Beautiful Glass Art Exhibit, Hiking, Making a Long Trip Longer, Skiing
Sometimes it’s enough to get the bags packed and the kids ready; the snack food and water tucked into the car… but there’s not always a big plan when we head off… just a vague notion of where we have to go and who we plan to see. We definitely keep our eyes open for fun activities along the way. That’s how we wound up going into the Smokies, visiting the aquarium, and spending time at the nature center. Here are a few other wonderful things we did during our week away…
We stopped in and saw the gorgeous Chihuly Glass Art Exhibit. It is only in Richmond, VA until Feb. 13, 2013, but I see that there are also exhibits in at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma December 31, 2011 – ongoing and Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington Ongoing. If you ever get a chance to see these huge, colorful glass pieces it is well worth a visit. The kids were in awe! It’s hard to tell the size and scale of this exhibit, but most pieces were at least 3 feet across!
We did some hiking and I did a bit of trail running…
We had packed in our ski-gear thinking we might be able to slip in some skiing on the way back home. By putting in some long hours in the car, we were able to stop through and do some skiing before heading home.
Unfortunately, we were guilty of making a long trip longer!
Did you hear about the woman in Belgium who wanted to go 90 miles to pick up a friend at the train station in Brussels? She followed her GPS and 900 miles later wound up in Zagreb, Croatia!! You can read about the woman who drove 900 miles out of her way-here. Hubby and I did something similar (though not as drastic mind you!). We were within 250 yards of the check-in place for our resort when the GPS said to turn left. We both shook our heads, said “hmm…” and took the winding road five miles in the wrong direction! The GPS said “you have arrived” — and there were just empty fields around us! We sheepishly turned around, passed the road we had turned from and saw the resort just another minute farther on.
Once we were checked in and sorted out, we sure had fun! DD definitely has the “pizza” down pat. And happily there we no scary incidents to report this year! (Last year on the other hand, DD didn’t get off the ski lift and had to drop down off the chair from about 10 feet in the air. Poor thing!) ED still doesn’t quite have the hang of skiing, though by the last half-hour or so she was willing to let go of Hubbies or my hands for a bit! She felt a bit more confident with ski poles in her hand.
It was quite cold (in the 20s), but we sure had a great time and reasonably nice weather. It started to snow after we were done and eating by the fireplace in the lodge. Good timing!
We had some pretty scenery along the way. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous… but whizzing along at 70mph, I just couldn’t get a good shot!!
Related posts about our trip:
Road trip to the Smoky Mountains
Aquarium of the Smokies (Gatlinburg, TN)
An Amazing Nature Center (Nashville, TN)
