Smokin' Day One

First day of vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains!

Yesterday was 10 hours of travel, and though we started out in a torrential downpour, the drive was mostly really good.

Shoney's is the most ubiquitous restaurant in the world, and I get queasy thinking about eating there again. The food was fine (except for Number One's steak--J said "never order steak in a place like this!) but the faucet in the bathroom was so corroded there was a hole in it. For some reason, that really grosses me out.

Tennessee is beautiful. A lot of the time I can't tell we're not in Pennsylvania, but then the land opens up and it's a little more rolling, and of course the mountains are grander. I can't believe all the trailers/mobile homes here. Most of them are situated on huge tracts of land. Odd.

Today we woke around 6 to thunderous storms. They moved on after a while, and the weather was good enough to hike the Laurel Falls trail in the park. It was excellent. Just enough of a hike for us out-of-shape adults, with natural A/C at the falls themselves to cool us after the uphill climb.

On the way down, I hit a patch of...well, patching on the paved trail, and my food skidded out from under me and I landed hard on my knee.

Twice.

J tells me "slow down, small steps!" I told him I'm not 5. After I realized the patches and my right sneaker didn't get along, I was fine. I took a cool picture I'll post when we get home, since I failed to bring the camera cable.

It rained hard again on the way back to our sweet cabin (I think this place is bigger than my house), but when it stopped we went swimming. Then I drove the one-hour round trip to town to get pizza for dinner.

Yeah, that's a bit of a lament, that we're so far out of Gatlinburg. It's not really a full half hour to get to town or a park entrance, but it's not close, either.

Tomorrow we're tackling white water rafting, and then I think I need to do laundry already. (We had to pack light due to reduced trunk space in the hybrid--but it's worth it to get 37+ mpg!) I'll give an injury report afterward. :)