Hi fellas,Well, I can tell you all this much right now: my body is far past the time when staying up late drinking with friends is 'cool' and something that can be done without consequence.
Old age and having early-rising children make it impossible.
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| Back of the cabin. |
As I stumbled downstairs, everyone but Smitty and Damon (who I guess were allowed to sleep in, the lucky bastards) was busy taking packed bags to their respective mini-vans, picking up around the cabin, and scarfing down one last breakfast before hitting the road. After downing a half-pot of black coffee, I grudgingly threw in my lot and began loading up Kris' van for the long (and crappy) drive ahead of us.
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| The Sausage Pad mounts up. |
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| To the right there is a crapload of unused firewood - during the summer months, you're not allowed to use the cabin's fireplace. Which is, honestly, pretty lame. |
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| Lazarus empties the last of the cabin's garbage. |
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| Bear-proof receptacles. Gotta love it. |
After saying our farewells to the rest of the Sausage Pad and their families, we locked up the cabin and drove back into Gatlinburg for some last-minute business. The pipe tobacco I had bought earlier from Gatlin-burlier was a little dry, and the day before (when I discovered this) I had called the store and they told me they'd switch it out for free. Instead of parking, Kris opted to driving around the block about a dozen times, since the Mountain Mall is conveniently located on a busy corner and it was somewhat easy to do so.
While Kris drove around in circles, I was able to have one of the pipe experts there (a guy named Richard) walk me through how to moisten up one's dry pipe tobacco using a spray bottle and weird-shaped metal pan. Extremely helpful guy. For my troubles he even game me a pack of pipe cleaners and a pipe cleaner tool for free.
Can't argue with that.
I went back outside the mall and found Kris right at the corner, waiting on a red light. Jumping into the van, she informed me that she had left her cell phone back in the locked cabin. The problem with this was that the alarm had already been armed, and if we attempted entering the usual door code to enter it would trigger it.
As we drove back to the cabin, we were able to get the alarm code from Rita and spoke with the rental office to make sure us breaking back into the cabin was ok. When Kris ran inside, there were already a few cleaners there working their way through our old log mansion. It took her nearly ten minutes to find her phone, as it had been kicked underneath the coach somewhere, but phone in hand, we were able to get back onto the road and set off on 441.
It was 12:30pm.
As we drove through the Great Smoky National Park, we decided to stop at one of the pull-over areas along the side of the road so that we could get one last hike in with the girls. While the climb up Clingman's Dome had been awesome, it was pretty intense for the kids (and us), and nothing you'd consider 'leisurely.' We wanted to be in the woods, too, and show the girls what real forests are like (you don't walk through forests down here in Florida - snakes, alligators, and swampy terrain make it nearly impossible.)
Here's some pics from our impromptu, hour-long hike:
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| Setting off we had to walk down a hill, away from our parking spot beside 441. . . |
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| Lookouts atop a boulder. |
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| Call me crazy, but I think this was man-made. |
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| "Feeding caterpillars." |
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| At the base of the hill was a river that trickled over a bunch of child-maiming, mossy rocks. |
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| The girls wanted to explore further, and even play in the river, but posted signs suggested otherwise - that there was a 'higher than normal level of fecal matter present' in the water. So, obviously, we decided against it. |
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| Discussing why we can't swim in the water. |
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| The Houghs |
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| Investigating more caterpillars, dodging daddy longlegs |
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| No, Alayna hasn't adopted Hinduism - a mosquito bit her square on the forehead. We weren't expecting insects to be so bad near this forest stream. . . mainly, you know, 'cause we live in Florida and don't get out into the woods much. |
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| Preventing slip-and-falls |
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| Working our way back to the van. . . |
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| Abby and her LeapPad |
Back in the car, we were faced with a tough decision. The kids were pretty drained from nearly five days on the road, having a bunch of touristy nonsense thrown in their faces, so we were anxious to get home. Then again, it was at least a ten-hour drive back to Orlando, and that's not including stops for gas, meals, and copious amounts of bathroom breaks (because, as you all know, little kids have pea-size bladders.) We had initially planned on staying the night at BP's house again, about three and a half hours away, so we knew we could reach his place by dinner time at the latest.
The problem was the girls. They just couldn't handle it.
So we decided to push through, come Hell or high water.
Since none of us could stomach driving all the way through Georgia again (the "Ohio of the South"), we decided to take the other proverbial fork in the road and sidestep through North Carolina and go down South Carolina instead. Driving down I-95 instead of I-75 was 7 minutes longer, total. And we'd only have an hour and half driving through Georgia.
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| South Carolina. Meh. |
Booya.
The biggest time-consuming chunk of the day, once again, was navigating through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which had us limited to about 30 - 40 mph, what with all its ascending/descending down mountains, twisting through tunnels, and the like. Once we hit a major highway and actually started feeling some traction, the time began to pass much more quickly.
South Carolina is only slightly more boring than Georgia. The scenery is 'meh' at best, but at least you're not peppered with hypocritical billboards along the way that damn you to the fiery pits of Hell for using contraception while simultaneously asking you to check out the nearby XXX Porno/Fireworks/Guns/Cigarettes store.
Gotta love the South.
We stopped off at a McDonald's about half-way through South Carolina so the kids could stretch their legs in one of those unsanitary, plastic disaster-bombs McDonald's calls 'play areas' and not eat some chicken nuggets. Kris and I grabbed some ice coffees, but she's grown into somewhat of a coffee snob lately so she had a hard time finishing hers. Me, I'll drink horse piss so long as it has caffeine in it - I was still wrestling with my crappy three hours of sleep from the previous night morning.
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| I'm not a coffee snob. |
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| Kris, parenting. |
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| Chaos |
Our drive through South Carolina was pretty uneventful, honestly. The kids watched a few Disney movies, napped terribly, but otherwise kept their shit together. We drove through a rainstorm that lasted a few hours and into the night, when the kids finally began to doze off for good. I attempted introducing Kris to some audiobook mp3 CDs to make the time pass by faster - I have a book of CDs all legally ripped from Librivox, and threw in a Sherlock Holmes story for about fifteen minutes before Kris began nodding off behind the steering wheel.
Ultimately we decided reaching Orlando alive and in one piece was more important than uncovering the truth behind the Red-Headed League.
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| One more Georgia pit-stop. |
We reached a rest stop in southern Georgia and let the kids use the bathrooms one more time, stretch their legs, and get some non-recycled fresh air before hitting the road once again. Randomly, while walking back from the bathrooms, I found a miniature Louisville Slugger bat sitting abandoned on a parch bench with 'Tifton, Georgia' printed on the side - the same town where we had stopped for Chic-Fil-A on the way up and first dealt with Kris' van's faulty engine light.
One final souvenir from our Tennessee family excursion.
We didn't stop again until we were about a half-hour or so from home. This time my bladder couldn't hold out any longer, for which I caught some hell. Back on familiar ground, we made it back home by 2am, carrying our dead-tired kids to bed, emptying the van, and turning all the major appliances in the house back on.
Kris passed out shortly thereafter, but Yours Truly stayed up for another hour or so, further unpacking things and putting things away so that when I woke up in the morning (hopefully after 6am, for a change), I wouldn't have to do crap but lie around on the couch, drinking coffee, and watching a marathon of movies.
- Fín -
- Brian
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