Voss Vaca 2020 - Day 6 - Stones River National Battlefield

We must have been gluttons for punishment, because even after a day in Kentucky with 5 miles of hiking and then a 2 hour drive back to Tennessee, we still went on another hike the next day!  As usual, I planned lots of activities for most of our time out of town, and Day 6 was earmarked for Stone's River National Battlefield.  I didn't really know what to expect, as I don't think I've ever been to a battlefield before.  It turned out to be a lot of hiking trails around the area where the battle had taken place.  There were a few carts and cannons around, as well as fences and signs describing the location and what happened there.  Michael and I decided after this day, that the maps key was off, somehow, or we weren't reading it right...  Because, again, what we thought was going to be a mile(ish) hike, turned out to be 3 miles.  Again, it was mostly through trees and in the shade, so we kept relatively cool.  But, as we aren't usually big hikers, a couple days of activity at this level took it's toll on us, and we were pretty beat by the end of the day, as well as the next day.  Also, the kids' Junior Ranger books had a lot of activities that needed to be completed in the Visitor Center and Museum, which were closed due to COVID.  So we had to do a little internet research to complete some of the activities.  Also, the kids couldn't get sworn in that day, as no one was there.  So I'll be mailing int heir books and hopefully they'll accept their work and mail their badges back to us.  We'll see.  Despite the hike being longer than we intended, it was beautiful!  The kids liked being out on the gravel road area more, as there were fewer bugs.  I didn't think the bugs were as big of a deal, and I loved being inside the trees and following the small winding trails.  Enjoy these pictures from our day!  

I mean, come on!  Isn't this scenery awesome!!  I love it so very much!  Really, a lot of this trip, my favorite parts were when we were out hiking, and it was quiet and we were alone.  It was amazing!  I did, however, send Sis a little video while we were here, maybe I can get it uploaded to youtube and post a link...  No spoilers!  ;-)

My hubby is so cute!

Already walked 2 miles and have another mile to go to get back to the car.  She got tired and whiny before I did.  I think 2ish miles is just about the right length for the kids at this age.  However, we pushed them to 5 miles and 3 miles over the last two day.  Oops!  

We saw a dear in the field at Stones River as well!  Can you see it's head poking up?

Finding some of these stops to complete their books were pretty tough!

There were several of these silhouettes in the trees that took us ages to see!  The confederates certainly had better positions hiding in the trees here than the union did in the open fields!  😳

We found out during this hike that Turkey Buzzards nest in flocks and that they make a crap ton of noise when they fly and will really freak you out if you don't realize you're coming upon them!  😳

Still wore our masks at the beginning of the hike when we walked from the parking lot to the trail because there were a few people around.  I was shocked at how few people, over the course of our entire vacation, weren't wearing masks.  But then again, Trump is president, so I should be aware that about half the country struggles with brain wattage... 🤷🏼‍♀️

So there you have it!  I got all the pictures from one activity onto one blog!  Woohoo!!  Sorry they're out of order.  I figured out what's going on with my phone.  It's uploading pictures to Google Photos, but not as fast as I took them, apparently.  So it has 800 pictures left to upload, and it's just going slow.  So until they're all up on the cloud, I'm not removing them from from my phone.  So I added all the cloud pictures first and then added my phone pictures to the end.  Hope that works! 🤷🏼‍♀️ Love ya!