BLOGGED AFTER THE FACT: AN APPALACHIAN ADVENTURE PART II

 On Saturday morning, we got up and met in the lobby for breakfast. I learned fast and quick who the moms were a chaperone for the church group staying in our hotel, because I made a joke about a gay bar in Denver and got a look of death from the lady in the next table. It wasn't even that bad of a joke! Maybe she needed to mind her own business. 

The first thing we did was go to Ober Gatlinburg, which is a sort of winter sports complex/shopping area  that you can get to by riding a massive gondola up the mountain. You can also drive, but where is the fun in that? We got there fairly early, which was good, because there were a lot of people in the boarding area. So many in fact, that I had to take one of my e-stop anxiety pills because I came very close to losing my biscuits, screaming, and clawing my way through a group of young people wearing ski pants to get out! Luckily, I managed to get all the way there without getting the screaming meemies and we had a good time! It was a lot colder up there than we thought it would be! Steve wanted to do something called an Alpine Slide, but it was closed, and since we didn't know how to ski or ice skate, we spent that time going up another level  on a ski lift to a scenic overlook where we could see everything! Well, maybe not everything, but a lot!  Poor Anthony, we didn't know he was scared of heights until then. Oops. 

We looked around the place for a while, and even went to see some rescue animals that are in a kind of permanent rehab kind of habitat. It wasn't the best quality place, but the animals can't be let back out into the wild because they have been injured or have some other types of problems, so I'm glad that they can be safe there. The bears were in their dens, but we did get to see some raccoons, possums, birds of prey, and otters! I love otters! At least I used to. These were cute, though, and we got to see them being fed. They were sweet.

After we left Ober Gatlinburg, we went back down to the town to get lunch. We had some good timing and managed to get into a pretty nice place near our hotel before the crowds came in. 

PAUSE: I suppose I should explain my eating situation, though, so I can stop saying that I'll explain it all later. Eating, for me, is no longer fun. I can eat, but not very much, and I am supposed to eat certain kinds of things for the next few months. I am not feeling sorry for myself here, because I did sign up for this, but it sucks because eating while on vacation is usually part of the fun. Now, mostly, I just feel sick and full after a few bites. Add to that that I can't really order what I normally would, so even the food I do get to eat is not really what I want. Eating is no longer a satisfying activity, and I had to get up and leave from a restaurant more than once just to walk around so my food could settle. It made me feel bad, because I never wanted to affect anyone else with the choice I made to have the surgery, but I kept having to leave Anthony and Steve to go back to the room because eating made me feel so bad. I don't care that I physically felt bad, but I hated that it affected them.

Anyway, enough about that. After lunch, I went back to the room to lie down while Steve and Anthony walked up and down the main street, visiting the places all along the strip and shopping and whatnot. They had fun, though! They came back to the hotel to rest up a bit before we left again that evening. We were going into Pigeon Forge to go to Cooter's store, and to have dinner at a place our former pastor told me we should go to! 

I don't know what was going on, but it took us nearly an hour just to get out of Gatlinburg proper so that we could get into Pigeon Forge. Also, the traffic was so bad that we had to take an alternate route to get to Cooter's, and we still almost got there too late. Steve and Anthony had a good time looking at all of the Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia, but we weren't able to stay very long. We drove over to the all year Christmas store and looked around a while, and then decided we wanted to see if we could get into our dinner early. We had a reservation at 8:00 PM, but we figured that we might eat earlier so we could get back to Gatlinburg before it was late. Boy, were we wrong. We couldn't even find a parking spot at the restaurant when we got there, people were parking in the grass around the building, and people were lined up outside in the freezing cold just to get in. We figured we might go someplace else and go back closer to the time of our reservation, but traffic by that point was so bad that we got suck in it for a concerning amount of time. We finally just went back to the restaurant, waited for someone to leave a spot, and we sat outside for an hour in the car until it was time to go inside. I'm so grateful we made a reservation, because the wait was routinely an hour and a half for people just walking in. We finally got seated, and had a good time! Steve and Anthony said the food and drinks were really good!

By the time we left, traffic had let up a bit, and we went back to the hotel. I feel like we had an extremely long day of doing stuff, but when I write it out, it doesn't look like much at all. Huh.

Eh, well, it was still a very fun day!

BLOGGED AFTER THE FACT: AN APPALACHIAN ADVENTURE, PART 1

As I mentioned before, Steve, Anthony, and me took a trip into the mountains! 

Wait...Is that grammar correct? Should it be Steve, Anthony, and I? Eh, whatever. Bite me grammar Nazis!

Anyways, we met early on Friday morning and hauled our cookies from Huntsville into Tennessee! It wasn't a terribly long drive.

Our first stop was in Chattanooga. There is a restaurant there that Steve and I like, called the Maple Street Biscuit Company, and we wanted to have brunch there, as well as visiting a distillery that Steve knew about so that he could get some bourbon or scotch that you could only get at their brick and mortar shop.

