When we’re on vacation in the mountains, we’re gonna drink our coffee outside and watch the sunrise over the mountains, even if it’s below freezing. Besides, I thought this sight might help frighten the bears away… You’ll notice there’s no corresponding picture of me here. I’m sure that purely an oversight.
Thanksgiving we didn’t actually do much. 
Chris and I cooked, and the kids played in and around the cabin (and, of course, Daniel wallowed in the debauchery of having, like, 200 channels to watch on his own TV in his room!). We all agreed it didn’t feel as much like a holiday without family around though! Interestingly, the kids came to that conclusion on their own. The cabin we stayed in had almost everything, but not a pie pan, so we had square pumpkin pie instead. I heard NO complaints! 
Katherine was thrilled to lose a super-painful molar before we ate, because that sucker was sharp! Look at the spike on the side of that tooth! (You can click on a picture to enlarge it.)
Friday morning we headed back into the national park to visit something on our “must-see” list – Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in Tennessee. Of course, lots of other people had this great idea too, so we didn’t have the place to ourselves. In fact, the 15 
minutes of driving in circles around the way-too-small parking lot was miserable. There were about twice as many cars circling as there were spaces! We finally got parked and headed up to the dome – and I DO mean UP! Look at the picture to the right and look at the slope to that road. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not in the BEST shape of my life, but sheesh! There was no faking it on that hill. All too often the kids and I had to take a “time out” on the side of the path. 
Humiliating…(sigh) although we were not alone on the side of the path! It was brutal. Check out Caroline’s expression in this next picture. She was like, “Why are you making me do this?” In fact, that expression is worth a close-up. It’s like a preview of 13-year-old Caroline! 
The view was worth it when we got to the top though.
Here’s Katherine at the top of the mountain, about to climb (sigh, yes, more climbing) up to the observation post.
After we got back down the mountain, we were starving (all that climbing!), and I was a little desperate to watch at least SOME of the LSU/Arkansas football game. I wasn’t willing to go back to the cabin and sit for the rest of the day while Chris and the kids had fun, but I REALLY, REALLY wanted to watch it, so we compromised on a sports bar that 
promised flat screen TV's all over the place. We got a huge table, ordered food for ourselves and our starving kids, and waited. And waited. I can’t remember the last time I waited so long for food. We’re talking like 45 minutes or more. Chris was none too pleased, but I couldn’t bring myself to complain, since, HA!, I got to watch nearly the entire first half! At least long enough for LSU to get their act together and make up the 14 points they spotted Arkansas right off the bat!
By the time we were finally fat and happy again, there wasn’t time to head back into the park for a long hike, so we spent some more time walking around Gatlinburg. I have literally bazillions of pictures of the 
girls with practically every bear downtown. Daniel just couldn’t get enthusiastic about posing much… The kids were really desperate to try out the Ripley’s Mirror Maze, so Chris and I sat on a bench outside while they ran through that thing about 15 times each! The first time they went through, Elizabeth, Rachel, and Caroline got lost (Yes, in a mirror maze. Isn’t that the point?!) and started crying, until some other kids came along and showed them the way through. For some reason, this did not discourage them from heading right back in the door to try it again! While we waited, I found a store nearby that had a large-screen TV by the register, and kept up with the score as LSU rocketed to an easy win. Parenting at its finest, folks! Hey, I stuck my head out the door to check on them fairly often!
Saturday was our last full day in Gatlinburg, and we crammed it as full as we could. One of our favorite events last year was a visit to the Aquarium, so we wouldn’t have missed it this year. However, we’ve visited other aquariums in the meantime, and it turns out that last year wasn’t as long ago as we had thought! In other words, it wasn’t new and fabulous again; it was more like, “Oh, yeah. We saw that last year, too.” (Sigh) Still a great aquarium and I totally 
recommend it, but it was a letdown for us based on our fabulous experience last year. Got some cute pictures though!
After the aquarium, we split up because we had two camps that felt they had unfinished business in Gatlinburg: Chris NEEDED more time in the national park, and Caroline, Elizabeth, and Rachel NEEDED more time to ice skate. So, Chris dropped off the three younger girls and me at Ober-Gatlinburg, then took Daniel and Katherine with him to go for a long hike through the park. I didn’t feel like skating this time, but I had a plan I was looking forward to. My plan was to get a hot chocolate 
and sit on the overlook watching the little ones skate. I even brought a book and my iPod. However, I quickly figured out that was just not gonna work, and not because of the little ones. I just couldn’t walk away from the edge of the rink! They looked so adorable having fun, and kept coming over to talk or smile at me each time they went around; I just couldn’t leave. So I stood at the side of the rink while my feet ached (again, all that climbing!) and talked to the rink manager, who was skating around 
taking care of the ice and any people needing help. When I told him about the failure of my brilliant plan, he told me to go sit down anyway and he’d look after the girls, if they needed anything. Does it make me a bad person that I did? (In actuality, I could see all the girls almost every minute, except for running up and down the stairs. They found me quickly and waved frequently, but I still felt too guilty to read or anything, and within about 15 minutes I was back. Fail.) Elizabeth had gotten bored with 
merely circling the rink, so she started following the guy (I can’t believe I didn’t get his name!) around as he filled in holes and rough spots in the ice. So it was pretty cute as she played follow-the-leader with him and helped pack ice into holes. Here’s a picture of her filling a hole as he supervised. Very Tom Sawyer-ish!
Meanwhile, Daniel, Katherine, and Chris were having a great hike through the national park. They didn’t go on trails, just through the woods. They were walking along a swollen, swift-running river/creek when Chris suggested they head along the river for a while. He turned and headed off, Katherine followed, but neither of them realized that Daniel didn’t hear the suggestion and was 
wandering in a different direction. A few minutes later, Chris looked around and realized he only had Katherine with him. No Daniel. All he could see was the churning water rushing over the slippery rocks and couldn’t block the mental image of Daniel being swept away in it. Panic quickly set in as all the worst-case scenarios flew through his head. Later, he said he looked at a steep embankment he had run up and was like, “How did I even get up here?!” Of course, Daniel wasn’t in the river, and was looking for 
Chris also, so they were able to find each other within a few minutes, but they were some pretty bad minutes for Chris. :-( Otherwise, they had fun, but that terror stuck with Chris for a long time!
Sunday was a flurry of packing and trying to get on the road before the sky opened up. The picture below was taken from our balcony and you can just see the storm approaching. I won’t 
bore you with the details, (I know, you’re going, “What, oh so NOW she worries about boring us! After like a bazillion other words threatening to do just that!”) but that entire day stunk. It rained in a solid pour until after dark, and the traffic getting out of Gatlinburg is horrible. The congestion didn’t clear up until we were south of Chattanooga. Honestly, if I hadn’t known they already had company, I would’ve called up our new friends in Chattanooga (who we met on the way to Gatlinburg), and said, “Hey, you just met us last week. Would you like the pleasure of our company tonight?” But alas, we just miserably drove on and got back home around 11:30 pm. Yuck.
So that was Thanksgiving 2011. We’d hoped that Gatlinburg would be a great place to start a Thanksgiving tradition, but sadly, we found that as much as we like it, we’d like to try someplace new next year. Sooooo, we ARE currently accepting suggestions for next year’s holiday travels! We have NO idea where we want to go yet, but we’re thinking about it. If you find you’re not utterly sick of looking at pictures after three(!) blog posts on this trip, you can check out the album below.
1 comment:
Reno/Tahoe I heard is AWESOME in November....just sayin'...
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