The Great Getaway 2020- Part 1

I feel like I'm falling behind on blogging again.  I've told myself that I would catch up when the kids go back to school.  In fact, I've told myself that I will catch up on a lot of stuff when the kids go back to school.  After a trip to Wal-Mart today with the little sweethearts, I started to twitch at the thought that these kids may NEVER be going back to school.  AHHHH!!    Therefore, I better proceed with blogging about vacation while I have time.  I could see us being back to full fledged online school here in a couple of weeks.  EEK!

Jon has to plan his vacation days for the year in early January.  We had originally selected a different time for our vacation, but he was bumped by someone with more seniority and we were left with this week.  Little did we know at the time what a perfect week it was going to be to get away from his job with all the violence unfolding in the city. 

We were praying for wisdom up until the moment we left, but then finally decided to just continue with our vacation plans.  We kept wondering if Jon would have to come back early or get called into work, but he never did.  It ended up being a wonderful time to just get away from it all.  We can certainly see that the Lord's hand was at work!     

Day 1 was spent at Cumberland Gap National Park in Kentucky...and Virginia...and Tennessee. 

When the kids got to bickering, I separated them into their own states.  Natalie sat in Virginia, Scott sat in Kentucky, and Kate sat in Tennessee. 

Here Scott is standing on the point where the 3 states come together- super cool!

 It takes a special big sister who will carry you UP the hiking trail!

This may look like a simple picture on top of a small pyramid, but it took some scrambling to get everyone up and down from it.  Harder than it looks!

The biggest downside to traveling during the pandemic was the hotel pools were closed!  Usually the hotel pool at night is the incentive for most of us to complete the hikes that Jon has selected.  Each night, we'd venture to the hotel pool, stare sadly at it, and commiserate about how we couldn't swim.