We left for vacation on Sunday. This was my first vacation that I didn't spend at home or visiting family. We started in the morning and headed toward Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg. We made it there in about 4 hours and decided to stop for the night so we wouldn't be driving through the Smoky Mountains at night. I thought that if we stopped in Sevierville, which is before Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg, that we would save some money on the hotel. WRONG! Because it was a holiday weekend prices were up. We finally settled on a La Quinta just before Sevierville, but even that was more than we expected. It was a brand new hotel so they were reasonable but still more that what we wanted for our budget. The desk clerk was very friendly and we figured since we would be saving money on breakfast that it was worth it. When we left in the morning we found out that I was wrong, rooms in Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg would have been a lot cheaper - by about $40.
Anyway, we drove through Pigeon Forge first and it reminded me a lot of Orlando/Kississimee. Very touristy and with so much to do. They had rides, outlet stores galore. We wanted to stop at a couple of places. Michael wanted to stop at a huge outlet section that had a store just for knives, one for cast iron products and one for swords. I wanted to stop at a Quilt outlet store. They had beautiful quilts on the front porch. Of course Patrick wanted to stop at the helicopter rides and all the cool mini golf spots. We decided not to stop, but if on the way back we had money and time we would stop. Next was Gatlinburg. This is also a cool place because it is right and the beginning of the Smoky Mountains. It had some attractions too, such as Ripley's Aquarium and other spots. We stopped to get gas then started to drive through the mountains. It was absolutely breathtaking. I felt like I was on top of the world and so small at the same time. If ever there was proof of God it was in this place. His presence was felt everywhere. I felt so close to him as I looked at such breathtaking beauty. How anyone could think that the existence of humans and this earth was a cosmic accident is beyond me. A master plan is all I could see as we drove through. We stopped at almost every spot. One spot was at a river with huge stones. We put on our water shoes and waded into the cold water. An when I mean cold I mean ice cold. We hopped from rock to rock and made our way across the river. A second spot was at the highest point in the park at Clingmans Dome at 6,643. Our last spot was another river spot with a bridge and huge rocks. By this time we had been climbing, hiking, walking for several hours and we were all very tired when we made it out of the Smoky's and into North Carolina. We stopped in Maggie Valley around 4 p.m. A little town with no grocery stores and no Walmart. Maggie Valley is between the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stopped for lunch/dinner since there is no place to stop in the Smokies and we had not known this so hadn't brought any food but some snacks. We then got a hotel room and walked over to a rock shop that had different gem rocks that can be found in North Carolina - that was interesting because that was our main goal in North Carolina, to go gem mining/hunting. The place was small but very interesting and the young man that owned the shop was full of information.
Then we went swimming and into the jacuzzi at the hotel. This was awesome - sitting in the sun and being able to look and see the mountains. The view was breathtaking and very relaxing - THEN all 3 of us crashed and went to sleep around 9 p.m. It was a nice ending to a very awesome day.
I took so many pictures and will have a link up as soon as I download the pics from the camera.
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