Back from vacation and getting ready for school.
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive August 2006:
Back from vacation and getting ready for school.
Arrived home from TN this weekend. We were gone a full week. Spent 4 nights in a beautiful cabin in Pigeon Forge TN. It was a nice time but far from my expectations..and somewhat disappointing.
The cabin was top notch. However, it was like a neighborhood of cabin rentals all next to each other. We had a clear view though w/out seeing other cabin communities on a distant mountain side. Some cabins had a view of the mountains w/ more cabins.
Pegion Forge was a huge surprise. I was expecting that "down home" feeling, but got a state fair midway feeling instead. So we only went "down" to see it once. Dollywood was there, but we didn't really feel like doing that with a baby in tow.
We went to Gatlinburg and rode the Skylift. That was fun, but again, the strip was very full of tacky tourist shops.
On the upside. The weather was great! The hot tub was even better. There was a washer and dryer in the cabin. YAHOO.
We visited this great place called Parrot Moutain. It sat on the top of a mountain and was the most beautiful gardens full of parrot and flowers. It was so fun to be walking the pretty walkways that were very steep, esp for us FL type!
On the trip home was stopped in Cherokee. We got out to walk in the gorgeous river and pick up some river stones. The baby LOVED this!! He fought with all his might to not get back in his stroller.
We then stopped at my sisters place in NC. They have some great property and two four wheelers and a Gator tractor. We tooled around the pasture and once I went up the two moutains w/ DH and my sister and BIL. That was so beautiful. And the temp was so cool in the mountain trees. They have a pond stocked w/ trout. We tried catching them, but we didn't. Not even a nibble. But it was fun to feed them and watch them flop around each other.
Then it was time to head home. I was exhausted. The baby was teething the entire time and woke around 4 am each day. I was up til 3am the night before we left and I never caught up after that.
Between my sisters and GA, we took the most beautiful drive on the windiest mountain road I have ever traveled. It was HWY 19 between Murphy NC and Atlanta GA. I told DH if we ever do another vacation like this one, I wanted to stay in this area. It was just I expected a moutain touwn (area) to look like. SO PRETTY! We also liked Bryson. That was just before Murphy on our way from TN. We liked NC much better than TN.
I'm doing well now and glad we had the weekend to slow down before today started.
I thought school started Aug 12, but found out Sat it is Aug 8. So today we went shopping for clothes and there was hardly anything left in my DDs size. Off again tomorrow to get school supplies. I've had dreams about DD starting school ever since we got home. Boy, I can't wait!!!
I'm sorry you were so disappointed. I guess the reason we love it down there is because we live in one of those "down home" towns in the mountains of SW Virginia, so when we go on vacation, we go somewhere where there IS a lot to do for a change! LOL! And when we stay, we like to stay in a tall hotel right on the main drag in Pigeon Forge, so we can watch all the people, and see all the lights!
It's funny how different we are!
Actually, in Gatlinburg, if you walk down to the little "villages" of shops that go around and down back streets, too, you'll find lovely shops such as the Thomas Kinkade gallery, and shops with beautiful glass things such as suncatchers, etc.
There is also a beautiful place there called the Botanical Gardens. They have a lot of sculptures and such depicting different moments with Jesus, etc.
And if you would have gone on into the Smokey Mountains at the end of Gatlinburg, you could have seen beautiful creeks and scenery, and animals. They have a road that goes in a complete circle, called Cade's Cove, I believe, and is about a 2 hour trip. You see a place with old cabins, and an old church, or schoolhouse, that you can walk up to and look around. Also a waterwheel at a Mill, I think.
I'm glad that your trip turned into a nice one, though in NC!
By the way, what did your husband think? I hope you didn't disappoint him too much since he did all this as a surprise for you!
Dana, though the mountains and general area is beautiful in the Gatlinburg area, and I have not been there since the 70's, even then, it was very touristy, just as you described. I have been to Cade's Cove, it was gorgeous, and just as Adena described. I'm sorry you were disappointed, but I hope you had enough fun to make it worthwhile. Maybe next time you plan a vacation, you can stay in the area you liked. Good luck with the back-to-school shopping!
I have tried not to let DH know I was disappointed. That would be just awful for him to feel that. Besides, it's not his fault that it was so built up. Even Franklin NC didn't look the same. All "grown up" so to speak. we have both been there as kids. And he spent a lot of time there as a kid at their family cabin. We did visit the cabin. It looks just like it did when they lived there, right down to the furniture ROFLOL!!! We even saw a bear print in the driveway. That part of Franklin looked the same, but the main drag was just like a big city now.
It was nice to see the mountans. Just tough being stuck in a cabin w/ two kids and a MIL (don't get me wrong, she was very easy to be with). Now if this trip were JUST me and DH....well that would have been a GREAT vacation. I would have cared less about what was going on outside the cabin. It was such a romantic cabin that we didn't get to appreciate that way. Two of the 4 nights (only in the wee hours of the AM) we even had both kids in the bed with us, a small bed at that. But that was even nice  DD had a nightmare that there was a bear in the cabin and DS was woken by teething pains.
|
Members
