Ellie's First Camping Trip- Smokemont '08

Ellie had a big milestone last weekend and that was her first visit to Smokemont!!! For any of you who know the Hibbett/Fox/et.al clan, you know that Smokemont is pretty much a prerequisite to becoming a member of the family. As far as I understand it, members of the Hibbett (and Williams- Maw-maw's side) families have been making yearly (often twice-yearly) camping trips to Smokemont for 5 generations. There are tons of fun facts I could tell you about the Hibbett family trips to Smokemont, here are just a few:
- Section "D" is by far the best section to camp in during the summer, so of course that's where we camp every time
- The pots and pans used for cooking on the camp stoves and over the fire were originally wedding gifts to Maw-maw and Dee-dee circa 60 years ago!
- "Mountain Toast" is a special kind of toast made by grilling butter-laden bread and then heating over the fire. *Cousin Jason did some quick number-crunching and estimated that over 15,000 pieces of Mountain Toast had been heated in the "Mountain Toast Heating Pot" over the years.
- The "Big Rock" in the creek has served as the background in pictures for GranAnn and her sisters, Daniel and all of his cousins, and now Ellie (potentially for Maw-maw as a girl also, though I don't know that for sure).
- A several-verse song exists (written by PapaJohn, I believe) about all the Hibbett traditions and escapades that happen at Smokemont.

I could seriously go on and on, and this past weekend was only my 4th trip! Anyway, it really was a lot of fun- especially for Ellie- although given the fact that there are no showers at the campground (and the creek is freezing cold), 3 days is just about my tent-camping-limit =) I'm still too much of a city-girl at heart, I guess!

Here's a slide show-- hope you enjoy!