That Went by Waaaay too Fast!

Wow....It's amazing how quickly our vacation came and went. But talk about nice.......... We reserved a chalet in the mountains for the family. When you think about chalet in the mountains, you may think about traveling this little pig-path road up a very steep mountain for about 2-3 or maybe 4 miles. Actually, this chalet was right in town in the heart of Pigeon Forge. If I'd a had to walk to Hardees, I coulda.

Anyway, we traveled the long way around this time instead of hitting the Interstates. The Interstates we normally take are pretty rough (and I mean pretty fast!) and it doesn't take us as long to get to the mountains that way. We went the long way and we never had to get on an interstate. Driving over one of the last mountains, we noticed it - SNOW/ICE! Now where I live, it's spring and has already got up to 80 degrees. But we looked on the sides of the mountains and there it was. I've never seen icicles that big. There were people pulled off to the side of the road (you know the little "pull-offs" that make room for everyone to travel?) The adults were out there taking pictures and the kiddies were playing. I tried to put pictures on here, but it didn't take. I'll try again later.

After 7 hours, we arrived at our little chalet. It was really nice and I got to see how it'd feel living in a TN neighborhood. Pretty good! (Cause I always talk about moving there.....)

We didn't try to pack our days full of stuff like we used to do. We didn't even plan anything like we normally do. We went to the mall, went over to Townsend to Cades Cove. For those of you who don't know about Cade's Cove, it's an 11 mile one-way loop around some GORGEOUS country. And you never know what animals you may see out there. There were plenty of deer. They are so accustomed to people always being around that someone can walk up pretty close to them and take pictures. Every now and then, you may spot bears.

We took time out during our trip to go to their zoo. Normally we wouldn't really plan to go to a zoo, but when you have a little boy, you want to show him things like that! We went to their rainforest (reptiles). It was nice, but I can't stay in a place like that too long because I don't like to see 400 pound snakes! ugh... Maybe I exaggerated, maybe not. Those things were HUGE!! Of course, there are the alligators, and they even added into the mix something that looks like monkeys, but NOT monkeys.

Joshua slept pretty good most nights. The very last night tho (the day we were planning to leave), he woke up from a nightmare. It took a couple of hours to get him back to sleep. That was from about 2am - 4am.

Well, to make this story short, we left Friday to go back over the mountain. As soon as we got going up the mountain, we noticed traffic backing up. Ok......what could it be.....a wreck? A car that's having problems? hmmm. But there was a "pull-off" and they didn't pull off. Finally we got to the source of it. Everyone was pulling off the side of the road looking down into the mountain looking at a mama bear and her cubs. Now, I can fully understand people wanting to see a bear, or BEARS, but I can safely say, I'm more comfortable in my car when it comes to a mama and her babies......... Although everyone was up on the road and SHE was DOWN the hill a few yards, you never really know when she is going to decide enough is enough and make all the sight see-ers scatter. So we went on our way............

It was great! But now back to the daily........