Off the Beaten Path in the Smokies: White Oaks Sinks

Large-flowered Trillium – Trillium grandiflorum

White Oaks Sinks is the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is my absolute favorite place for spring wildflowers. You won't find White Oaks Sinks on regular maps, but it's gaining popularity because of people like me who can't keep such a beautiful place to themselves and post all over Facebook and the blogosphere. How obnoxious!

So how do you get to this magical place? From the Townsend Wye, turn right toward Cades Cove. Just past the tunnel you'll see a parking lot for the Schoolhouse Gap Trail (the sign above marks the trail). Take the trail for a little over a mile, and you'll see a narrow but obvious trail on your left that goes downhill a bit. (This isn't the Turkeypen Ridge Trail that you'll pass, by the way. This trail is a little ways past Turkeypen, and not marked.) Take this trail for another mile or so, and you'll find yourself descending into White Oaks Sinks. If you go to the right, you'll eventually come to Rainbow Falls Cave. If you go more straight-ish, you'll come to a cave. Either way, be sure to traverse the whole of the Sinks. It's so well worth it. You can also take the trail behind the cave (to the right of it) and you'll see a lot more wildflowers and come to another cave. Take a look around here: the wildflowers are crazy here!

This year the wildflowers are early in the Smokies. We took this hike on April 1. Last year we went on April 10, and it was gorgeous as well. (We've also done this trail in July, when the whole Sinks is covered in waist-high grass or something. It's hot and not very exciting in the summer there, but at least the Blow Hole cave feels like air-conditioning!) So plan your hike for sometime in the first 10 days of April.

And now, enough talking. Enjoy our hike, and put it on your hiking agenda for next spring!

Blue Phlox – Phlox divaricata

Wild Columbine – Aquilegia canadensis

cute little fiddleheads

Wild geranium

Little Brown Jug – Hexastylis arifolia

Showy Orchis – Galearis spectabilis

Shooting Star – Dodecatheon meadia

Woodland Stonecrop – Sedum ternatum

some kind of ragwort

Yellow Trillium – Trillium luteum

List of wildflowers spotted:
Yellow Trillium – Trillium luteum
Catesby’s Trillium – Trillium catesbaei
Large-flowered Trillium – Trillium grandiflorum
Wild Columbine – Aquilegia canadensis
Shooting Star – Dodecatheon meadia
Blue Phlox – Phlox divaricata
Showy Orchis – Galearis spectabilis
Foamflower – Tiarella cordifolia
Bishop’s Cap – Mitella diphylla
Woodland Stonecrop – Sedum ternatum
Rue Anemone – Thalictrum thalictroides
Long-spurred Violet – Viola rostrata
Wild Ginger – Asarum canadense
Little Brown Jug – Hexastylis arifolia
Blue Cohosh – Caulophyllum thalictroides
Mayapple – Podophyllum peltatum
Spring Beauty – Claytonia virgina
Carolina Vetch – Vicia caroliniana
Pussytoes – Antennaria solitaria

Linked up with Outdoor Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday, Seven Clown Circus

On the Menu

We've tried a couple of tasty new recipes around here lately.
• Best Burgers Ever: These were really incredibly delicious. I'm not great at grilling burgers and these did burn a little when the sauce dripped, but YUM.

• Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta: This was extraordinary. I grilled a couple of chicken breasts to add to it, and we ate it al fresco at this little table. It was pure delight!

I'm trying to get back into creative meal planning. We have fallen back into the same old meals time after time, and I'm ready for some variation. Pinterest is, of course, an amazing resource for food ideas.

This week we'll be trying:
• Tuscan White Beans with Spinach, Shrimp and Feta
• Foccacia Sandwich with Roasted Veggies
• Grilled Chicken Pitas

Besides that, we'll just have a big fat salad with grilled chicken. We have a faculty awards banquet to go to tonight and another night or two that will involve a thoughtless dinner (i.e., pizza or pasta), so that's it for this week.

