We decided to go off the grid for our last vacation. With our kids constantly on their devices – sometimes multiple at the same time – we’ve decided the best place to go is anyplace where there is no wifi. :-p As adults, we are guilty of the same. I am constantly listening to Audible books and my husband listens to podcasts. Then, I get ansy just listening to books so I will also surf the web at the same time which means I’m not actually paying attention to anything. And this is how I get my downtime. :-p
But, at least I don’t do social media anymore – whew! That was a bit of a time suck. I mean, I do still have an account on Facebook and I’m always on, but the only things that show up in my feed are the news, home decor, diy articles, and other useful things b/c I unfollowed anyone who is an actual person. This is not because I don’t like any one person in particular but because I don’t like people in general. :-p Kidding! Kind of. I just don’t really want all that unnecessary information filling my head – like what kind of sausage someone ate for dinner – for fear that it is replacing the important stuff already in my head. Only so much can fit right? That’s my theory anyway. Let’s make what fits count. I may visit my friend’s pages periodically to see what is going on in their lives, but I do it on my time and not have it forced in front of me. I feel happier this way. To each their own, right?
So, back to the vacation. Another idea we had was to get all our old videos of the kids onto the computer. We haven’t been able to watch any of their home movies from when they were little because they have been trapped on these mini DV tapes and we didn’t know how to convert them since our old computer had died and they no longer sell firewire cable. Well, it took us a while but my husband revived our old computer but it was like a digital Frankenstein. We were able to copy one video at a time which took an hour each and then it would crash so we’d have to reboot. Eventually, we got 20 tapes done which we figured is enough for now.
Next, we’re going on a bear hunt. Well, kind of. We are headed to the Smoky Mountains National Park. A friend of mine goes to the Smokies often, so she recommended a cabin to stay in that is on the quiet side in Townsend. We’d never been before. We watch alot of Impractical Jokers with the kids and so this vacation we decided we were going to play the Impractical Jokers game since nobody knows us in the Smokies. We’d dare each other to do embarrassing stuff and if we didn’t do it then we get on the loser board and get a more elaborate dare. Just to make the trip more fun.
10/12/2019 Saturday: Arriving in Townsend
Our goal was to leave the house at the crack of dawn so we’d be able to go to Wal-mart to get groceries and bear spray then get to our cabin before dark. In reality, we got off to a late start and left the house around 1pm, did not make it to Wal-mart and arrived in Townsend at 1am (because we lost an hour). I was freaked out about bears because I had this image of them prowling at night and shaking us down for food because I’m sure the kids smelled like pop tarts. But in reality there aren’t that many bears and the cabin was so beautiful, I was pleasantly surprised. It was in the mountains so it was a bit hard to tell which cabin was ours at night but we managed – luckily we had good directions.
10/13/2019 Sunday: Roaring Fork Motor Trail
We woke up late at noon because sleeping is our favorite. We scavenged through some of the supplies and realized we had nothing to eat except pringles, popcorn, and black coffee so we headed out. We ended up getting stuck in traffic for about an hour while our kids had to pee. Finally we made it to the visitor center and got Fred (stuffed black bear) and Awesome Possum (stuffed possum), a waterfall puzzle, fridge magnets that will hopefully not be used on my fridge and Daddy completed his first dare.
He was dared to ask the cashier, “What did you say?” (out of nowhere). The cashier just looked at him funny and gave him the receipt. He also got dared to walk silly outside and he completed that one as well. I hadn’t gotten dared anything yet, but I happened to ask a lady working at the visitor center if I should buy bear spray because we still didn’t have any at this point. She stopped what she was doing and looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. She said, “What’s that?” and I said it’s like mace to the bears – to spray them if they get too close. And she said, “Ma’am, just stay away from the bears.”. I guess she thought I was going to run around macing every bear that I saw. See – I didn’t get dared to do anything on this trip but my whole life is like living a dare so that’s why my kids probably didn’t feel the need to dare me. :-p
Now, we are on the hunt for food – we stopped at Bennet’s in Gatlinburg which had mediocre BBQ and slow service but it filled the stomach. The girls had a dare while ordering. They were supposed to study the menu for a minute while making a really goofy face. Sydney was the only one to do this dare and the server thought she was really special. It was pretty funny. I gave Cara a dare to trip while walking down the aisle with several full tables of people on each side. Then she had to recover and smooth her hair down like it was all cool. She did it exuberantly and we had a good laugh. I wish I had gotten video. At this point, it was about 4pm so we headed straight for the Roaring Fork Motor Trail. At the very entrance to the trail, we saw a black bear digging for berries in the woods.
