Tennessee Trip

For Thanksgiving this year, Chad, Chase and I are spending it with Chad's family in Georgia. The first part of our trip would be a small family vacation for Chad, Chase and myself. We went to Tennessee. The ride up was absolutely beautiful. We started in Texas, through Louisiana to Mississippi and on to Alabama. We then took a small trek through a tip of Georgia into Tennesse. The scenary was full of fall foilage. The trees were alive with color. It was a wonderful drive. Chase did really well on the trip. He did get sick with diarhea and upset stomach. He is doing better now. Our first destination was Pigeon Forge. We stayed at a Family Inn right on the main road. The room was very nice. It was comparable with a 4 star hotel, more amenities and at a lower price. I will difinitely stay there again when we come back. We did a lot of site seeing through the Smokey National park. We were on a hunt to see a bear in the wild. Although it did not pan out, we still enjoyed the sites. We drove to Maryville where a lot my dad's family lives. I visited my Grandmother, an Uncle and some cousins. It was so nice to see them and talk with them. It was nice to cut up and laugh. We found some really nice parks to take Chase to. He thought the whole trip was to take him to PLAY. The first words every morning out of his mouth were PLAY PLAY. We made sure to take him everyday to PLAY somewhere. One park in paticular that I liked was Springbrook Park. It had several walking paths that ranged in distance. You could walk .6 mile, .8 mile, 1.0 mile or 1.4 mile. The sceneary was so beautiful. There was a little stone bridge that crossed a creek. A water fountain flowed into the same creek. Trees were in full color with leaves covering the ground. Lots of birds played in the brush. I caught one on camera bathing in the middle of the creek. I definitely loved this park! I loved seeing that it was full of nature. Later, Chad took me to one of my favorite restaurants in Pigeon Forge, The Old Mill. It sits next to a Grist Mill that is still in use today. They make flour, muffin mix of all favors. They have a gift shop and so much to look at. We took a short trip to Gatlinberg also. We found the new COOTER's. Chad loves the Dukes of Hazzard and has worked with Ben Jones at an Autorama in San Antonio so we had to go see his new setting in Gatlinberg. It was a little disappointing as he chaged a lot of his original stuff from his earlier shop. He had a replica of the General Lee but his Sherriff's car and tow truck were not there. He changed his shop into a putt putt and bumper car station which took away from his original attraction of the original tv series. Even so, it was nice to know that Ben Jones made his shop more kid friendly. Well, on our leave, we decided to travel down the mountains through North Carolina. The mountain scenary was a site to behold. The breath taking scenes were so marvelous that it is hard to fathom the things going on in nature even when nobody is looking! One of my favorite scenes was when the clouds flowed like a creek in the center of a long mountain range. The sun was just peeking through and the mountain peeks could be seen through the cloud tops. Mist moved freely through the tree tops giving the mountains that SMOKEY look. When I get home, I will have to put that photo out here for the world to see. It was AMAZING. We are now in Georgia. I am sure there will be another blog to follow with those events!