Hanging Out in the Mountains

Know one thing we did on vacation that was glorious? SLEEPING IN!! We turned off our alarms and woke up whenever we wanted. It was delightful in every way.

We took it easy getting going Sunday morning, and before we headed out for some mountain adventures, we made a quick stop at Dunkin' Donuts. {Something else we don't have at home.}

{Ryan had two also...he was just still hiding one in the bag for the picture. Didn't want you to think I was a bigger pig than I really am.}

The forecast was questionable that day, so we decided to drive the Cades Cove loop in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I think this was another find on the Mom Creative blog, but I'd also had friends recommend this one to me, and since this was one we could do partly from the car, it seemed like a good fit for a maybe-rainy day.

It wasn't SO far away from the hotel, but it took us about an hour to wind our way there, and once we arrived, we had NO cell signal until we got back to town. Six hours off the grid was a lot for me! WHEW!!

So if you've not been there...Cades Cove is this eleven mile, one-way paved road that loops in a small section of the park. There are all kinds of cabins and trails along the way, and you can pull over to tour any of them, if you want. The views are incredible.

We found this little waterfall on our way into the loop. 

 

Never get tired of the mountain view. 

 This church is an old Methodist church...and we stopped to tour it and walk around. I love envisioning what life would have been like when churches like these were in use.

 Ryan tried the piano. I think he has a little Michael W. Smith look going on here!!

 Where are the Shaffers??

It was actually starting to rain when we took this picture, so we sat in the car for a while to see if the rain would pass, and it did.

I'd read about Abrams Falls...and it was next in the loop, so we thought we'd "hike" to them for pictures. And when I say "hike," of course, I mean I thought it would be just a short walk from the car...and then this sign:

I convinced Ryan to head back to the car for our box of granola bars and some water bottles, and boy were we ever glad later that we made THAT choice. While there are MUCH harder trails, I know, this was the hardest trail I'd ever walked. LOTS of climbing up steep hills, lots of mud {thanks to the rain that had just passed through}, and the ever present fear of bears and snakes. But the scenery was gorgeous and completely worth the sweat and rain and heat. AND the bridges. I don't like these!!

 But I did it! {Four times each way.}

 Ryan was way cooler about them.

 I could not believe my fear-of-heights self stood this calmly beside a dropoff, but look at this VIEW!!!

 

Handsome hiking partner!

Finally - about an hour and a half after starting, we arrived at the falls! Aren't they beautiful?

 There were tons of warnings about the slippery rocks and not falling...so of course Ryan scampered right out there and I inched out cautiously behind...

 Stunning. {The falls. Not us. We were rained-on, sweaty messes by this point. Ryan's hair suffered the most, I think.}

 The day was warm {in the 80's}, but the water was cold. Ryan did walk in it, very carefully, a bit. We watched several others bite the dust on the rocks...clearly they hadn't read the sign.}

 We stayed for just a bit. There was a family down there {several members} that were all having a huge smoke break, so the air was not the cleanest...which was disappointing after hiking 2.5 miles to see mountain waterfalls!! But the view was just stunning and I'm so glad we went.

Of course, we had to trek BACK...and it took a little over an hour to get back. {No rain on that trip, so it went a little faster.}

Cracked me up...on the way back, we passed a set of grandparents with two grandkids, headed toward the falls. The grandson was sprawled over a rock, whining about howwwwwwwwwwwww farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr this trip was, and his grandpa was saying, "You young whippersnappers...you can't handle anything." The kid wasn't amused to hear us say he still had 40 minutes to trek. LOL!!!!

 Hiking up..............

 WE MADE IT!!!!!

 So tired. So glad we took our food and water!!

We got back in our car and did the rest of the loop...and we only made one more stop. We stopped to look through old Dan Lawson's cabin. I couldn't imagine living in a cabin like this, but I have to think it was probably pretty fancy as cabins went, back in the day.

I was excited because some deer were having lunch out at Dan's.

RYAN was excited because on our way back to town, we saw bears in the woods. Here is the face of a woman who has just heard the following words: "YES!! BEARS!! I've been waiting all day for this!"

