Don't you love how the blue train in the background makes Sam's blue eyes just pop?

Here's Caroline in the observation car, looking out over the railing. She thought I was photographing the train and therefore didn't pose. I love the faraway look in her eyes. She stood like this for at least ten minutes while Sam chatted up the conductor behind us.

I'm sorry this one is blurred, because it's a fantastic family photo. A true rarity.

When I went down to the observation car to take pictures, Caroline had good reason to think I was photographing the train.. Seriously. I could take and look at pictures like this every day and never get tired of them.

This is a Cherokee fish trap. The stones are piled up in the middle of the river in the shape of a V with its wide end pointing upstream and its closure pointing downstream. These were hand stacked over 500 years ago, and yet the trap still stands. The women would go upstream and then start slapping the water to scare the fish downstream, where they would be forced into the fish trap, and the men could catch them in baskets.

No, we didn't ride in the engine. Wouldn't that have been cool? It was National Train day, and they had a number of free activities. One of those was this smaller tram style train. It was a John Deere no less. It took groups of maybe 20 people for ten minute excursions down the tracks. I sat in the very back of the car going out, which meant that I was in the very front coming back. The picture is so cool.