What amazing recipes have you tried lately?

Linked up with Menu Plan Monday

Three Beautiful Things

 

1. Easter break. Jesse is home from college for 4 days, we took a break from school, and we are in celebratory mode. Lovely.

2. Café table. This was my Great-Aunt Flossie's little table. She passed away 15 years ago at age 104, and yet here is this little table of hers still. One night this week we ate a simple dinner of pasta with asparagus and goat cheese here, with the candle lit and the flowers bursting. We were under our carport, but I swear it felt like someplace special. Oh. It was someplace special.

 3. Low country boil. We celebrated Jesse's 19th birthday a week or so late with a low country boil: shrimp, mussels, corn on the cob, sausage, red potatoes, and onions all cooked together in a big pot, poured out on the table, and served with a side of fried okra. Perfection.

What beautiful things are in your world today?

Our Top 25 Read-Alouds (ages 5-12)

We started reading to our firstborn the day we brought him home. Over the years we have read hundreds of books to our three children, from board books to great classics. Reading aloud comes in two forms in our family: as part of school (we have used Sonlight’s literature-based program for the  majority of our years) and before bed.
 
Beginning at about age 5 with each of our kids, we moved from a diet of picture books and short easy readers to serious chapter books. Don’t worry about your child not “getting” a book that is “meant” for older kids. They will. …

Below is a list of our Top 25 favorite family read-alouds. They are in no particular order, except that I listed a few series at the end. Why did these books make the list when dozens of others didn’t quite qualify? These are the books the kids remember with almost a tender fondness and sometimes almost awe. These were books we lived in, the ones that do, indeed, seem like part of our family.

{Come on over to Simple Homeschool to read more about our Top 25 Read-Alouds!)

New York City Family Style: Activities—the Metropolitan Museum of Art

We did the Brooklyn Bridge, Staten Island Ferry, 9/11 Memorial, and Top of the Rock in one long day; and we did Central Park and Times Square in a few short hours.

But the Metropolitan Museum of Art got a whole day of its own.

I have wanted to go to the Met since I was about 10 years old and read From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler for the first time. I could hardly imagine anything more delightful than living in a museum (except, perhaps, living on the prairie with Laura Ingalls).

The Met was everything I'd imagined and much, much more. I have been to some amazing art museums, including the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence; but somehow the Met touched me at a deeper level. Could be my age and experience, could be because it's been a lifelong dream. Let's just say it was spectacular.

Preparation
We prepared for our visit to the Met in a few different ways. Of course I read From the Mixed-up Files to Duncan (Laurel had already read it). We also watched the movie, which was entertaining in its own 70s kind of way. Duncan, who is in 5th/6th grade, has taken art classes for a few years and had experienced many of the artists whose works are displayed in the Met, so there was a wonderful familiarity there for him. Laurel, who is a freshman, is three-fourths of the way through a year-long art appreciation class at our co-op. Their primary textbook is Short Lessons in Art History: Artists and Their Work. She has studied so many of the artists. One of the requirements in the class is that they bring in 4-5 paintings by that week's featured artists, so it was really awesome for her to say, "I chose that painting for my class!" several times in the museum.

We've also read lots of picture books about artists. Some of our favorites are:

• Linnea in Monet's Garden
• Katie Meets the Impressionists
• Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series (Matisse, Monet, Degas, Renoir, etc.)

I'd like to check out the Anholt's Artists series, which includes Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail and van Gogh and the Sunflowers, among many other titles. We have plenty of photos from our trip to look back on and say, "Hey! We saw that painting!"

I also did a lot of research on the Met's website. (One important discovery is that the Met is closed on Mondays!) I recorded the locations of the artwork that we absolutely MUST see and took that important piece of paper with me. We also planned our general tour. We knew what we absolutely must see and what we could do without seeing, and that worked out perfectly.

