Tennessee Thanksgiving Vacation!

Last year, around this time of the year, Laura's brother, Frank, proposed a vacation idea to us. We'd join he and his family, along with all of Laura's other brothers and sister, her older brother's families, her mom, dad, step-mom, and her sister-in-law's parents and sister and that sister's family, for a 5-day stay in a cabin down in the Tennessee hills. Sounds like a potential powder keg just itchin' to be detonated, doesn't it? We agreed, and, we're REALLY glad we did - this ended up being a tremendously fun time for everyone - especially Jack and Kian.

We left in the afternoon on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and drove as far as Corbin, Kentucky. There, we met Frank and his family, along with his sister- and mother-in-law and his nephew, and stayed in a hotel for the night. The main goal was to try to break up the car time a bit for the kids, because we knew the trip home was going to be a straight shot. So, we swam and did all the fun hotel stuff (including a highly-welcomed surprise serving of milk and cookies that night before bedtime), and made the rest of the trip Wednesday afternoon.

The cabin was a part of the Black Bear Ridge Resort, down in Pigeon Forge, and it was really nice! The rooms were spacious, there were garden tubs with jets in each bathroom, a TV in each room, a large-screen with a projector projecting TV and DVD feed, a pool table, airhockey table and a foosball table. Seriously, this cabin had it ALL! Oh, yeah, and a hot tub.

Pigeon Forge, the town, is pretty tourist-trappy, but it had plenty of activities and things to keep us all busy, as a large group, and as individual families. We took the boys to play miniature golf one day, we tried getting out to a nature reserve Thanksgiving afternoon, we took Jackson to play LaserTag and to drive go-karts one night, we visited an aquarium, and we went to the Dixie Stampede - a Dolly Parton-owned western-themed dinner theatre. I used the word "tried" in describing our trip out to the nature reserve, because the drive out to it took three times longer than we thought it would, leaving us with just a short time to get out of the car, stretch our legs, then make the trip back to the chalet for Thanksgiving dinner.

We have to thank all the Kiefers, the Breedings, and the Meyers family for inviting us and helping us have a wonderful time in Tennessee! We're hoping to make an every-other-year tradition of this trip, and anxiously await the next installment!

Here are some of my favorite, selected photos; and, then a slideshow of the remaining pictures, from our trip. We hope you enjoy viewing them as much as we enjoyed taking them. There are some captions with the pictures, too, so turn them on, if you'd like. You do that by hovering your mouse over the slideshow, and then clicking on the word bubble in the lower-left corner.

Sunset from the back deck on our chalet, Wednesday afternoon/evening

Our chalet, in the foreground, on the right, as Laura photo'ed it from across the ravine

Kian, in the aforementioned nature reserve, showing he's master of all he surveys

Mini golf air guitar, part 1

Mini golf air guitar, part 2...the apex of the solo

These next couple of pictures were taken at Patriot Park in Pigeon Forge. The first one, Jack and Kian show us what they really think about the Liberty Bell re-creation; in the second, we had to go all the way to Tennessee to get a pretty shot of the Indiana state flag.

These last few are from the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Aquarium over in Gatlinburg. I swear, Mr. Ripley has a stranglehold on that whole area - the name's on freaking EVERYTHING. An aquarium, a gift shop, a miniature golf course - Hell, I half-expected to see a Ripley's Believe It Or Not restroom with a gargantuan floater hanging out in a commode!

Anyway, look at the second picture - it was too funny not to point out! Mason's face got all distorted, then the reflection of my hand makes it look like the boys have been shrunk to fit in a test tube or something...this picture should be viewed with caution by anyone reading this blog while in a chemically-altered state!

Oh, and by the way, a big THUMBS DOWN to the states of Tennessee and Kentucky, for their respective drivers' education programs. Driving through these states was maddening! People on the interstates BRAKING for no apparent reason, drivers who'd apparently disabled their turn signals, and just general buffoonery on the roads! During the 10 hour drive home on Sunday, we dealt with that crap, then, shortly after crossing the Indiana state line, traffic becomes more stop-and-go than northbound Meridian out of downtown Indy on a Friday evening. It got so bad, we got over to US-31 just outside of Edinburgh, and took that the rest of the way up to Indy. That was easily the roughest drive I've made in a long, long time.

(K)