Scooby-Doo! Mystery Putt

We got out the door earlier today, and our way up was pretty routine.  We did stop at the Christmas store in Dillard, looking around the ornaments, nutcrackers, and Christmas carolers.  

It's been a while since we stopped at this Christmas store.  It was full of stuff - I remember stopping here a long time ago and discovering a Christmas CD by Brent Holmes, and in fact we picked up three CDs by him that day which feature songs sung by a Moose and a Bear.

So I don't have any of that music with us on the trip, but nevertheless, I've been singing "Moose in a Treehouse" in my head for a good bit of the trip.  Each year we pull out "Beary Christmoose" for a listen, and no doubt we'll do that again this year.

We really didn't get much while we were there - just looking around.  But we did get a drink, and in honor of our message about the book of Amos, of course, we picked up some Famous Amos cookies.  And... also some of these:

More candy cigarettes.  It's been a Tennessee tradition in a way, picking these up from time to time.  These aren't the hard candy that I remember, but actually gum!  Be careful around these, as they can be addictive, Maddie.

Time for a pic-a-nic!  Our next stop was over at the Cherokee McDonald's to pick up some fries, and then we had a picnic by the river in Cherokee, a tradition of late.  It was really nice outside, and not at all crowded.  We were there watching the fly fishermen do their thing.  I did see a trout flop up a few times nearby, but he got by the fishermen.  It was a pleasant meal.

So the next part of the journey was heading north through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and we were in for a few surprises.  We saw some elk very close to the road, like reach out and touch them.  And that is somewhat typical for this journey, but the other surprise for us was seeing bears!

We've seen them on this ride before, but not three at a time, not like this - it was a Mom and her two cubs!  Pretty wild!  That was quite a blessing.  They just came up to the road and were foraging in the dirt, thrilling all the passers-by.  Super cute cubs.  Afterwards, it was time to head down the mountain.  It was an easy drive into town, and we made our way to the Inn at Christmas Place, our lodging for a little bit, heading up to room 520 at the top floor.

Christmas coffee maker!

This is the view from our balcony!

The decor inside changes a bit from year to year, all Christmas-themed.

This is an amazing Santa UFO!

Old toys on this wreath

At the end of the hallways are themed Christmas displays.

Our fifth floor display has a Western Santa.

Also on the fifth floor - a colorful greeting at the elevator.

This Santa ran over Maddie, and almost got me.  Be careful on the fourth floor.

We played Chip and Dale Christmas card game... Mom won!

These ducks were found in many places this afternoon - Maddie got several!

We'll do the pool this week, of course!  This is the lazy river.

Ah, the big clock!  It goes off on the hour, chiming and playing Christmas music.

We went to Mellow Mushroom after this, all of us getting some wings - and a gluten free brownie with ice cream.  Delicious!

And with full stomachs, we were next over to play some mini-golf!  We had in our minds to play Mystery Putt-Putt, a Scooby Doo themed mini-golf course.  It's new, it's busy, and there are 36 holes here - two courses - for Scooby fans.  We played both, of course!

The first course is based on the adventure with Miner Forty-niner.

There he is!  Look out!

This is the start of the second course - we liked this one better, although the first one was fantastic!

Which witch is which!  This was the virtual course I went on last year - good to see that ol' zombie again!

My favorite villain, Captain Cutler!

The second course is based on a lot of villains from season one, and with the lights at night, it just looked great.  We really enjoyed it, enjoyed both courses a whole lot.  Maddie won the first one, and I won the second one.  If you averaged out all three of us and our scores, we actually tied, all three of us.  But more importantly, we had a great, great time.

Back to our room at the Inn at Christmas Place!  We got back and were kind of tired, actually.  I brought along the Muppet Christmas Carol, and we watched that movie tonight.  You have to watch a Christmas movie while you're here, and you also have to take advantage of the free cookies from the lobby counter too.  Yummy! 

It was a nice day today.  We read tonight, and said our prayers... and these beds here are so nice.  We slept well!