At the Met
We arrived around 10 a.m. Everything I read indicated that the crowds and lines would be terrible, but we did not wait at all. Cost: $25 adults, $12 students, and free for 12 and under, so we paid a total of $62. We did eat our meal in the cafeteria, which was about double what we had hoped to pay. The kids enjoyed eating there and the food was fine, but we felt pretty ripped off. If we do this again, we would choose the American Wing Café, which is pricier but in a sunny spot with nice views, rather than the Cafeteria, which is in the basement.

Once at the Met, we decided to go to the Egyptian wing first because we knew Duncan would be instantly hooked. He was.

 

We got a good dose of sphinxes, mummies, hieroglyphics, and jewelry before heading off to the European masters. 

 On our way up to the masters on the second floor, we stopped to see lots of sculptures. Duncan couldn't believe we were actually seeing The Thinker!

And then, the masters. Oh, rooms and rooms of Monet, Degas, Renoir, van Gogh, Matisse, Cézanne, Seurat, and so many more! I was in perfect heaven. I was actually overcome with tears to be in the presence of these masterpieces that I have read about most of my life. We spent a huge amount of time in these rooms. Again, I am so happy that Duncan and Laurel have had such a fantastic exposure to artists in their co-op classes for many years now. (Thank you, thank you to Jennifer for her fabulous art classes!) And what an absolutely perfect way to enrich Laurel's year of art history!

I remember Laurel saying here, "I printed off van Gogh's shoes for art class!"

 Eventually, we were sated and Duncan was ready to move on. For an 11-year-old, he was remarkably patient and even quite interested in the masters. But we had promised Arms and Armor next, and did he ever love this section! It was about this time that he asked for the camera, and I have probably 50 images or more of weapons, armor, masks, etc. that he took.

Our last stop was the Modern and Contemporary Art section. We all needed to see some Picasso and were well rewarded.

This is also the section where Duncan loudly exclaimed: "That looks like something a little kid would paint!" Yep. I believe the painting below was the culprit.

I took over 150 photos in the museum, so it's very hard for me to leave you with just these few. But I shall resist. (Yes, you can take photos as long as you don't use a flash.) Actually, I didn't take 150 photos. Around the Arms and Armor section, Duncan took over the camera. It turned out to be a fantastic thing, because he was so interested in taking pictures of every single thing that he forgot to say he was tired or ask if it was time to go. I don't think he asked that even once!

After about five hours at the museum, we'd had enough. We were really tired of walking and standing, so we headed back through Central Park to the subway and then back to our hotel. That evening we had another fantastic meal in "our neighborhood," and our NYC trip came to a close.

Two and a half days, seven hot spots: I think we did a fantastic job of seeing New York City, family style!

Want to see what all we did in NYC? Check out these others posts:
NYC: Lodging, Transportation, and Food
Central Park and Times Square
Brooklyn Bridge, 9/11 Memorial, Staten Island Ferry, Top of the Rock

New York City, Family Style: Activities—Brooklyn Bridge, 9/11 Memorial, Staten Island Ferry, Top of the Rock

New York City is an entirely doable family trip—and one I think really must be done if you live within a day's drive of NYC! This is my third in a series about visiting NYC family style. My first post details Lodging, Transportation and Food, and my second focuses on two quintessential experiences, visiting Central Park and Times Square.

Our first full day in NYC was low cost but extraordinarily memorable. We took the subway (see Lodging, Transportation and Food) to the Brooklyn Bridge. We had done a little preparation for this visit by reading the book Brooklyn Bridge by Lynn Curlee. This was a fantastic study of how the bridge was built and the tragedies and triumphs associated with it. After seeing the bridge, we plan to read other books about it, including You Wouldn't Want to Work on the Brooklyn Bridge, Twenty-One Elephants and Still Standing, and David McCullough's The Great Bridge.

Walking out on the bridge is totally free, and the view of the city is fantastic. You can seriously feel the history as you walk on the bridge—amazing!

