OurBigAdventure

We are home! It was pretty sad walking in the door tonight and turning on the AC since our house was hot and stuffy. It is 70 now at 11pm but I bet it was 90 earlier today. Blah! So rewind....

For the past few weeks we've been talking about a little trip somewhere - maybe a cruise, skiing, beach - anything! Chris suggested the mountains on the east coast and I thought it sounded fun. I have never skied before, so I was up for small mountains to test it out before booking a big trip out west somewhere just to find out I wasn't good or didn't like it.

I looked on vrbo (we have used them before and they rock!) on Tuesday night for cabins near Gatlinburg (thanks to Jason Davis for the tip on trying this city). I found one cabin I REALLY liked and I decided to fill out the form saying we wanted it for Thursday through Monday. My decision would be based on if it was available or not. Right before bed, I checked my email and it was available! We "slept on it" and I really didn't sleep because I was so excited. I've never planned a trip this quickly before! I emailed them back Wednesday morning and we started packing and finishing up work.

We decided to leave early Thursday morning at 4am so we could arrive by the 3pm check in. It was a 10.5 hour drive and we knew we would need break time with the dogs in tow. Well, at midnight I was still finishing up work. I knew we wouldn't be in bed before 1am and as we were sitting eating a very late dinner, we decided to just get in the car and go without going to bed. We are night owls anyway and we figured it would be better to drive now while we were still wide awake then at 4am after only 2 hours of sleep. Chris ended up driving the whole way but I did stay awake nearly the whole time to help him stay awake, too.

We took 75 up through Atlanta and made it up to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park around noon and made a bunch of stops throughout the park. One stop was a bit of a hike on the Appalachian Trail - Check that one of my list of things to do in my life! Then we headed into town and checked in early into our cabin. Our cabin is in a quiet area just north of Gatlinburg - it was so quiet and we are the 2nd and last cabin on our road so it was very private. There was tons of land for the dogs to run, too. We had a fireplace, a pool table and a big jacuzzi tub! There was also a hot tub on the back balcony.

Here are some pics:



We kept sleeping late because the bed was so comfortable!



The hot tub we used every night - even though the run to and from the door was hard in the cold!



We used the fireplace every night - it was awesome to fall asleep to it flickering:



More to come!

To you long-time blog readers, you will remember our theme song is "Permanent Vacation" by Aerosmith. It was fitting that the classic rock station in Knoxville that we listened to was having an Aerosmith weekend while we were there!

And a note to Jason Davis - both Chris and I have "Fly Like an Eagle" stuck in our heads thanks to Ryan. It also came on the radio as we drove away from seeing you! I'm sure we will post about that later!

In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park there are two trails that allow dogs, both start at the main welcome centers on either side of the park and go toward the nearest town. We took the Gatlinburg trail and our dogs LOVED it!

There was a stream along the trail that we were able to get down to and let the dogs explore. Goblin is less of a fan of exploring than Duke but they both enjoyed the chance to get a drink from the cold fresh water. Here is some video from our hike:



And of course we had to take some photos as well:











Definitely a great hike if you have your dog with you when you visit the park. We passed several dogs walking their owners along the trail while we were there. If you have trouble finding the trail, just ask for help at the welcome center, they can tell you everything you need to know about the park and what you are allowed to do while you are there.

When most people think about going on vacation they think of Orlando and somewhere around 17 million people a year visit the Magic Kingdom alone. Tourism is a massive industry in Orlando because we also have Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Sea World, Animal Kingdom and several other parks including at least four water parks. But how does Gatlinburg stand up as far as a vacation destination?

When you actually start to do the comparison it's not much different at all, it's just on a different scale. Here are some examples:

Orlando has International Drive; Gatlinburg has its Downtown which is actually better than International Drive because you can walk to everything.

Gatlinburg has Ober Skiing and Amusement Park; Orlando has Blizard Beach and The Fun Spot.

Orlando has Highway 192; Gatlinburg has Pigeon Forge.

Both have outlet malls, Wonder Works, indoor skydiving, dinner theaters and Dixie Stampede.

Orlando has roller coasters, but you can find that at Dollywood which is just a short drive from Gatlinburg. A shorter drive in fact than from Orlando to Tampa which is where you would find Orlando's nearest aquarium, similar to the one you can find in Gatlinburg's downtown.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the closest National Park to both cities, or course Gatlinburg is closer than Orlando. But you can also see wildlife in Daytona Beach which is much closer to Orlando.

