"How beautiful upon the mountains..." Isaiah 52.7

Tomorrow we head for the mountains. I can't wait. One of the advantages of growing up in the Tennessee Valley is that no matter where you are the mountains aren't very far away. In fact, most places, you can almost always see them. There's the Appalachians on the east and the Cumberland on the west. Since we live in the east corner of the Valley, we always go up to the Appalachians.

It's funny. Ever since I was little I've had the strange notion that these were my mountains. Like, God put them there just for me. Silly, I know. I guess that's what comes with growing up so close to them. Every time we go up I get this giddy little girl feeling. I suppose you could call it sensory overload. All of that majestic beauty and God put it all there for me!

My family goes to the mountains quite a bit since they are so close. However, most times we just drive around, stop and have a picnic, and then come home. We are expert drive arounders!

Camping, on the other hand, is a different story. We've only ever really gone camping (aside from us kids sleeping out in the back yard) 3 or 4 times that I can remember. We always enjoy it when we go, but for what ever reason, it doesn't happen very often.

Since going camping is such a rare event, preparing for it is quite interesting. Over the years my family has aquired the reputation of going overboard with regard to packing. Or perhaps you could say that we take our travels very seriously and take everything that we could possibly need for every possible situation that could possibly ever happen. I've been making out lists of the things we need to take and it keeps getting longer and longer. We always do our own cooking when we're away from home and the kitchen/food list that I've made so far covers an entire sheet of copy paper.

My Dad is the expert packer in our family. He pieces everything all together just like a puzzle and somehow it always fits together perfectly. He's also one of those people who is very fond of order. Everything is always in its place and organized so that everything is easily reached. It is for this reason (and because we have so much stuff) that we are packing everything, not in our truck, but in the trailer. When I found this out, I had to laugh. Our big trailer that we use to cart our concession business around has now been emptied into the garage and awaiting our enormous supply of camping gear. At least no one can accuse us of not being prepared!

And so, the packing frenzy continues as we make more lists and try to find everything on them and make sure they make it on the trailer. So far, we've spent the entire day on the kitchen. Whenever we finish that it's on to bath things, clothes, etc. I can't wait to get on that mountain and just sit and relax!