Tennessee

So this is Lindsey writing. I am back to Indiana for the summer and have once again taken over the blog. I have been here for about a month and it has been crazy busy. John, Ashley and family came to Utah for Anna's wedding, then I drove back to Indiana with them. The week we got back, Ashley had girls camp, so I got to play mom for the week. The next week we went on vacation to Tennessee, then the next week Ashley's sister and her family came to visit.

I am blogging about the Tennessee trip first, then I will try to catch up on other things. We went to a time share in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Thank you Richard and Joan, we had a great time! We had high hopes going into it, panicked a little when we were almost there, then were relieved and pleasantly surprised when we arrived. We left Indiana at about 4 pm Sunday afternoon and arrived at our hotel at around 9 pm.

As we got closer to our hotel, we passed by Dollywood and a million signs for what could be some really cool places. About every other billboard had something about Dolly Parton on it. Then Mapquest sent us up a dark, small, winding, partially paved road. There was a house every now and again, and we were afraid that we would be kidnapped by hillbillies. We thought we were going to a resort, but it wasn't looking good. As we were discussing just going home if this place turned out to be super scary, we turned onto a larger road and found the check in office to the Sunrise Ridge Resort.

It was just a small building with nothing around it. John checked us in, came out with a map, and we drove up another road. All of the sudden there was a huge resort hidden away in the mountains. It was awesome. We had our own little three bedroom house with a full kitchen. The kids slept most of the way and were super tired and grumpy when we got there. At first Zak and Makelle were ticked that we weren't staying in the normal hotel part of the resort. Then once they realized that what we had was much better, they were angry that they didn't have their own fireplace in their room!

Quotes:

Lindsey: "What do you think they have a Dollywood?"
John: "All kinds of wood"
Zak: "Um, chicken tenders and underwear."

John: "Thanks for hanging in there when we thought we were going to get taken over by hillbillies and made to do things we didn't want to do."

The next morning we got up and went swimming. There were also complimentary doughnuts and orange juice at the indoor pool (that somehow I missed, but that is another story). There was a big pool, a little pool (just for Lantz) and a hot tub. John slept through the entire thing. We found out later that he woke up with allergies and took some allergy medicine (then slept pretty much the rest of the day). After nap time for everyone, Ashley and I went to the outlet stores, then the whole family went for a drive through Pigeon Forge, Sevierville, and Gatlinburg. There were a ton of crazy things to see, like the giant replica of the titanic, the upside down building, and more pancake houses than you can count. All was very touristy, but very cool.

The next day was John's birthday and he decided that for his birthday he wanted to go hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains. Lantz was up sick through the night, so Ashley stayed home with him while the rest of us headed out. We drove all over the place, got lost twice, and went on a couple of really cool, long hikes. The first trail we went on was more of a nature walk, but it was really pretty

Next we drove to North Carolina (not that far away) to hike to Clingmans Dome. The hike is a paved trail that was about .5 miles and pretty steep, then ends with a ramp to a tower. By the end of the hike, Makelle was on my shoulders and Zak was on John's. We were all exhausted and had to sit at the bottom of the tower to rest for a while.

Apparently we stayed at the bottom for too long because by the time we got to the top it was super foggy. From the top of the tower you can see (on a clear day) the mountains in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. We couldn't see much of anything, but we had fun.

The kids were more than ready to be done hiking for the day, and after much complaining John said we could go home after a short detour. The detour turned out to be another hike, this one was almost three miles long. The hike went to Groto Falls, which was a hike that went under a waterfall. It was a normal dirt trail and the kids had a blast. Zak walked the whole thing by himself, and Makelle walked over half of it! The fog had cooled down the temperature quite a bit and it was a great hike.

The next day we started off the day at the Red Rooster Pancake House. John made me choose which one to go to since I had pointed out every one on the drive through town. It was delicious! We also swam and played at the playground. Zak, Makelle and Lantz are all very good at tricks. John, not so much! Then we went to the boot store where they had a buy one get two free sale. The kids boots were a good price, so Zak, Makelle, and Lantz all got new cowboy boots. We also went to Hillbilly village, not that impressive. There were no hillbillies in sight!

For our last full day of vacation we decided to go hiking again, this time Ashley and Lantz got to come. We decided to go to another waterfall, Laural Falls. It said it was an easy hike. Makelle and Lantz didn't think it was that easy. Zak did great and did the whole thing by himself. Makelle got stung by a bee and Zak was such a great big brother and found her a dandelion to help the sting go away.

After the hike to Laurel Falls we decided to go back to Groto Falls. The kids were excited, until we got there and it ended up being much hotter than the first time. They still did great and getting to the waterfall was totally worth the hike. The kids stuck their feet in the water and threw rocks. While we were driving out of the park we saw a black bear with thee tiny cubs. They were just off of the road walking around. The pictures aren't great, but the experience was! After we were all done hiking, we figured we had hiked about ten miles. The kids did most of that themselves. What good kids!

We ended the day with more swimming and went to Bennet's BBQ for dinner. It was AMAZING! Ashley and I weren't thrilled that John wanted BBQ for his birthday dinner, but it was great. The waitress thought it was hilarious how much Zak ate, but he and John were in heaven!

We slept there one more night and drove back on Friday. We went back out the way we had come in, and it turns out the rode we had been so scared of, wasn't scary at all. What we thought were hillbilly houses turned out to be small, nice houses. We were nervous for nothing! Our drive home took two hours longer than the drive there because of traffic, but we had a great trip and I am so glad that I got to go with them.