All in all I guess you could say that both destinations have about the same things to offer to keep you entertained, you just have to decide which things interest you more. (Of course if price is the issue, Gatlinburg is much easier on your wallet!)

What did we find unusual about Gatlinburg?

Since we were so close to Knoxville, we had to stop over and see Jason and Marcia and of course their two boys Ryan and Cooper. We even brought the dogs because it was their first trip out of the state of Florida so of course they had to meet all of the Blog readers we could meet up with.

We had a great time visiting and of course with kids and dogs there has to be at least one really funny story, lucky for us there were several. The only problem was that we didn't get any of them on video, so I hope I can make you laugh as hard as we have been after our visit, or at least leave you singing.

So we were just finishing lunch when we found out that Ryan's kids meal came with a dessert. A frozen orange-creamsicle-thing to be exact. But being 3 years old, it was much more fun to play with it than try to drink it. So after a while we all started trying to get him to try his desert. "Is it good?", "What flavor is it?", etc. and FINALLY he takes a sip. You can see the orange slush moving slowly up the straw. He gets a mouthful and stops immediately! His eyes went wide as he swallowed a mouth full of frozen orange slush and then he says, "That's cold". A three year old and a brain freeze, I wish we had the video camera on him for that one.

Then we get back to the house and let Duke and Goblin out while we are talking in the driveway. They were sniffing around like dogs do and out of nowhere we hear Goblin let out a half yelp-half bark as he came running toward us with his ears back and eyes wide! Something just spooked him and we had no idea what it was that could have scared an 80 pound dog like that. But then around the corner of the fence came running a white ball of fur that must have weighed 12 oz. This thing was no bigger than Duke and Goblin's average squeaky toy and it was going about 40 miles per hour! Duke wanted to step on it, Goblin wanted to get away from it and the thing never slowed down as it did laps around all of us. Finally, it made a wrong turn and headed straight for Goblin. Goblin jumped to get out of the way (which never works when you are trying to dodge a dog) and ended up knocking the puppy over, then he landed on the puppy which freaked Goblin out even more! So now the puppy is yelping in pain, Goblin is running to hide behind Jason and Duke just thinks the whole thing is fantastic and none of the rest of us have even really understood what has just happened!



And throughout all of this great stuff the kids just keep doing their own thing, never mind all of the nonsense that the "grown-ups" are doing. Cooper is still playing in his little plastic car and Ryan is riding around on his motorized plastic four wheeler... singing, "I want to fly like an eagle, to the sea. Fly like an eagle..." yea. He sings the Steve Miller Band, while other three year olds are still stuck on all that kids stuff, Ryan has moved on to classic rock. I wonder what type of music Jason listens to?



So Jason and Marcia, we definitely need to visit with you guys again. It was a great time, and I still can't stop singing "Fly like an eagle..." we heard it twice on our drive home!

On our way back from Knoxville we decided to take a detour through Cades Cove in the National Park. It turned out to be a several hour detour but well worth the drive. We were hoping to see at least one bear along the way but that just didn't happen. Bears just don't like us I guess, and I'm OK with that.

We were lucky enough to get to Cades Cove around 4:30 in the afternoon which was great because most people were leaving so we didn't have much traffic as we drove through the park. The best part about that was being able to slow down as often as we wanted without causing a traffic jam.

If you've never been, Cades Cove is a valley sourrounded by mountains and the drive takes you around the outside of the valley which is mostly open fields where most of the animals are spotted. It's an 11 mile drive around the cove and the animals in the park are not afraid of the cars as long as you stay in them.

On our drive we saw deer... lots of deer and we even ended up at the front of the line of cars so we had a few of them cross the road and because we were being nice enough to let them cross we decided to get the entire thing on video incase any of the cars behind us wanted to see them as well. (There are benefits to reading the blog afterall!)



On our way back to Gatlinburg we headed through the park along Little River Road which winds under overhanging rocks and along steep drops to the "Little River" and we were the only ones on the road... and it was dark. So just as we were saying, "Wow... it would be really bad to get a flat tire out here because you probably couldn't get a cell phone signal and you would have to wait for a car to pass you the next morning." we came around a corner to find a freshly fallen tree blocking our side of the road.

This isn't a wide road by any means and there was nobody coming so we were able to scoot around the tree and continue on. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to try out the FJ's ability to crawl over the fallen tree, but Sandra probably would have freaked out if I had tried. ;o)

Anyway, we made it back to Gatlinburg after our senic detour and the pups were very glad to get dinner and a nap in front of the fireplace. Seeing deer for the first time as a dog is a very exhausting thing aparently.