Laurel Falls Hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

While in Tennessee last year, we went on the Laurel Falls hike in Smoky Mountains National Park. It's a very popular trail and we had a hard time finding parking. We drove up and down the road a ways and almost left before eventually finding someone just pulling out from a a small lot down the road. 

Roundtrip the hike is 2.6 miles and is described on the NPS website as moderate in difficulty, but we found it to be more on the easy side of moderate. We saw several preschool-elementary school aged kids on the hike and they seemed fine. Although there are some steep drop-offs, so you definitely wouldn't want to take kids who weren't familiar with hiking or who are rowdy on this hike!

Anyways, it was a nice hike. The weather was nice and while there was a fair amount of people on the hike, it wasn't too busy.

After the hike we drove up to an overlook at the Tennessee and North Carolina border and saw part of the Appalachian trail.

Have you ever been to Great Smoky Mountains National Park?

Hiking in the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park

Back in April my family traveled to Washington state to visit my grandparents. February of 2020 was the last time we had been to see them so we were anxious to go back and visit! 

While we were there we wanted to do some hiking so we decided to head up to Olympic National Park. It was about a two hour drive up to Forks where we planned on eating lunch before heading out to the Hoh for our hike.

Once we arrived in Forks we made a stop at the grocery store for a couple of things, we ate lunch, stopped by the Forks sign so my sister could get a picture for her friends, and then we drove out to the Hoh rainforest. We were quite surprised upon arriving near the park at the long line to get in! There were so many people they had to do the one-car-out-one-car-in policy. We sat there for probably half an hour before getting into the park. While having to wait was a bit annoying it was nice that the park wasn't too crowded and we didn't have a problem finding a place to park. 

There are quite a few trails you can hike, the shortest of which just went kind of around the visitor center and was like a mile long. We wanted to do something longer so my sister had decided beforehand that we could do the Hoh river trail, which is just over 17 miles long. Obviously we wouldn't be hiking all of it but we thoguht we would just go as far as we felt like and we figured it would be less crowded and it certainly was. We only came across maybe 10 people. The majority of people seemed to be doing the very short trails.

I don't remember how many miles we ended up hiking. Maybe 3 or 4? We got a little bit later start to the day, lunch was a little longer than we had anticipated and then the wait to get into the park pushed us back a little time-wise, but it was still really nice to get out and go for a hike!

We were really lucky to get such nice weather. It's not often you get such beautiful weather on the Washington coast! And it was nice to get a little peek of Mount Olympus!

After our hike we stopped at a neat gift shop/outdoor store outside of the park where we were able to get a bunch of fun souvenirs, some cold drinks, national park t-shirts, and other random things.

Do you enjoy hiking? 

Quick Visit to Savannah, Georgia

Back in April my mom and I made a quick trip down to Savannah, GA, to see our favorite band, Shinedown, in concert. My sister had seen them twice previously and raved about how great of a concert it was so we were anxious to see them for ourselves. Savannah was the closest stop for us on their Revolutions Live tour and, having never been to Savannah before, we thought it would make for a fun quick trip.

The concert was on the 17th, so we went down on the 16th (a Sunday). It was around a 4 hour drive and we arrived in the early afternoon. We didn't really have much planned so we checked into our hotel and then decided to go to the nearby outlet mall to walk around. The mall had some good stores but neither of us found anything we needed. 

By the time we were done at the outlet mall it was that weird time of day where it's too late to really go and do anything else but too early to just go back to the hotel room. There was a Culver's near the outlet mall so we just went there for dinner. 

Afterwards we drove to a store we had wanted to check out but it ended up being closed (even though it said it was open on their website!) so we just went back to the room for an early night since Monday would be a long day.

Monday morning we got up and stopped by Black Rifle Coffee to get some bagged coffee for my dad. I got one of their iced coffee drinks but it was not very good. So that was disappointing! The shop itself was neat. They had a ton of military and law enforcement patches on the walls as well as a bunch of challenge coins on display. We're a military family so that was interesting to look at. 

After the disappointing coffee we drove out to the Wormsloe Historic Site. The entrance features a mile long road lined with live oaks with Spanish moss arching over the road.

The site was neat, although not particularly interesting. We walked on some of the trails and enjoyed the scenery but I had thought there was a house or more historical markers or something like that to walk through. I guess we kind of thought of it more as a nature site than anything else. There were some ruins and a couple little shacks but not really anything too interesting. 

