Gatlinburg

So me and 2 amazing people ventured off to Gatlinburg for the weekend. I needed to get away and the fact that it was my birthday weekend gave me a fabulous excuse. For once in my life, I really didn't let money get in the way of my fun. If you know me, you know that that in itself is a HUGE feat. We got in at like 2 in the morning, grabbed our key from the drop box, and took the "scenic route" through the mountain to the complete opposite side. Okay so the scenic route probably was not the best idea being that the fog that night was so intense that we couldn't see ANYTHING. Some patches were fine and then some were horrible. We made it, slowly but surely, through the mountain. When we got close to the chalet and couldn't see the road signs to see where we had to turn, Stacie started to freak out. I mean FREAK out! To the point where she said she would NEVER go on a trip with me again. Of course, she didn't REALLY mean that, she had just seen one too many scary movies about people in the mountains. It was ridiculous.

Eventually, we found our chalet and lugged all of our stuff inside. We walked around, picked our rooms and walked out on the porch to check out the hot tub. It was warm and bubbly and looked amazing so we changed and hopped in. I don't think we went to bed until 4 or so in the morning... Good times.

The next day we woke up late, well some of us, and headed out in Kristi's car. We tried to find a bank so that she could pay a bill, but had no luck. So we went to the Apple Barn and had breakfast at their restaurant. Yum yum. The meal started out with homemade apple fritters with apple butter and apple julep, orange juice, lemon, and apple juice. Then we each had some form of chicken. If you like comfort food or southern food, you'll love this country restaurant!

After that we stopped at several of the shops "off the beaten path." We saw some pretty cool stuff, but the most exciting was a magic shop. The guy was CRAZY, and we were all baffled by the different tricks...well some of them... Some were obvious... Turns out he does magic at places around the area, which is pretty cool. I think the best part was watching Kristi try to make a T out of some shapes and Stacie trying to figure out how he could add the numbers in his head more quickly than she could with a calculator, large numbers of course...


We then headed off to downtown Gatlinburg, parked, and walked around. We went to Ripley's Believe it or Not, walked around some more, and went to one of those mirror maze things... It was sooo much fun! We took pictures and did the maze like 4 times, back and forth dancing our way around. Oh yeah... There's also this upside down building that we checked out and took pictures of...





After Ripley's we went to a fabulous (my new word that I use quite frequently) restaurant called the Peddler. Definitely the best Prime Rib I've had in my life! Mmmm. I highly recommend it. After some more shopping, Kristi had to leave so that she could babysit in the morning... We tried to convince her to stay but it didn't work. :( That night, Stacie and I got in the hot tub and had some wine. Then we decided that we wanted mixed drinks and so we threw some clothes over our suits and tried to find a liquor store... It was too late so we ran to a gas station, grabbed some snacks and stuff and headed on our way. Stacie had been talking about one of the random rides in Pigeon Forge earlier that day and so I said we should ride it. By this point it's 10 or 11 at night. Yep... It was a blast...

Went back, jumped back in the hot tub, then started watching "French Kiss". Within 30 minutes, we fell asleep. Eventually went to bed... Got up around 9 a.m., cleaned up, checked out, had breakfast, went shopping, went to the Ripley's haunted house, shopped some more, rode the sky lift, took pictures, and then headed home.

It was an eventful and amazing weekend. I really and truly enjoyed every moment of it, and I got to know some great people better! It was drama free, guilt free, and oh so fun!