it's a small world!

During our stay at Ryan and Jenny's we decided to spend one day in the mountains. The Smokey Mountains are so beautiful and vast even at this time of year when there are no leaves on the trees. We stopped at a country store where we found a wood carver out front. He had carved animals and birds into huge logs. I stopped to ask him about it and told him there was a huge woodcarver convention in a town near ours every year. He asked me if I was talking about Ridgeway. When I said yes he told me that he and his twin brother started that ten years ago. That was when he turned around and I saw Ridgeway on the back of his jacket. He said that I should try to go to when the carvers are there. They come from all over the world since it is the biggest event of its kind in the world. I'm going to try to get there at the end of February.


While we were driving through the mountains following a quickly flowing stream along the roadside we decided to stop where a few kayakers were beginning their journey down the stream. We watched while two kayakers put their kayaks on a large rock and then pushed them off the ledge. It was neat to see. The water was cold that day and they went completly under the water and popped back up.

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