Our Trip to Gatlinburg
August 29th, 2008I wrote up this trip report just after returning from Gatlinburg in July. I was waiting to post it when I had my photos organized, but I’m still running way behind on photos. I’ll have to post the pictures separately when I get around to organizing them!
We just returned from our vacation in Gatlinburg, which was Maddie’s second trip (the first was Atlanta in April). Gabe’s Grandma, who lives in Las Vegas, has been visiting Gabe’s parents in Kentucky. We decided to meet in Gatlinburg for a few days to spend time with the family. We joined Gabe’s parents, Grandma, and nephew at a timeshare condo about 15 minutes from downtown Gatlinburg.
We left on Tuesday night after my very first Mothers & More meeting and arrived at my parents house fairly late, around 1am. Apparently Maddie screamed for the last hour of my meeting, so Gabe was a bit frazzled by the time he returned to pick me up on our way out of town. Maddie calmed down after feeding, and we hit the road. She fell asleep fairly quickly after we started, and slept for about an hour and a half. She then woke up quite mad, and we had to make a stop to calm her down and feed her again. She was ok for a little while, and then we had to stop a second time. I ended up riding the rest of the way in the back with her as she seemed calmer with me than with Gabe (might have just been coincidence).
We spent some time on Wednesday morning with my parents. Maddie showed them her baby tricks – rolling over, attempting to crawl, putting her toes in her mouth, and lots of smiles. She performed quite well for her grandparents! Once she was ready for her first nap, we got into the car and headed to Gatlinburg. The trip should take about 3.5 hours, but I believe it took a bit longer this time! Maddie was pretty good most of the way and slept a good portion of the trip. We had an amusing GPS moment as we looked for a grocery store “near our route” after our stop just past Asheville for food. The only one on our way that wasn’t a gas station was Freeman’s Grocery. We didn’t have a good feeling when our route took us on barely paved roads along the Nantahala River. We did find the place, but we decided to pass and go to the grocery store in Gatlinburg instead. I would have taken a photo of the place, but Mr. Freeman himself was sitting out on the porch. We made a U-turn and got the heck out of there.
We made a stop at the closest grocery store to our condo, about 15 minutes away. We stocked up on snacks, breakfast foods, stuffed peppers ingredients, and drinks. We finally arrived at the condo around 5pm, and the grandmas were very excited! Since we had packed half of our household, it took us a while to unload the car while the grandmas took turns holding the baby. After we settled into the condo, I offered to make the stuffed peppers for dinner. That went well, and everyone seemed to enjoy them! After Maddie went to bed, we played Set and TransAmerica with Dylan. We then went to bed earlier than Dylan would have liked, I’m sure!
We decided on Thursday to give Maddie her first experience “swimming” in a pool. Gabe and I each took turns with her in the water, and she seemed to enjoy it! We wished that we had taken her when she was in a better mood. She wasn’t upset, but she was getting tired and ready for a nap by the time we were done. We think she would have smiled quite a bit had she been in a better mood!
Dylan and Mick spent the day in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg playing miniature golf, riding go-karts, and shopping. They went to the pool when they returned while Maddie and I were taking a nice nap. We went to Gatlinburg for dinner at Calhoun’s with Gabe’s mom, his grandma, and Dylan. We were really surprised when we had to pay $10 for parking!!! Gatlinburg seems like an, um, interesting place. We were not very impressed. As we were warned, it’s very much like Myrtle Beach without the beach. The restaurant did not have any dairy-free entrees, but they did make me plain chicken fingers and plain broccoli. I was glad that they were accommodating, but we found the restaurant to be mediocre and overpriced. We did make an amusing to-go box for Mick with scraps from all of our meals since he had decided not to join us for dinner. We also had a decent box of leftovers for him that we hid in the other fridge. This probably amused all of us more than it amused Mick.
After dinner, we returned to the condo to play some games. We played Apples to Apples with everyone except Mick (he had fallen asleep on the couch before we got home). Everyone seemed to enjoy playing Apples to Apples!
Friday, we spent the day at the condo. We all played Pictionary together, which was fun! Dylan and Gabe’s Grandma played pool pretty much every day that we were there, and we joined them a few times. Maddie had her first pool (as in billiards) lesson. We also worked on the “impossible” jigsaw puzzle quite a bit. This led to some amusing moments with everyone acting like monkeys…ok, maybe not EVERYONE…but at least Dylan and me! We were determined to finish this puzzle, and we did! We were all thrilled with our accomplishment. In the evening, we had a wonderful dinner prepared mostly by Gabe’s Grandma and Mom.
We returned home on Saturday. The drive was long as we left around 11:30am and didn’t get home until after 7pm. We did make stops for lunch and dinner. We also had to make several Maddie stops. She was NOT happy!! The ride was difficult, and it didn’t get better when we ran into torrential downpours. We probably will want to stay close to home for a while!
All in all, we had a nice time with family, and it was great that Maddie could finally meet her Great Grandma and Grandpa! Gabe’s family was very excited to see Maddie and all her baby tricks.
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