We stopped to watch it for a bit – it was so cute. It didn’t care about us at all. Then we drove through the rest of the trail. It took about 2 hours but it had really beautiful views and was totally worth it. Still needing food for the cabin, we headed over to Food City in Gatlinburg.
One funny anecdote was that my husband had found a purple wind breaker jacket in the back of his closet right before this trip that he hadn’t worn since high school and it looked brand new. He had no idea why he hadn’t worn it. And I told him – we shall soon find out. :-p Every time I’ve pulled out some clothing from the back of my closet that I hadn’t worn in a while and tried it out, it hasn’t gone well – there’s usually a hole where I least expect it or it’s see-through in certain lighting or something.
Well, we found out what was wrong with this jacket at Food City. My husband came out of the bathroom and I noticed that he had white styrofoam looking balls all over his shirt. I was thinking did you go crazy with the toilet paper in there or something? Then, I started to scrape some of it off but they kept reappearing. He looked like a snow globe had busted on him. THIS is why he hadn’t worn that jacket in for-ever. It was somehow shedding styrofoam balls all over the place. Isn’t that funny how we hold on to stuff even when we shouldn’t? I made sure he threw that jacket away. No one likes vacuuming up styrofoam balls, amirite? Just like an angry mom snow globe.
We had a surprise for the girls that night. We played some of those old home movies for them and they really loved seeing themselves when they were little. Finally we got to bed around midnight.
10/14/2019 Monday: Cades Cove and hike to Abrams Falls
We woke up late again. That’s the beauty of the Smoky Mountains is you are in nature so you can sleep and still catch up on nature at some point. It’s so relaxing. We filled ourselves up on breakfast and lunch all at once and headed out with lots of coffee on hand – forget the water – with kids, it’s coffee you need. Cades Cove is another loop that you can drive through and catch the views. Our middle child held the camera and she did a great job taking pictures. We gave her a dare to say loudly that she was going to snap some pictures of all the wild people. She took us up on the dare and we had a good laugh. Our oldest also did this dare. Who knows how many people we offended.
At the trailhead to Abrams falls, there was a ranger who told us that there were yellow jackets so beware, schooled us on bear etiquette, and told us that there had been 6 deaths at the falls over the years, etc. Talk about a breath of fresh air. I should have asked him if he had an extra can of bear spray. :-p The trail took us about 4 hours – it was pretty rigorous. But we made it fun by playing some games like, “Would you ever?”. I found out that my girls would never bunji jump (I wouldn’t either – have this visual of my eyes bugging out of their sockets), but they might sky dive (I really enjoyed sky diving but feel like it’s a once in a lifetime thing – not sure I’d do it again). They would rather ski than surf (eh, I might rather surf). They would rather snorkel than hike (me too). :-p
Cara asked us if we would ever do a musical – because she loves musicals and she’s excited for the 5th grade musical. We found out that Daddy was in a musical in the eighth grade where he played Mama in, “Mama, Mama, I’ve been shot!” and had to dress as a woman – I had no doubt he must’ve looked like Mrs. Doubtfire. The kids got an absolute kick out of this. He even reenacted it for us. I had to remind him to beware of the cliffs. Crazy how you learn interesting things about people when you get them out in nature – it’s a beautiful thing. Need to get out in nature more.
We didn’t see any bears on the trail, but we did see some deer on the drive out of the loop. Actually, three of them walked right in front of our car and one turned around and stared us straight in the eye.
We were so hungry after hiking that long and it was about 7pm at this point, so my oldest was craving a buffet. We decided to eat in Townsend because that’s where we were staying. We happeneed upon the Carriage restaurant which ended up being a buffet – perfect! They had fried chicken and all the fixins. It was really good or we were just really hungry. When we got home, we broke out some more of the home movies for a while then watched Old Dog and played Rummikub. So tired after that, we headed to bed about 12:30am.
10/15/2019 Tuesday: Gatlinburg Skylift and Skybridge, then Dixie Stampede
We went to Gatlinburg to do the Skylift and Skybridge. It was fun. We had the best cheesesteak of our lives at a hole in the wall place and the best coffee of our lives at another hole in the wall place. Then, that night we went to Dixie Stampede which ended up being a horrible experience because my eldest had an allergic reaction to the horses so her and my husband missed most of the show and food. But I paid so much that I couldn’t miss myself – I felt obligated to enjoy it.
