Some much needed Family Bonding

We were apprehensive to make the trip to Fall Creek Falls on Saturday after mapping our route and realizing that we would be "cooped up" in the car together for a good 2 hours before reaching our destination.  

But Tennessee is especially beautiful this time of year and we figured if the kids had a "melt down" we could pop in a DVD.  What did we do before cars featured DVD players?  Oh yes, I remember now ... my parents threw a foam pad down in the bed of our topper-covered crew cab truck, tossed in a couple of Barbies for the girls and some Matchbox Cars for the boys, AND WE WERE OFF (I believe that was before seat belt laws in Montana - somehow we all survived). 

The falls were AMAZING.  

Well worth the road trip!

Evidently, Fall Creek Falls, at 256 feet, is the highest waterfall in the eastern United States. There were a couple other waterfalls in the park, Piney and Cane Creek Falls and Cane Creek Cascades, that we did not have time to visit.  

You could barely see these folks milling around the mouth of the waterfalls without the aid of the camera's zoom function.

Torby was the assistant photographer on this trip and he asked me to upload some of the fabulous images he captured, so we have a lot of photos to share tonight.

Not surprisingly, my camera was loaded with several of his self portraits - like this (he says he was practicing his smile):

But he also surprised us with some shots like this which he captured while trying to figure out the zoom:

... and shots like this ...

He really liked using Annika and Kyra as his models and he didn't hesitate to chop Per's head off in most photos (ha ha). 

We decided (as in the kids and I decided and then Per reluctantly followed)  to hike to the base of the falls and further explore the area.  The trail down was about a mile of treacherous, slippery, "rock stairs".  

Quite the workout coming back up with a snugly (and muddy) kid on your back.

The snails on the path just reinforce my description of a very slick trail.

We came across some pretty cool caves along the way too but my camera doesn't do them justice (or my photo taking abilities are seriously lacking ... I'll admit it's not necessarily a hardware problem).

Here's the obligatory photo at the base of the falls ... we came away from that shot totally drenched from the over spray.

And then we wrapped it all up with a picnic at the lake which of course included feeding the local wildlife.  Turns out Ducks like Subway sandwiches (shhhhh don't tell the park ranger - I promise we won't do it again).

Actually we still had a 2 hour return trip to Nashville after the picnic but the kids' energy levels were sufficiently depleted so most of them slept the entire way home.  

Oh, Happy Day.