Mt. Mommy

After church today, it was time for our annual trip to Gatlinburg, where the weather was absolutely perfect. Actually, it was a little on the warm side! Mommy had brought along hot chocolate and jackets, but it turned out we didn't even need any. Above, you can now clearly see the newly named "Mt. Mommy." Sure, it's probably called Mt. Leconte or something like that - but on the way to Gatlinburg, Daddy announced, "Look over there! It's Mt. Madison!" Madison disagreed. She said, "No! It's Mt. Mommy!" And now, from this point on, the mountain you see in this picture shall be henceforth known as Mt. Mommy. So mote it be.

Take a look at the colors in this photo. It was such a lovely drive with brilliant colors yellow, orange, red and green - flittering down upon us as we drove over the winding path over the Great Smoky Mountains. We popped in our this great hammered dulcimer project by Dan Lundrum - "Questions in the Calm." There are a few official soundtracks to fall, and that's one of them. The other is Steve Martin's "The Crow."

Anyway, it was a magnificent drive - even more so than usual. The colors were wonderful!

We arrived in Gatlinburg and checked in our hotel, which was right next to the aquarium. We had a stream view,

but the river was sort of dry.

Okay, so it was a lot dry. We've certainly had a lack of rain lately. We went over to our balcony and saw the view. Madison saw the metal covering right in the middle of what is usually a river, and saw the green question mark on it. You know what she thought? Yep: the Riddler was here! Riddle me this: where's all the water? We didn't really worry about it that much - there was a lot of excitement in the air. Madison was jumping up and down and just itching to go out and explore with us. And so, after settling in for a bit, we set out down the street.

Once again, we found ourselves at "The Village Shops," where Mommy found at the Celtic Store a hidden treasure: crunchy bars! We looked through the hiking shop, and of course the candy shop, where we got taffy and a big lollipop for Madison. Mommy looked through some shops, and we all looked at the fall decor around us. We walked up and down the busy street, and on our way back to the hotel found ourselves hungry. Where to eat?

Never here again! Okay, so this was the proverbial three strikes and you're out. This is one of those places you want to like, but Johnny Rockets keeps going out of the way to make you not like them. We're not much on the complaining too much about restaurants, so it takes an extraordinary effort to get any mention. But, after really bad service in Florida, Georgia and now in Tennessee, I've decided for the good of our family to avoid this place like the plague! The food was decent - eventually. The service was spectacularly bad, strange, weird and costly. Reader's tip: go to Steak & Shake instead. It's the same exact thing, just $20 cheaper.

Moving on: it was time for bed. We had a full day, and made our way back to the hotel room, where we tucked ourselves in for the night. Mommy and Daddy were in bed, looking over some booklets that had advertisements for things to do and so forth, when we looked over at Madison, who wanted something to read too:

Thank you, Gideons!