Back to Reality

We  have been on a fabulous vacation!   We went to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg for a mini, but wonderful time away!  I was super excited because this time we took with us…

Higgins and

Maggie!!

It was so nice to be able to take our animals with us.  We also have a poodle, but he does not do change very well, so he opted to stay with friends!

We rented a cabin that had glorious views and was by far, one of the nicest places we have stayed in when we have visited the mountains.  Here are the views from the third floor balcony and they are heavenly!

 

Our room shared a wall of windows to the view above, but I never got a very good picture, but I did snap one of Higgins getting in a little nap.  Can we say SPOILED?

This was the view the second morning of our trip.  It rained so hard during the night and in the morning there was a beautiful fog that drifted among the mountains.

I would say one of the most exciting and terrifying things about the trip was the encounters with the bears.  In all the years that we have been visiting the mountains (20 off and on) I have never seen a bear.  This year I caught a glimpse of one on our way back to the cabin one night.  It was not very far from where we were staying.  Of course Jeremy only saw the bear as it was going off the road and was making fun of me saying that I didn’t really see one.  Then of course, the two teenage boys that I gave birth too decided to terrorize me as well!

That was short lived!!!!

We pulled up to the cabin on our last night there and what stood large and in charge??  A huge mama bear and her cub!    I tried to take a picture but I was screaming “there are bears….I told you so!” and I was shaking so badly that I could not get the picture!!  I am such a nerd! 

It made for a rough night because the bears were not leaving and they were enjoying themselves at the next door neighbors garbage cans.  The guy next door walked outside and almost ran right into one.   We also had motion detected flood lights so every time they would come on, I was trying to catch a glimpse with my camera, but no luck.  We went outside on the third floor porch (cause I was to scared to go any lower) and we could hear them, but never saw them to get a picture.  Oh well, that is fine with me!

On our trip we also enjoyed zip lining, Dollywood and strolls down the main drag of Gatlinburg!  Here is a picture of Joey on one of the ziplines…

I am so sad that we had to come home…oh well, that is life.  Too bad we are not zillionaires where we could stay on an extended 365 day vacation!  HA!