From there we walked to the 9/11 Memorial. This was free, but we did have to order tickets several weeks in advance at the memorial's website. Before we got to the 9/11 Memorial, we visited St. Paul's Chapel, which was a sanctuary for 9/11 rescue workers. Visiting the chapel was very moving.

St. Paul's Chapel with the new tower being built in the background.

Bell given to the city of NY by the city of London after 9/11.

View of Ground Zero from St. Paul's.

From there we went a couple blocks over to the 9/11 Memorial. If you go, make sure you bring your tickets with you!! They look at tickets about 6 times before you can actually get in. (You download and print out the tickets when you make your online reservation.) You will have to take off belts, etc. just like in airport security, so be prepared.

The Memorial itself, well, it's an incredibly emotional experience. There were hundreds of people there, yet the atmosphere was quiet and reverent. How could anyone not be moved to tears at the wall of names of those killed because of the terrorist attacks, whether in a building, a plane, or as a rescue worker? 

The 9/11 Memorial is a place for quiet contemplation.

There are two memorial pools/waterfalls, surrounded by the names of those who died.

New WTC building under construction

It was also amazing to watch the new World Trade Center complex being built. I had such a victorious feeling seeing these buildings going up. There will be 5 new skyscrapers in the new WTC; I hope we get to go back in a few years when they are all completed. The 9/11 Memorial will, of course, stay in the center of the complex.

We spent a couple of hours at St. Paul's and the  9/11 Memorial and then took a quick subway trip to the Staten Island Ferry. While researching our trip, I discovered that the Statue of Liberty is being renovated, so visits are restricted—and you can't go into the Statue itself. Rather than pay $36 for the four of us to take a ferry out to the island, we opted for the free Staten Island Ferry. The ferry goes right by Liberty Island and Ellis Island, and the view of the city is fabulous.  I could swear that when I took the ferry years ago, we rode on an outer deck, but this ferry was totally enclosed except for a very crowded tiny front deck and back deck. But still My kids have never been on a ferry, so this was pretty fun for them. And again—FREE!

Duncan thought the ferry was fun, but paled in comparison to the subway.

Ellis Island

Lady Libery from afar

View of the city from the ferry

So by 2 p.m. on this day, we'd spent only $36: $20 for pizza at lunch and $16 for the subway. Not bad for New York City!

We decided then to head to Rockefeller Center. We had hoped to do Top of the Rock but weren't sure we could fit it all in. This was the perfect opportunity. Top of the Rock is all about the views, and the views were magnificent.

 

 

We opted to go during the day rather than evening so that we could really see the city. This was by far the most expensive part of our day, with tickets at $25 for adults and $16 kids 6-12. That came to a whopping $91 for our family of 4, plus $2 for the little guidebook so we could identify what buildings we were looking at. As Randy says, "It was a ridiculous amount of money to take an elevator to the top of a building, but it was worth it." (BTW, be sure to note that sunrise or sunset trips are much more expensive!)

Our day was coming to a close after the Top of the Rock, and we were ready. But first we had to visit the Lego Store at Rockefeller Center. Duncan was extremely excited about this, and we actually all loved it. It was so way cool! All kinds of buildings, amazing Lego sets, floor-to-ceiling Lego bins, and more. We let Duncan make three Lego guys, and he was a happy boy.

After the Lego Store, we were utterly exhausted. It wasn't quite 5 p.m., but we took the subway back to our hotel in Chelsea. After a short recovery time, we headed out for an amazing dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. 

In one day, we had visited: the Brooklyn Bridge, St. Paul's Chapel, 9/11 Memorial, the Staten Island Ferry, and Top of the Rock. We'd also had a great view of NYC from the ferry and from the Top of the Rock, and seen three huge landmarks: the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the Empire State Building. We felt extremely satisfied. Our total bill for the day: $155 for transportation, lunch, and activities for a family of four. I did not add our supper tab to that bill, because I am quite frankly a little ashamed of how much we spent for dinner that night. But I will say that it was totally worth it!

Next up: my favorite day—the Metropolitan Museum of Art.