And with those words, he hopped out of the car, with the camera, and tried to get pictures of said bears. They were too far into the woods to get good pictures, and I was relieved to see him return, in one piece, to the car.

We went back to our hotel, got "cleaned up" - and you'll never guess where we got to have our dinner??????

You guys...it was right across the street from our hotel. Happiness. Total happiness.

We capped off the night with an ice cream treat, and headed back to our hotel to rest and enjoy!

I'm SO SORRY this was such a long post. Truly, I am. But it was a great day - and I think it's a beautiful thing to be able to spend a Sunday out in creation, being awed by all the things God has made! Grateful!

Tourists and Stuff

Saturday was our first day in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, and we made a full day of it! {Our hotel was actually in Pigeon Forge, even though we called this our Gatlinburg vacation.}

We started out with breakfast at Flapjack's. I'd read about it on the Mom Creative blog and we decided to give it a shot. {We also learned pancakes are a SERIOUS thing in the south. There were pancake houses on every block, it felt like.} Anyway. We got big breakfasts, since we planned to skip over lunch, and I had the BEST veggie omelet of my life. WHAT ARE THESE WORDS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH??? BEST and VEGGIE???? But it's true! I've tried them before, but they always seemed bland to me; this one, however, was delicious and had TONS of flavor.}

There was so much food, I actually took home leftovers...and had the rest the next day!

All the food was great...Ryan appeared to be stuffed!

After we had breakfast, we decided to head out to Gatlinburg to be tourists for the day! First stop was Ryan's idea. Yes, we really did this!! {I edited out the bottom part. He made me quite busty and I didn't want to offend anyone!!}

Several things about this make us laugh: Ryan's Adam's apple hair is hilarious. As is the single hair on the top of his head, actually. Also...WHY are my teeth bigger than my head? WHY are Ryan's ears so big? And why didn't we pay him extra to make our noses smaller?? LOL!!

Anyway. It was really fun. Never did anything like this before. Mom says it should be our Christmas card photo! And it just might be. And it will also have to hang proudly in our home. 

After this fun, we wandered around town, visiting different shops and doing photo opps. We wandered by the Ripley's Believe it or Not Odditorium, and they had this cutout of the world's heaviest man. So of course we had to do photos.

 We also treated ourselves to some ice cream and a little rest inside this darling village area. We even threw pennies in the fountain...to recreate a fun moment from our very first date.

When we'd shopped to our heart's content, we decided to do a little something else I'd read about on the Mom Creative blog. {So glad her family just visited here and we could steal ideas.} She said the Tennessee/North Carolina line was just about 10 miles from Gatlinburg, so they made a quick trip there to see that.

Okay first of all, I do not think the term "quick trip" applies to ANYTHING in this state. True, it was about a 12 mile drive from Gatlinburg to the state line. TWELVE MILES UP THE SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN. Took us over an hour to get there, gave the car a workout, and I'm pretty sure Ryan had some vertigo later because of whipping around the tight curves in the road.  But the scenery was unbelievable and absolutely worth the time it took to get there and back. Here are a few of our pictures from that trip. Oh, and pretend like we still have our tans from our wedding. The glare is UNREAL.

We came back to the hotel to rest for a little bit, and no sooner had we settled in than the skies let loose. So thankful God held the rain off while we walked around Gatlinburg and drove through the mountains. {It was a HARD, blinding rain, so driving on those narrow roads with all the twists and turns would not have been fun in the rain!} The mountain view from our balcony completely disappeared in the rain!

That night we went to dinner at Corky's, a BBQ place actually based out of Memphis. When I was still new to WBCL, Lynne interviewed someone from Corky's, so I'd heard of it before. We enjoyed our dinner...but our tummies are still partial to our BBQ back home!! {Don't tell!!}

 For my live-on-the-edge adventure...because the veggie omelet had not been enough of one...I tried sweet potato fries. I anticipated they would have a savory seasoning on them, but they had sugar! I should have guessed that in the south, I suppose. LOL!!! They were good, but I think I would have liked a salty seasoning better.

We got Starbucks and headed back to our hotel to hang out on the balcony and read...we were tired after a long day! WOW. And it shows!