We had breakfast (well, I kind of did, but more on that later) visited the distillery, and then ended up walking a bit downtown before getting on our way. I didn't know the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel was a thing! It was so cool to go into the lobby and see what used to be the station! It also has some trains parked in it's backyard, which was pretty darn neat, too. It was also really cold outside, so we didn't stay long. We wondered around a bit and then got back on the road.

The drive to Gatlinburg is really beautiful in some places. Maybe not the miles and miles of interstate exactly, but once you get into the mountains and the road gets twisty, it's really a very pretty drive.

We made it into Pigeon Forge at around 4:00, I think, and Anthony got to get hit right away with the absolute cheese of the place. He was not impressed. Pigeon Forge is a hole. I don't know any other way to say it, but it is! It's just a few miles of tourist traps, bad souvenir shops, and traffic. It has a couple of places worth visiting, if you want to stop here and there, but mostly it's just depressingly awful among the pretty scenery. It's like a redneck version of the Las Vegas strip, but somehow not as classy.

We finally got up to the drive from Pigeon Forge to Gatlinburg and eventually made it to our hotel, which was located at the far end of the main street. Don't get me wrong, Gatlinburg is also very touristy and crowded, but it has a tiny bit of charm to it. Well, at least I think so. We did find that it was super crowded, but it was a holiday weekend and that is kind of expected. We also found out that the town was hosting a Church of Christ Youth Conference, so it was full of teenagers. They were loud, but well behaved for the most part.

Our hotel was...how can I express it...not great, but utterly sufficient for our needs. Granted, I'm a bit of a hotel snob, well, in that I want where I'm staying to feel safe, have inside hallways if possible, be clean, and be comfortable. I'll even forgo a bit of the comfort as long as the clean and safe parts exist. We chose the particular place because of it's location, which was nicely situated on the far end of the main street, within walking distance to a few things that we wanted to see, and within just a few minutes of the Smoky Mountain National Park. Anthony wanted to do nature stuff. Steve wanted to visit distilleries. I just wanted to have a fun trip! It was a fine location for all of that. It was maybe not so comfortable and the shower was terrible, and we found popcorn under our bed (we didn't eat any popcorn at all) but it was safe and the bed was clean, and we didn't spend a great deal of time in the room other than to sleep, so we didn't make a fuss. Anthony said his room was the same. I looked on the website, and neither of our rooms were anywhere near as nice as they ones they advertise, so I think the owners should look into the ethics of truth in advertising.

BUT...we made it, got all suited up for the cold, very cold, weather, and started our visit! We spent that evening walking down the strip and trying to plan out what we were going to do for the rest of our time there. That was fun, even though there were SO many people around. I still don't think I'm used to being in crowds yet. We managed to have good timing when we found a place to eat, so that we didn't have to wait for hours to get a table. It was an Italian place that boasted having the best pizza in town, but since we hadn't had pizza anywhere else in town, we didn't know if it was true or not! I didn't eat pizza (but more on that later) but after we ate, we walked around some more, looked at stuff, joked and had a good time before we went back to the hotel to sleep!

 

WELL, SCHEISSE

OK, so I spoke too soon. Our trip to Germany has been officially cancelled. I found out on my birthday!*

Because so much is still in the air with COVID and vaccinations and different countries having different rules and people not wanting to get into big groups and etc and etc and etc...too many people cancelled their reservations for the trip and now there aren't enough people to make up the band. 

I'm disappointed, of course. I've been trying to learn German for three years in preparation for this trip. I went through the merry hell of getting my passport redone and I had even already bought some stuff for the journey, but alas, it was all for nothing. 

It's ok, though. I'm not mad about it. I get that people still aren't comfortable traveling, and I don't blame them for that. I can't even say that I'm totally surprised about it all being cancelled, all things considered. For all we know we'd get there, another variant would arise, and we'd be living there for two years while the world got locked down again. Hehe, that would be an interesting adventure, though, wouldn't it? Sitcom worthy, even!

I did want to see Germany, though. I want to see so much of the world, but unless it's the world showcase in EPCOT (EFFING SIGH), Steve doesn't care much about going to different countries. 

Oh well, maybe I can talk him into going someplace else at some point. It's rare we go places without an entourage, and as much as he complains about it, he doesn't like to take time off from his job, so it might not work. Would it be indecent of me to suggest we go someplace I want to go and he can just work from the hotel? I can entertain myself! He can shut himself in a room all day and I can have fun and do whatever I want! It's the perfect plan!

Ah well, we'll see. But there will be no German adventures this year! Maybe in a couple more years, all this virus nonsense will be in the rear view mirror and we can go on tour with the band again!

 I just hope all those German lessons pay off somehow!

*BTW, I had a nice birthday! It was very chill. I was kind of in a weird headspace for most of it, TBH. I felt kind of like I was waiting for a blow to fall, but honestly, I had no reason to feel that way, so I can't explain it. I went to work, went home, and watched TV. I slowly got older. Then I went to bed!

