American Museum of the House Cat

We slept in a bit today, but we got that continental breakfast, throwing some bread to the ducks, and then packing everything up for our day.  Our first stop wasn't that far away - it was Hillbilly Mini-Golf Course, where the three of us tried out the other half of the course we didn't do last time.  

Here we are on the inclined railway, riding up to the course, of course.

I didn't do that well today.  Coincidentally, I did not hug this bear.

Yes, these two were along for the adventure.

We're riding a wagon of sorts, probably one designed to lug around moonshine.

This is amazing the mini-golf course was able to continue on.  We often wondered which locations would be affected, and worried about all of them.  This tree shows how close this landmark mini-golf course came to losing everything.

You may not be able to tell from this shot, but the ball balanced perfectly on the crest of this hill, rather than going up or down.  Pretty much representing my entire golfing efforts today!

It was actually a whole lot of fun!  Mom dominated the course today, but we all enjoyed the scenery and the fun of each hole on the course.  We each got a hole-in-one too, starting with Maddie.  We had a really great time, one last hurrah in Gatlinburg.  This course was pretty quiet at the start - we rode up the inclined railway on our own to begin with and took our time going through the course.  By the time we got down the mountain again, the parking lot was full!  One more thing of note, the last hole has each player aiming their golf ball towards an outhouse.  So in fact, we started our trip here in Gatlinburg with an outhouse... and we ended it with an outhouse!

 

Afterwards, we went over the Great Smoky Mountains, returning home.  The weather was very clear, with clouds casting shadows that rolled over the mountains below.  It was crisp and beautiful.  It was also pretty cool up there - fifty-nine degrees at the top!

Leaves fell down along the road as we drove beneath the trees and mountains.  We noticed the colors of the leaves were changing quite a bit, just in the short time we had spent up there in Gatlinburg.  We also noticed quite a surge of travelers heading north for the weekend.  I think we timed things just right with the crowds.

Our next stop was one we were joking about doing, and then we talked about it enough and eventually thought, why not?  We stopped by the American Museum of the House Cat. 

It's not like I'm a terribly big fan of house cats.  Mom likes them though, and Maddie was up for a visit, so we paid for our entrance and walked into "Wonderland" as the host there called it.  The curator of the museum was there as well - they said he was taking "a cat nap," and we thought there was a sleeping cat or something in the building, but in fact it was actually the guy who built this cat empire, fast asleep in a room there.

The exhibits were many.  There were carousel cats there put upon a carousel, some of them dating back over a hundred years in age.  These were pretty impressive, although a little bit of age made some of them slightly creepy...

There's no way to list all the cat stuff in here.  Some of it was really weird.  Some of it was common, and some was extraordinary.  Cat pictures lined the walls, cat boardgames rested on tables, cat posters were taped to the ceiling, cat items hung above us, and cat objects filled shelves everywhere.

Yes, there was even an actual mummified cat from Egypt in this museum.  We'll be seeing an exhibit dedicated to King Tut soon, but this might steal a lot of that thunder!

 There was an area dedicated to the works of Louis Wane.

Is that an executioner cat?

Oh, some of these aren't terrifying at all.  Rows upon rows of cats were looking back at us, and some in the Halloween section were looking pretty upset that we were in their turf!

Maddie was... well, let's just say this wasn't Dollywood...

There was an entire library section with chairs and desks where you could stop and read any one of the hundreds of books there dedicated to cats.

I did need to use the rest room, and was blessed to be able to visit the "most unique restroom in North Carolina."

This is Kevin, the helpful Vampire Cat.  That is actually his name, or at least a nick-name given to this treasured cat.  There's a book about him which they were sadly out of stock of, as I would have bought it right away.  

Okay, here's a section that's fun.  Mom and Maddie went through a couple doors and pulled a rope that lifted a panel so they could reach over and pet some actual kittens.  What cat museum would be complete without kittens?  

Mom loved it.  She loved the museum too, and had a great time looking around!

Joey and Han continue their adventures at the Cat Museum.  I think they had a great time too.  But the afternoon was moving on, and we had to do the same.  We said goodbye to the museum, and got back on the road again.  Meow!

We spent about an hour there, or maybe an hour and a half.  We were happy to see about six or seven other people visiting at the same time, so there's some traffic there from curious cat fans.  

Our trip home was uneventful, which is to say it was good.  We unpacked, and then had a quick bite to eat because Maddie was at taekwondo tonight.  Yeah, that's crazy.  Get up and do mini-golf in Gatlinburg, and then go to taekwondo... crazy.

Tonight we finished up "Loki," and had ourselves some of that barbecue from Buc-ee's that Mom was able to cook up.  We closed out our day with reading and with prayer.  Always amazing these days when you're sitting at home relaxing and about to fall asleep, thinking back to when and where you woke up.