A busy day, but my heart was just overflowing from enjoying the beauty of the mountains. It's been about 3 years since I've been to visit the mountains {my trip to the Biltmore before I got married...} and I loved the reminder of their majesty. God's creation is unbelievable!!

Gatlinburg Bound!!

SURPRISE!! We took a little trip!!

You may or may not remember that last year, for our birthday trip, we went to the Tulip Time festival in Holland, Michigan. We froze the entire weekend. We wore hats and gloves at the beach. We were bundled up in lawn chairs to watch fireworks. And none of the tulips had bloomed because it was too cold. So this year, we decided to head SOUTH for our trip.

So Ryan took a half day off work last Friday, and when he got home, we jumped in the car and headed south. The trip was supposed to take seven hours. Yeah. Try TEN. Ten hours to make a seven hour trip - and we don't even have kids!! Isn't that kind of thing only supposed to happen to potty-training parents??

We blame construction and the misfortune of hitting Cincinnati at rush hour. But I'm excited to tell you about our week, and I thought I'd start with the trip, because it had its humorous moments!!!

We were kind of excited for a vacation.

Our first slowdown was in Oxford, Ohio, where our GPS routed us right through the center of town. It's a college town, and it seemed to be graduation weekend. The place was PACKED with tourists in for graduation, parents there to load up their kids' stuff to take it home, and unending construction. But that gave us plenty of time to enjoy this very cool bell tower:

{We also thought it was really cool that downtown, there was a Starbucks next door to a Chipotle, and both were in buildings with apartments above. We decided that would be pretty perfect: to live in an apartment above a Starbucks and a Chipotle. We would never cook. Or have money.}

We found the longest stretch in the midwest with NO McDonald's. Know how we know this? I had to go to the bathroom. You become acutely aware of the lack of fast food on your trail when you need a bathroom. About an hour later...we found one. And of course, there's the obligatory "thanks for the potty" purchase. 

Good thing we found it because the next thing we found was a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng stretch of construction and rush hour traffic.

No worries! It ended eventually, and we got to back to having fun - including car karaoke!

And...this was so cool. Random rainbow. No rain, that we encountered, anyway, but a gorgeous rainbow.

We picked a place we never get to eat {because we don't have one} for our dinner: Chick-Fil-A!!

We didn't linger long at dinner, so a little while after getting back on the road, we decided we wanted coffee. I did a search for the nearest one and found it...as we passed the exit. And apparently, at that point, we were in a Starbucks drought. So we stopped at a McDonald's instead. As we pulled up, so did two tour buses, and out poured DOZENS of military guys. Getting coffee just got comical at that point!

I will say, they did a fast bit of service there, and we got our coffee in no time!!

After getting back on the road, we missed an accident {didn't appear to be a serious one}, and just missed hitting a deer and a FOX. At that point, I just wanted to be there.

Finally, ten hours after leaving home, we rolled into Pigeon Forge, and found our home away from home for the weekend: The Spirit of the Smokies. {Photo taken later, in the daylight hours - in case you weren't sure.}

 Let me give you a quick review, in case you're looking to travel this way. We debated about getting a cabin and doing the whole outdoorsy thing the whole time we were gone, but we booked this so far in advance, there was NO way to know about weather. I hated to book a cabin and then be stuck in rainy weather the entire time and be so far from town that all we would do is drive back and forth. So we decided to stay in town, and after doing some research, we learned that still wasn't very cheap!

Ryan found The Spirit of the Smokies, and we got a good deal, partly because we were staying multiple nights. Some of the condo rooms have bigger kitchens and multiple rooms, but we chose a smaller one. It had two beds and a fridge and microwave, which was enough to keep us going for the weekend. It wasn't the newest hotel in town, and it was a little bit outdated, but it seemed clean, and we were comfortable. We liked it jut fine. We were gone most of the time during the day, and at night, we LOVED sitting out on this balcony, which we later learned had a lovely view of the mountains!

It may have been late at night, but Pigeon Forge was alive and happenin'! Not for the Shaffers, though. We were weary and ready for some SLEEP!!! Because we're vacation party animals that way.