10/16/2019 Wednesday: Dollywood
We woke up early this morning because we wanted to spend all day at Dollywood, but then it was raining so we had to wait until the rain stopped before we left. Turned out, we could’ve gone even in the rain because there were lots of shows that were inside. But we kept with our theme of not leaving the house until 1pm or later. :-p We arrived at Dollywood around 2pm. We had no idea how big this park would be. This was hands down our favorite day in the Smokies. We LOVE Dollywood.
First thing we did was go to a show by the 3 Heath Brothers and it was a beautiful testimony – almost felt like a church service with great music. This helped set our minds for the day ahead. We made it our goal to ride all of the roller coasters. Colette couldn’t ride everything because she wasn’t at the 48 inch height yet. But she could ride a few. Bryon, Sydney, and Cara were able to ride all of them. The last one, they made it on the last ride of the day – just in time. The girls liked the Wild Eagle the best, then the Fire Chaser.
They had a wonderful bird show near the Eagle enclosure. The birds actually fly directly over your head at times. We got to see different kinds of hawks, vultures, and eagles. They help repopulate the American Eagle population with their eagles that they have in captivity (due to disability). We got hungry but found out that most of the dining places close at 8pm even though the park doesn’t close until 9pm.
We arrived at the one place we wanted to eat at 8:01pm and the lady basically told us we were one minute late so she couldn’t seat us. After which we recounted all that we could’ve cut out so that we could’ve made that one minute mark. We could’ve taken one less picture on the way, we could’ve not ran past the place on the way and had to turn around. This was not the standard attitude at Dollywood. I would have to say, most of the people working there were amazing and would have let us eat even though we were one minute late. So, we left and found another place.
10/17/2019 Thursday: Hike to Clingman’s Dome and Andrew’s Bald
We ate breakfast and lunch at the cabin and headed out around 2pm. Arrived to the Clingman’s Dome trailhead about 3:20PM. There was a lot of traffic to get to parking but we waited in line and eventually found a spot right next to the bathrooms, which was perfect because we all had to use them. The hike is about 3.5 miles which is about 3 hours and we needed to get a move on to take advantage of daylight. This trail had been recently reconstructed to be more hiker friendly. They made stairs out of logs and stones so it was perfect for the family. Once we got to Andrew’s Bald the views were amazing. The Bald is just a sort of clearing which allows for great views.
We saw a chipmunk on the way and some birds but that’s about all as far as wildlife. And I was glad to not see a bear b/c I had gotten talked out of my mace. :-p We got to the parking lot just before sunset and since it’s probably one of the best places to watch the sunset we stayed for another 15 minutes to watch the sun go down. It was really cold though with a biting wind so the kids weren’t happy about it. They kept saying that the sun wasn’t moving! And it’s true it did take a while. I felt like we were ruining other people’s sunsets with all the whining, but nothing we could do.
We drove back down the mountain in an hour and we were starving at this point. We went straight to Pigeon Forge because we knew there would be more food options available with less traffic. We found our favorite restaurant of the trip! It’s called Mama’s Farmhouse. It’s a family style buffet. They had meatloaf, turkey and dressing, and fried chicken with mashed potatoes, fried okra, broccoli casserole, chicken and dumplings, mac n cheese, and corn on the cob as the sides. Everything tasted amazing! And they were willing to keep bringing us more but we couldn’t handle anymore. Then, dessert was equally delicious. We had peach cobbler, chocolate chip cookie with ice cream, and banana pudding. All were equally amazing. I couldn’t believe how great the quality was for a buffet. And our waitress was so super nice. I will attempt to go here anytime I am in the area.
The girls acted like they’d never been to a restaurant before. The waitress asked them what they wanted to drink and they said, “Fountain drinks!”. I said, “What kind of fountain drink?”. And they said, “Fountain drinks!”. I said, “What kind of fountain drink?” and I had to explain to them that they had to pick one. Then, Cara loud whispers, “Do they have Pibb?” – I’m thinking why aren’t you talking in your normal voice, which happens to be super loud, so the waitress can hear you? What a hot mess. The lady was very nice about it. We had arrived at 8:20 and they close at 9pm so there were several reasons why she could’ve been annoyed but she didn’t show it.
10/18/2019 Friday: Cherokee then Bryson City for the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad
We had a train ride planned at 2PM but first we went to a museum in Cherokee. I wish we had more time in Cherokee but we, of course, got off to a late start again. The train ride was really nice though. We got to see the Fall colors and some nice views. We made one stop where the kids got more souvenirs. Cara got a chipmunk puppet which was super cute. We got to use the hot tub at the cabin that was on the deck this night. It was so nice.
