U.S.

Old Country Church

April 9, 2019 by 10 Comments

When we’re driving along backroads, which happens quite frequently here in Tennessee, I always enjoy snapping photos of old country churches, and whenever I see an old building, it blows my mind to think about the stories that it holds.

The photo to the left is of Station Camp Baptist Church, located in Cottontown, Tennessee (northeast of Nashville). One of the earliest frontier churches in America, Station Camp was established in 1796–the year Tennessee was admitted into the Union and the year John Adams, the second president of the United States, was elected into office.

I love this quote on the church’s website: “Just as the station camp (from which the church got its name) provided settlers and weary travelers a refuge from frontier dangers, Station Camp Baptist Church has provided a refuge for weary souls for over 200 years. May it continue to do so.”

While I have been to a couple churches that can trace their roots back to the 1800s, they have always been in more modern buildings. I thoroughly enjoyed my first experience attending service at an old country church. It happened one year ago, while Mr. Handsome and I were on vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii. …

Maine Lighthouse Tour

March 5, 2019 by 19 Comments

During our October East Coast trip, we toured the Boston area for five days, drove up through New Hampshire to the Canadian border, spent a day in the walled city of Old Quebec, drove back down into Maine, stopped at several lighthouses along the Maine Coast, and flew out of Boston’s Logan International airport. It was a busy trip with lots of stops, but we had a blast. The day we spent doing our Maine lighthouse tour along the coastal road was the most relaxing day of the entire trip. All we had to do was make it to Boston by night, so we were able to enjoy the lighthouses at a leisurely pace. It was chilly (high 40sF/9C) but beautifully sunny. Maine is home to more than 50 active lighthouses, and we visited some of the best. The most beautiful lighthouse, Portland Head Light, is highlighted at the end of this post.

Fort Point Lighthouse, located beside Fort Point State Park in Stockton Springs, is a private residence. If you wish to go onto the property, you must pay a small fee. (There were other lighthouses that we really wanted to see, so we just took a photo from the road and continued on our way.) The current lighthouse has been in service since 1857, but there was another lighthouse in that location for 20 years prior.

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Pololu Valley

January 15, 2019 by 4 Comments

Although it has been months since our trip to the Big Island of Hawaii, I still have more photos to share. My goal has been to space out the posts so they don’t become overwhelming. Compared to the other Hawaiian islands, the Big Island is quite large (hence its name). In fact, if you combined Rhode Island and Delaware into one land mass, the Big Island would still be about 1,000 square miles bigger.

We stayed in Waikoloa Beach Resort on the west side of the island. If you drive an hour along the western coastal road up to the northern tip, the road dead ends at Pololu Valley. Although it’s a main highway, it’s also a residential street, and parking is limited, but the view from the lookout point is more than worth waiting for a spot. There are no large centers along the northern side of the island, but there are several small towns that are just darling. The nearby towns of Hawi and Kawaihae have great art galleries, ice cream and smoothie parlors, and coffee shops.

If you have your walking shoes or sandals, you can hike 20 minutes down to the black sand beach. The path was steep and a little muddy, but we took it slow and snapped lots of pictures along the way.

Pololu Valley is the first of seven valleys along the Big Island’s northern coast. The seventh is Waipi’o, which has a history even richer than its lush, green vegetation (photos of that one coming later). There is a long hiking trail that connects all seven valleys, but it is an overnight trail that is known for being treacherous.

The view along the shore is gorgeous, but the view behind the beach (towards the south) is even more breathtaking.

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Florida with Friends–Santa Rosa Beach

November 21, 2018 by 21 Comments

One of the great perks of living in Nashville is that it’s only a seven-hour drive from Santa Rosa Beach. Mr. Handsome and I got engaged on St. Pete Beach (near St. Petersburg), and during our first year of marriage, we spent a few days in the Fort Myers area with friends (their relatives had a condo, so it was free). But until last year, we didn’t know about the beautiful beaches of the Florida Panhandle. It’s no wonder why it’s the top vacation destination among Nashvillians.

We weren’t planning on taking a trip in September, but when our Sunday school class planned a weekend getaway in Santa Rosa Beach, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Ten young couples rented two beach condos, and the cost per couple ended up being surprisingly low–about as much as you would pay to stay at a roadside hotel for three nights. We were expecting an older beach house several miles from the shore, and we were thrilled about it. But when we arrived and found this, we were blown away….

