. I usually wake up early to walk on the beach but I didn’t sleep the best on this vacation (I blame the pillows and not being used to a king…