{"id":1379,"date":"2011-08-07T21:14:11","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T02:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/07\/smoky-mountains\/"},"modified":"2011-08-07T21:20:34","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T02:20:34","slug":"smoky-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/07\/smoky-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"Smoky Mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our family vacation this summer is to the East Coast, with specific emphasis upon sites important in American history. We will visit places related to America&#8217;s settlement, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. We also plan to see friends along the way. I am going to see what I can do in chronicling our travels day by day. I &#8216;ll probably let photos do most of the talking.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717213tb-Rainbow-Falls-hike-family-with-sign.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"110717213tb Rainbow Falls hike, family with sign\" border=\"0\" alt=\"110717213tb Rainbow Falls hike, family with sign\" src=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717213tb-Rainbow-Falls-hike-family-with-sign_thumb.jpg\" width=\"403\" height=\"271\" \/><\/a>Yesterday was a long hard drive from Dallas to Knoxville. Kelli thought this was just a logical place to drive for the first day, but my plan was that it would set us up for a beautiful morning hike to the place where we were engaged in the Smoky Mountains. I tried to keep the hike a surprise but was never really sure that Kelli hadn&#8217;t figured it out. But it was only when we drove into the parking area for Rainbow Falls that she realized that the first stop of our vacation was a place unknown in American history but very important in our own.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717215tb-Rainbow-Falls-trail-with-family.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"110717215tb Rainbow Falls trail with family\" border=\"0\" alt=\"110717215tb Rainbow Falls trail with family\" src=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717215tb-Rainbow-Falls-trail-with-family_thumb.jpg\" width=\"403\" height=\"271\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Smoky Mountains are a National Park for a good reason. Their beauty attracts travelers from all over the country. The trail to Rainbow Falls is popular because it leads to the highest single-drop waterfall in these mountains. <a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717228tb-Rainbow-Falls-trail-bridge-from-distance.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"110717228tb Rainbow Falls trail, bridge from distance\" border=\"0\" alt=\"110717228tb Rainbow Falls trail, bridge from distance\" src=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717228tb-Rainbow-Falls-trail-bridge-from-distance_thumb.jpg\" width=\"403\" height=\"271\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We, however, had no interest in the waterfall, since on a late afternoon in December 1991 we halted on a bridge and I asked Kelli a most important question.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717246tb-Rainbow-Falls-traill-Todd-and-Kelli-on-bridge.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"110717246tb Rainbow Falls trail, Todd and Kelli on bridge\" border=\"0\" alt=\"110717246tb Rainbow Falls traill, Todd and Kelli on bridge\" src=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717246tb-Rainbow-Falls-traill-Todd-and-Kelli-on-bridge_thumb.jpg\" width=\"403\" height=\"271\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first time, we were all alone and there was no one to record the moment. This time one of our children took a picture of our reenactment.<a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717234tb-Rainbow-Falls-trail-bridge-with-family.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"110717234tb Rainbow Falls trail, bridge with family\" border=\"0\" alt=\"110717234tb Rainbow Falls trail, bridge with family\" src=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/110717234tb-Rainbow-Falls-trail-bridge-with-family_thumb1.jpg\" width=\"403\" height=\"265\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And here is our tribe, standing together on that bridge where Kelli said &#8220;yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow is our 19th wedding anniversary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our family vacation this summer is to the East Coast, with specific emphasis upon sites important in American history. We will visit places related to America&#8217;s settlement, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. We also plan to see friends along the way. I am going to see what I can do in chronicling our\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/07\/smoky-mountains\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}