I got lots of wishes from Facebook, of course, and I heard from my most favorite people in the world, as well. I got a video from someone I love to bits, a plant I'll probably accidentally kill, gifts, cards and texts from friends and family. I'm truly more blessed than I deserve to be.

UPDATE: A STRANGE HAUNTING

 This is just a very short update on the underpants haunting my house.

It's been two months since I bought them. Two months since I washed them.

I was attacked by a pair of giant gray underpants while folding laundry a few days ago. There is no rational reason any of those pants should still be in our laundry, but yet, those were there. 

I'm trying to put them all in one place, but I still seem to find them when I least expect it!

I'm scared!  Do you think Victoria's Secret could come to my house and do an exorcism?

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

 Hello to the three people who still read my blog! I shake you warmly by the hand!

1) We went to the Robert Burns dinner at our local golf club thing last week (wherein we don't play golf, we just go there for the food.)  It was a lot of fun! Apparently it's a big deal thing every year, but because of covid, they haven't been able to do the whole event justice until this year. Robert Burns was/is the national poet of Scotland and they celebrate his birthday every year with a themed dinner and bagpipes and poetry. 

Steve got very into the spirit by buying an entire Scottish outfit, kilt and sporran and everything. As much as I'd never envisioned him in such a thing, I thought it looked good on him. I tried to get into the spirit, but damn, an entire outfit of Highland Dress for a woman is freakishly expensive, so I ordered a kilt and a fluffy shirt, and wore our family tartan (well, Steve's family tartan, which I guess is also mine now, but whatever...) sash. We were adorable. Haha! 

They paraded the haggis around the room and we had pseudo Scottish food, and they did a scotch tasting, and read some poetry with fake Scottish accents that were terrible, and it was a lot of fun! The haggis wasn't bad at all, although I did find out later it wasn't exactly traditional. Apparently we have some FDA laws about serving legit haggis here in the US, but that's fine. It was still good!

Steve, Anthony and I have decided we want to go to Scotland for real someday, which I hope we actually do. Mostly they want to go to tour the distilleries. I want to go and pet (and possibly steal) a highland cow. I have already named her, and she will live in our backyard, and I will ride her to Target.

2) Y'all, Im disgusted to realize how much I've been relying on social media lately. I really feel like that shouldn't be a thing, but for the most part, that's how I talk to people now and it makes me sad. I keep catching myself compulsively checking the same apps over and over just to make sure people are still out there. I have fights with myself in the morning, heehee. I'll say, I know there is no response to my message on this particular app yet, so I won't check it. But then I'll say, BUT THERE COULD BE BITCH YOU DON'T KNOW! and I check it anyways. I have a very Sméagol/Gollum situation going on with myself sometimes! If the message is answered, I feel better, if not, I'm disappointed, and I know that's going to make my whole day down. However, that is how we communicate, so what can you do?

Of course, I'm also realistic enough to know that if we didn't have those things, there would be people I'd never hear from again. That also makes me kind of sad. I wonder how much effort we'd put into keeping up with friends if it required, you know, actual effort? The future is weird.

3) The weather in Alabama has been so odd lately! It was warm...too warm, and then we had tornadoes! Then snow! Then days and days of rain. Then there was another warm day and then more rain and more cold, and things like this are why going outside is a crap shoot this time of year and I never know what to wear. I know there is this odd thing called "layering" but I don't know how to do that and I'm afraid I'd get tangled up and suffocate trying to take off a sweater. Like a turtle in a fishing net. 

Can you imagine that being on your death certificate? Geez.

4) OOOH! As of right now, our trip to German/Austria/Prague with Steve's band is officially on! That will, of course, depend a lot on the public heath situation, but we might finally get to go! I'm ready. This dang trip has been hanging over my head for two years and I want to get it done! 

Even after two years of Duolingo lessons, I still don't know enough German to carry on a conversation, but I can ask for the essentials. Mr. Lee is going with us this time and I hope he has fun. Of course, he's been all over the world already, but he's never traveled overseas with us! I told him he has to listen to the tour guide and not wander off by himself (I am a very bossy daughter in law) but Mr. Lee is a honey badger and he doesn't care about rules! He will do what he likes! We might have to put an AirTag on him to make sure we know where he is. Heehee.

5) Oh, and speaking of traveling, we are taking Anthony to Gatlinburg. He has never been, and we decided that he needs to experience the glorious cheese of the place. If he doesn't come back with a Dukes of Hazard tramp stamp, then he will not have gotten the full experience. Gatlinburg is a place that people should visit at least once. There are better, less red-necky places (that I desperately, one day, would like to visit-please) but we want him to see it! 

6) I'm still working on my current model house. I had to cut all the electronics because I couldn't figure out how to connect anything. This one had too many wires and they wouldn't stay where they were supposed to! There is glue everywhere and I have purchased three more model houses/rooms. It's like an illness. Send help!