Austin, TX...continued
We went out one evening to watch the plethora of bats emerge from the Congress St. bridge. Unfortunately, the camera could not capture it, so you'll have to believe us that it was really cool. There were So Many. We watched as they kept coming and coming for a good 20 minutes. People watched in groves. Cool that such a big natural spectacle happens every night right near downtown.
The gals. Fawn and Amy have been BFFs since 6th grade. Thanks for the great stay Fawn, Stephen, and Nyah! Hard to say goodbye, but it's time to move on eastward. But first, a stop in Round Rock, TX for a nostalgic trip down Amy's memory lane She lived here during preschool and elementary school. Yes, folks, if you didn't know, Amy has a little Texan inside her.
Round Rock, TX
THE Round Rock. Wow. Ain't it grand y'all?
Lil' Amy's old house.
We drove through fairly quickly, but enjoyed seeing bigger trees than we had in a few states.
Then, Tennessee, also a fairly quick tour through, but we stayed at a nice forested campground and enjoyed our first taste of the east coast woodlands. Patrick really started to feel close to home here.
Next stop, great smoky mountains! Then, well it's hard to believe, but we are about done. Maybe I should say "done." Cuz where the 'end' is for us, is hard to say. But I know we ain't there quite yet.
After a summer that lasted long into October it finally felt and smelled like back to school weather, which really made us miss Pathfinder.
Crunchy Leaves!
The Appalachian Mountains. This is about as tall as they get in the southern areas.
They used the biggest log around for the bridge.
Cool gourd bird feeders.
Walking around in crispy fall leaves with dry feet was very familiar, but it's been a long time.
An old Appalachian apple cellar.
Moss eye view.
The ferns here are tiny.
Last camping meal of the trip in Cherokee, NC. Pille family you will surely recognize my bowl.
Groundhog! Amy's first time seeing these guys.
I've seen these in books for years, but never in real life. A caterpillar that looks like a snake, a cartoon snake.
Out of the mountains we landed in cool-town Asheville, NC where we ate some delicious farm-to-table food (organic fried chicken = num), and then had chai in a snazzy double decker bus coffee shop.
Cool street art...
Then we spent our last night camping, with temperatures in the 30's so ... yeah....we're done. We've only stayed in 2 hotels this whole trip, and we've gotten our fill of tent sleeping and dish washing by headlamp for awhile.
Here's our continued route:
We're in Raleigh now but we'll head up to La Plata on Saturday, which, here with family I guess is just about the 'end' of the trip. It's been about 7 weeks of camping and staying with friends, and it's great but very sad to be finished. After more than a decade each in Seattle, we're a little homesick already and it will sink in even more as we start to settle here.
P.S.
And we finally unpacked the fossils from way back in Fossil Oregon and got a good picture of the best ones. We looked for about 2 hours, finding lots of little bits of fossils, and a few larger ones like this. I especially wish that I could spend more time looking now that I'm so far away.
P.P.S Gas in the east is CHEAP. I'm not sure I ever saw it below $3 in my dozen years in Seattle. Top price was $5.01 for premium in LA. Yowzers. It pretty much got cheaper as we went east.
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