Summer 2012 Road Trip, take 2

It's hard to believe it's been three weeks since we ventured from ole SC, through the foothills of South Carolina to the blue mountains of North Carolina and the rolling hills of Kentucky. All in all, it wasn't a  terrible drive. Tallulah had some rough moments on the first day driving up to camp on the Appalachian Trail, but that was about it.

So, here goes a brief recap for posterity's sake.

Day 1: We planned on driving and camping up near Asheville, on Powhatan Lake. But, as mentioned, Lu screamed all the way to Spartanburg, and as we were closing in on Asheville, fell asleep so we kept on driving. We made it to a great campground called Big Creek up on the NC/TN border. We loved it, and stayed there two nights. We played all day around the camp, swam in (cold!) river, hiked FOUR MILES. That's right, four miles with our babies. That was quite an accomplishment for us. We met some great friends, Becki and her 4-yr-old son Monty. They were pretty awesome and vegetarians. She was a professor and Monty had long, curly hair and wore pink. Our kind of people. We had some fairly deep conversations by the campfire, while the boys played sword fight and fairies and caught many daddy-long-legged spiders.

Atticus has a newfound love of photography, and post this picture, he learned how to move his fingers

Our new-ish Deuter baby backpack, on one of its first hikes

We made it!

High-five?

I only have two baby wraps, I promise

There were so many butterflies, and they weren't scared of people and would crawl on your finger

We went swimming in this HUGE, COLD swimming hole. I also jumped off the tall rock formation, but we only have videos

Days 3-4: From Tennessee, we drove to Bardstown, KY where we spent the next two nights. It was a quaint little town with a kooky traffic circle. Background: I'm a reviewer on this website called Trekaroo, and if you write enough reviews and they like your writing, they will sometimes send you on trips or send you products to review. I've gotten free stays at bed and breakfasts in Utah, tickets to Medieval Times, outdoorsy maternity clothes, and other random products to test. This was our first big trip, and it went really well. It would've been better if Atticus had been half-interested in most of the things, but he was still a little young for a lot of it. The best thing they sent us to was Seussical at an outdoor amphitheater, which of course was stormed out after 15 minutes. SO disappointing.

Massive modern art made of tree saplings at the Bernheim Arboretum

Mammy's Kitchen, most delicious fried green tomatoes ever

Ole County Jail, which actually held inmates until the late 1980s. Hard to believe.

Now a Bed and Breakfast

The Mayor and Mayoress of Whoville

Atticus was a little terrified of the Cat in the Hat, but he is a little intimidating

Days 5-7: The day after Bardstown, we drove half an hour to Lebanon. While a nice enough town, it wasn't quite as cute as Bardstown, and there wasn't really as much to do. We were sent on tours of two distilleries and a cooperage, cool activities but not exactly Atticus's cup of tea. We sat in the car while Tim toured the cooperage, then we mostly played damage control while we watched where they create moonshine (think, boiling hot water, large vats of fermenting stuff, glass bottles everywhere). But, at least we now know where our bourbon comes from!!

We did tour this one place that will be cool in the future, but is still in the works (will one day be trails, campgrounds, cool country-western hangout bar place to go while you are camping and listen to music, eat food, etc.)

Also, Lu sat in a basket at our Hampton Inn in Lebanon, and those are all the pictures we took there

Post-Lebanon, we drove to Harrodsburg. Now, this place was pretty cool. There is an awesome old fort with restored buildings and a giant Little Tykes-style playground like looks like a fort. We were supposed to watch a play about how Harrod SAVED Kentucky from those blasted Indians, but when we realized that a) Atticus wouldn't sit still, and b) yikes! we decided to just hit the road to our sleeping accommodations  the Shaker Village. Also: cool place for either no kids or older kids, but when you are walking around old buildings with tiny beds and chairs, a 2-yr-old doesn't really get the reason they are roped off and will keep trying to sit in them. We did get to eat at a delicious cafe that is housed in the old drugstore.

The next day, we drove all day with little fanfare, arrived in Madison late and camped right outside the city. It poured and lightninged like I've never seen lightning lightning. It was beautiful but a little terrifying. We woke up, headed to Eagle Heights, and have been here ever since. And we love it. And coming up next, will be a post of all the great things so far about Madison.