A day trip we took a while back.

This has been reposted from my facebook notes, so it's out of sequence with the rest of the posts.

Ok, so Tennessee won the game. Get over it cause this post has absolutely nothing to do with football. If you can have a strong stomach for traffic and the ability to hie yourselves up the Smokey Mountains you absolutely must do so. It's gorgeous -and crowded. According to google maps it should have taken Allen and I about an hour to get to Sugarlands Visitor Center. It took about two due to Pigeon Forge's deliberate effort to rig the traffic lights so that you have the maximum amount to time to realize that what you really want to do is go play mini-golf at Old MacDonald's farm and then pop next door for a gut-busting dinner show. Ignoring these temptations Allen and I pushed on to Sugarlands where we took the Gatlinburg trail into town. In my family we do this as a cool down hike in the afternoon after having hiked a good 8-10 miles in the morning. Allen and I did it because parking in Gatlinburg is horrendous, and -well- it is a nice walk. My family isn't very tourist-y. We usually stay in the mountains. The only reason we go to Gatlinburg is because it's Gatlinburg, and that's where you go when you go to the Smokies. You walk into town, pity all the poor people who haven't been up in the mountains, buy your taffy, walk back, and have hot dogs at the camp site. Since this was the first time we'd been to the park, and everything was so crowded Allen and decided to start with Gatlinburg. Now I've been to Gatlinburg multiple times, but Allen found a part of Gatlinburg I've never seen. We went and bought taffy at the same store where my parents bought me taffy as a little girl, but we also took the tram to Ober Gatlinburg and rode the chair lift and went on the alpine slide. I'd never done any of that before, and we ended up having the best time. I thought I was going to show Allen my Gatlinburg -the place my parents had taken me too since I can remember- and he ended up showing me another Gatlinburg. Now it's ours. Funny how marriage changes things. We never did make it out to Newfound Gap or Roaring Forks, but we'll be back. I'll show Allen more of my Smoky Mountains, and he'll end up making them ours.