Tuesday, November 17th: Left the house (after cleaning a little and trying to fix the buzzing refrigerator) about 8 or 8:30am in our new car! Just kidding...it was a rental b/c I had a fender bender (someone hit ME) the week before. Anyway, we went to Rama Jama's for breakfast for the first time! It's over by the stadium and we've never made it by. I didn't even know about it until I read an article in the Tuscaloosa News. Anyway...then we traveled, ate lunch in Knoxville, and finally arrived in Pigeon Forge! We got slightly lost trying to find the cabin rental office, but wasted no more than about 15 minutes. After settling in a little, we headed to the BEST Kroger in the world for some groceries! It was so great...beautiful veggie and meat skewers, a whole section devoted to organic foods, etc. I wanted to take a pic, but Jake said I'd look too much like a crazy tourist ;) So, I just took a pic of the sign later during the week. Jake cooked hamburgers tonight and they were SUPER amazing. Must be the mountain air...it made all our food taste better!
Wednesday, November 18th: Slept late! ahhh...then got ready and headed to the Old Mill restaurant in downtown Pigeon Forge. It was really good! Then we headed to Cade's Cove and stopped on the way back down the mountain to take pics of the beautiful water fall. So peaceful and beautiful! We went to walk in downtown Gatlinburg for a while and had an appetizer at some restaurant downtown. I bought some chocolate covered peanuts and a couple of other chocolates at a candy store. Those are so convenient in Gatlinburg :) We ate dinner at the cabin again; Jake grilled NY strips for us. Again...absolutely wonderful!
Thursday, November 19th: Breakfast at the Log Cabin Pancake house...love their pancakes and we got to sit next to the fireplace :) On the way out I picked up a brochure about the Artists' Trail...an 8 mile trail of different galleries and such dispersed throughout. We stopped in about 4 or 5 different places. Neat...expensive...but neat. We went back to the cabin and watched TV for a while. That was the great part...not rushing for anything. Ate left over steak sandwiches for lunch then got dressed and went to the Tanger Outlets! I bought a few things (mostly Christmas presents) and we had dinner later on at a restaurant nearby...can't remember the name of it. We had the Connor supreme pizza (I do remember that...how weird!) there which was delicious! The veggies were so fresh they seemed almost raw...it was weird at first, but then we realized we're just not used to fresh, "healthy" pizza!
Friday, November 20th: Our 5 year anniversary!! Time flies. Today we had breakfast at the cabin (well, Jake did; I don't really do breakfast much...think I slept in). Lunch was at the cabin; we had turkey sandwiches. Went to buy movie tickets to see The Blind Side then headed to downtown Gatlinburg to shop around some more. We decided to park at the travel center and ride the trolley for .50 each instead of paying $8 for a few hours of parking. That's the way to go! We rode the chair lift, which I love! Such a Gatlinburgy thing to do :) We even saw some deer and a gopher on the way up and down! We bought Hank a #8 (Julio) UA jersey at a store! So cute! Then we bought Jake's parents a wooden sign made for their house at Lake Eddins (lots of people have signs there). While we waited on it we went to a bar called Pucker's and Jake had a beer. A guy there insisted on taking our pic, put it on a key chain, and told us we could have it for $9.99. Seriously? First of all, it ticked me off that he took my picture against my will. Then he tried to sell me an awfully tacky and overpriced key chain that said, "I got pucked at Pucker's." Wow. After we picked up the sign, we headed to the movies. SUCH a great film and story! I really enjoyed it. We never get to the movies anymore, so that was nice. The theatre was the only one in the whole county so it was packed, but mostly because of New Moon. I just don't see the attraction there, but apparently I'm in the minority.
Saturday, November 21st: Had to be out of the cabin by 10am. We had breakfast at Chic-fil-A in Pigeon Forge then stopped at an Amish store and bought my parents a few goodies for keeping Hank for us for so long :) Had lunch in Gadsden at Ruby Tuesday and then went back home. It was SUCH an amazing vacation, but it doesn't make me sad to leave because I still get to go home with my best friend :) Yes, that's sappy, but oh so true!