New Hampshire’s Flume Gorge

November 3, 2018 by 20 Comments

Last month, I shared photos from our visit to historic Plymouth, Massachusetts. We spent a few days in Boston and the surrounding area (photos from Lexington, Concord, the coast, and the Freedom Trail coming soon), drove up to Quebec City through New Hampshire, and then returned to Boston via the stunning Maine coast. It was a quick trip, but we packed a lot in. Mr. Handsome has been to Boston, but this was my first time to any of the New England states.

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Exploring 400-Year-Old Plymouth

October 17, 2018 by 9 Comments

Mr. Handsome and I recently returned from a trip to the East Coast. We spent the first few days in Boston visiting all the major historical sites with Mr. Handsome’s parents and some of his siblings and grandparents. Then we went off on our own and drove up to Quebec City through New Hampshire and back down the Maine coast. I guess you could call the second leg of our trip a “babymoon.” It was a grand adventure!

I love living history, so visiting Plymouth, Massachusetts, was the highlight of our time in Boston. Seeking civil and religious freedom, a group of 102 Puritans (known as the Pilgrims) led by William Bradford left England in September 1620 and arrived in Cape Cod two months later. After signing the Mayflower Compact, they continued on to the site that would become known as Plymouth, marked by Plymouth Rock.

The rock was much smaller than I had always imagined it. When we saw it, my father-in-law remarked, “No wonder the Pilgrims knew that this was the spot to land–they just had to find the rock with the correct year on it.”…

The Massive Banyan Tree

October 7, 2018 by 16 Comments

Two years ago, Mr. Handsome and I visited the majestic redwoods along the West Coast and were blown away by their impressive height. Many were so tall that standing underneath them and looking up only provided a view of the bottom half of the tree. Earlier this spring, we came face-to-face with yet another unique tree: the banyan tree.

While redwoods are famous for their height, banyan trees are known for their massive canopies and their unique root systems. The largest ones can take up a space of a few acres! During our vacation to the Big Island of Hawaii, we walked along iconic Banyan Drive in Hilo (the east side of the island), which is lined with a handful of banyan trees….

Fort Phantom Hill

September 23, 2018 by 10 Comments

While in Abilene, Texas, visiting friends, we stopped by a historical site called Fort Phantom Hill. The sun was just about to set on the Texas plains, and the lighting was perfect for photos.

The fort was built in 1851 out of necessity, to manage increasing hostility between settlers and Native Americans. (The area was called Phantom Hill because it seemed to disappear when approached from the nearby river.)

The Fort was only occupied for a few years before it was abandoned and burned in April 1854. Although the wood structures were destroyed, the stone structures provided shelter to various individuals over the next thirty years. …

On Top of the World

July 5, 2018 by 8 Comments

During our trip to the Big Island of Hawaii earlier this year, we drove to the summit of the world’s tallest mountain. Nope, I’m not talking about Everest. What most folks don’t know is that Mauna Kea, one of the Big Island’s volcanoes, is actually taller from base to summit than Everest. The catch is that the base of Mauna Kea is almost 20,000 feet (6096 meters) below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The entire mountain is about 33,500 feet (10,210 meters) tall, while Mount Everest is approximately 29,035 feet (8849 meters).

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Ancient Hawaiian Petroglyphs

June 8, 2018 by 10 Comments

On our trip to Hawaii’s Big Island, we stayed in a vacation village called Waikoloa Beach Resort, located on the west side of the island, about 30 minutes north of the town of Kailua-Kona. Most tourists book hotels and condos on the west side because it has the best beaches and the driest weather. The east side is beautiful and worth a day trip or two, but Hilo is known as one of the wettest cities in the United States, and the rain can easily put a damper on vacation plans.

Waikoloa is located in the middle of a lava field, which covers a large part of the west side of the island. It is home to well over a dozen condo complexes and hotels, and the groundskeepers have done a wonderful job creating a lush, green oasis in the middle of such desolation. (Don’t get me wrong, the lava fields are beautiful and unique and are one of my favorite parts about the island, but places like Waikoloa tend to feel more tropical.)

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