labor day

so i'm about a week behind in my posts, but at least you're still reading them! over labor day justin and i decided we wanted to go on a hike somewhere, so we got on the tennessee national park website and found out that there are tons of state and national parks in tennessee! and a bunch within a day trip driving distance. we decided on fall creek falls because it was a little under 2 hours drive and we could take riley with us. we got up fairly early and packs up our backpacks and loaded up. on the way there riley had a great time with her head out the window and her lips pushed back by the wind. she looks hilarious!
it was a great little hike. beautiful hills/mountains (i don't know how big they have to be to be considered a mountain). we were about 1200 feet up. we parked and started at cane creek falls and then hiked over to fall creek falls. at the very beginning of the hike you have to go over this suspension bridge that can only hold 6 people at a time. luckily while we went across no one else was on it. Especially for Justin as he had Riley pulling as hard as she could on the leash so she could get to me on the other side. the hike was great! not too hard seeing as how we haven't done anything like this in forever! and there were a bunch of overlooks and overall beautiful scenery. when we got to the falls, the water was kind of pathetic, seeing as how we're in a drought. which we hadn't considered before. so we decided against the hike to the base of the falls because the pool at the bottom was pretty pathetic. one of the guys there said we really need to come back when we've had rain because it's pretty spectacular. we hiked back to cane creek falls and dropped our packs off in the car. we took riley back to the cascades for a little swimming. we could have swam too if we had known it was an option, but we didn't bring our suits. there were quite a few people out enjoying the beautiful weather. the water was so clear and it was the perfect temperature. justin capped it off with a wonderful sushi dinner. yummy. we had a great day and so much fun! on monday we just relaxed and lazed around the house most of the day. we also saw transformers. i was a little skeptical, but actually really liked it. i was laughing at just because when one of the transformers came on screen for the first time, he leans over to me and says, "that's optimus prime!" he was such a little kid and so cute!