We were only at Wormsloe for maybe an hour and a half or so before we decided to go downtown Savannah. We parked in a garage (there were a lot around and were fairly inexpensive.) and started walking towards the downtown area. 

We had just started walking down the street when a small group of people on the other side of the road from us just started screaming at each other. It was a little unsettling. You just never know how quickly things are going to escalate now a days (It definitely sounded like something that would quickly escalate.) So we quickly walked by and then the police showed up right after so something serious was going on.

Anyways, I guess you could kind of say that set the mood for the day because we were really not very impressed with the city of Savannah. We had visited Charleston, SC, earlier this year and I guess we were expecting Savannah to look similar to that. We also just didn't have a ton of time to explore the city so that may have led to our disappointment.

Essentially, the city itself just seemed dirty and not as well kept up. Architecturally there wasn't really anything interesting to see (unlike Charleston that had so many interesting historical building and streets.) There were a LOT of bars and restaurants, which we weren't interested in. There was an odd assortment of people around (there was a surprising amount of people drinking or looking like they'd been drinking considering we were there around noon.) Overall I just didn't like the vibe of the city. I didn't necessarily feel unsafe there, but just didn't feel totally safe either. And after looking up the crime statistics it appears the violent crime rate has really risen in Savannah over the last couple of years so I guess my feelings were justified.

We walked by City Market but it was mostly just overpriced art places and more bars and restaurants. We walked down to the riverwalk but there wasn't much to see there and the river itself was gross and brown so not very nice to see. (Granted, that seems to be pretty common in the Eastern US. I guess coming from the PNW I'm used to seeing nicer looking rivers.) 

It was past lunch time and we were pretty hungry. We knew we were not going to be able to get dinner because the doors opened for the concert at 6 and we weren't sure what to expect for parking and security so a late lunch worked out well for us.

I had researched a few places online before but none of them were near where we were, so we just chanced it and picked a place along the riverwalk. The food was pretty mediocre although I was being picky because I didn't want to eat anything that may cause a problem for me at the concert (haha. Didn't want to take a chance on seafood or anything like that if you know what I mean!) 

Anyways, after that we did some more walking around and made our way to Leopold's ice cream. It was highly recommended online so I thought we would give it a try. I was not expecting the long line (as you can see from the picture!). We waited in line for around half an hour. I was ready to leave sooner but my mom said we might as well just wait, so we did. I got the Cookies² and my mom got the peppermint. It was really good ice cream! We both got single scoops and it was a much bigger cup/scoop than it appears in the picture. They really crammed it in there so it really felt like you got your money's worth!

After the ice cream we drove back to the hotel, changed clothes and swapped purses (since you can only bring clear bags inside the arena.) We really weren't sure what the parking and security situation was going to be like so we wanted to get there when the doors opened. We did pre-purchase parking (which was the only way you could park at the venue) and it made it so easy. We just pulled right up, showed our parking pass and parked in a field across the street from the arena.

We were able to just walk right through security without any lines. It was all very fast and efficient. Also, the security and staff at Enmarket area were all super nice and friendly so that was good.

Just a side note but the arena opened in Feb. 2022 and was really nice. We didn't get any food (just two bottles of water and I think they were only a couple of dollars each) but they had a variety of options (lots of people were walking around with some tacos that looked really good) and the seats were comfortable and cushioned. It isn't an overwhelming size either so it was easy to navigate. We would definitely go back to an event there even though we didn't care for the city of Savannah itself!

So back to the concert! My sister saw Shinedown on the same tour a few weeks before we did so she told us about a website named Setlist where you can search any artist, arena, or tour and come up with the setlist for that artist! (Here is the setlist for this show as an example.) So I had put together a playlist on Spotify of the tour so I could listen to their setlist before the show.

We did not care for the opening bands (my sister warned us about them!) but we weren't there for them. All that really mattered to us was that Shinedown was incredible! We had such a good time and just really really enjoyed the concert. They put on a really good show, they sounded great, the setlist was great. Overall just a wonderful experience! I'm so glad we were able to go although it would have been a lot more fun had my sister been able to join us! Hopefully we'll be able to make that work sometime soon!

While we didn't care for the city of Savannah (downtown) itself I wouldn't be opposed to returning to the area as there were a few things in the area we wanted to do but didn't have time for. Like visiting Tybee Island and the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.

Have you ever been to Savannah, Georgia? Or what was the last concert you went to?