Camping at Cave Mountain Lake Rec Area

For the 4th of July weekend we made a whirlwind of a trip, first we dropped our dog and camper off at my parents' house in Rocky Mount, VA and then headed southwest to Morristown, TN to visit Jason's grandmother for the 4th of July. His mother drove up from Chattanooga and we had a nice little family reunion of sorts for two days.

But, being the nomad family that we try to be, we couldn't stay in one place too long. So after two nights we packed up our van and headed back up to my parents house. We hitched up the trailer, loaded up the dog and headed for the hills. We chose our destination just by choosing one of those little tent icons on the map. The campground we chose was located in *I think* Jefferson National Forest. We had never camped in a national forest before so we didn't know what to expect. The campsites were VERY nice, secluded and wooded. However there were no electric hookups and we did not have the foresight to ever TEST the battery hookup on our camper so we found out the hard way that there is something wrong with our electrical wiring in our camper and the battery connection doesn't work! So we were roughing it (Hahahha) with no electricity! Truthfully though the only "electrical" stuff we can use when our camper is running off a battery are the lights and we have a propane lantern and flashlights so we really weren't missing out on much.


We had a great camping trip, the first night we set up and grilled hot dogs on the grate over the fire for dinner. The next day we got up and went to the lake, it has a beach area and we thought we *might* go swimming but after seeing the mud area I mean beach area we decided that we'd find some other recreating to do that day. Jason and Hunter fished for awhile and Jason caught a few palm sized largemouth bass. Then we decided to "explore" and ended up at the trailhead of a 2 mile hike to Apple Orchard Falls. "Two miles?" we thought to ourselves, that shouldn't be too bad. So we loaded Nathan into the backpack carrier and Jeremy into the ring sling and away we went, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up... are we there yet? up, up, up, up, up, etc.... until FINALLY we made it! The falls were somewhat disappointing, there was only a mere trickle "falling" down the rocks, I guess the drought is affecting even the higher altitudes. (Note the "falls" behind us in the picture) We stop for a few minutes, admire the drops, and head back down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down..... etc... until FINALLY we see our van! I swear seeing our van was infintely more satisfying than reaching those blasted falls. So we load up and head back to camp. Did I mention that Hunter was on foot for 95% of the entire 4 miles?? He's a tough little hiker!

....Later that night, the boys are ready to roast marshmallows. SOMEONE forgot to put our roasting sticks back in the camper after our last camping trip so we had to find sticks. Nathan was not patient enough to let one of us find him a stick, so he found one on his own...

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

So finally we're putting the kids in bed and we just hang out for awhile, watching them be kids. I snapped a few pictures, they put on a show for us. We love being parents, what an awesome responsibility we have!