Our Vacation... over at last.

Greetings once again to all of you in the digital world. It's been five days since I last saw any internet communication and I definitely needed the time away. It was indeed a roaring success, with neither April nor Clair having any idea what we were up to until we actually arrived. Friday night we left and drove through most of the night. As midnight closed upon us, we finally arrived at our destination, Maggie Valley, North Carolina. I haven't had the opportunity to re-visit Maggie Valley since my young childhood, when I traveled there with my grandparents and family. So, for me at least, this part of the trip was a reunion of my childhood of sorts. Saturday morning we rose early and departed for our destination. Friday, I took us all but 50 miles to our final destination, wanting to rise Saturday and spend it enjoying the last 50 miles of scenic beauty. We departed Maggie Valley on a meandering course through the Blue Ridge parkway to take in natures sights. We stopped to see Ghost Town In The Sky, but found it to be closed. It seems it was finally bought this year and will re-open in the Spring of 2006. Deflated, but not defeated, we drove on. As we traveled up towards Cherokee North Carolina, we stopped to take in the sights. Having been detoured due to heavy ice in the mountains, we found the Blue Ridge passes also closed to all traffic. So, after enjoying the scenic pleasures of Cherokee and spending a little time shopping, we headed off into the wild blue yonder, and I DO mean WILD and BLUE. The tops of the blue ridge mountains were visible, encased in a snow covered dome, as we approached. Having been turned back at the entrance to the parkway, we sought another path. As I have often praised the inventors at Garmin, I do so again. With the GPS, we simply clicked another pathway and the computer generated us a new course, only about 25 miles longer than the first. The alternative was to go back all the way past Maggie Valley and proceed north, circumventing the mountain range altogether, which was definitely NOT in my plans. A park ranger stopped us at the base of the mountain pass, warding away all traffic sans the benefit of four-wheel-drive. After assuring the ranger that I could indeed, if needed, press the magic button, he let us proceed with fair warning and we were off up into the snow. The ride was beautiful. As we crossed from 1500 feet to 2000 feet, we started to see signs of ice and slush on the roads. The rise to the top carried us a full 5, 080 feet up that mountain range, to the North Carolina/Tennessee border. Frequent stops were made for photos of the surrounding mountains, valleys, creeks, and ice covered wonders nature had on display in its holiday spirit. At long last, after spending 4 hours just to traverse 26 miles in the ice, we arrived through the other side of the mountin range, deposited instead into the Great Smoky Mountain range and the wonder and gentle beauty of Gatlinburg Tennessee. Lost amid the architecture of the late 1800s, we made our way at last to the condo. The girls had been told at this point where our destination was, but had no idea what we had in-store for them. As we drove past this complex on the right, the girls faces lit up with "ooohhs" and "oh how cool"s . April asked me where we were staying, and I knew I had it made when I said "umm.. you're looking at it honey..." We entered into our ,1200 (or so) square foot condo with a full kitchen, rustic dining room, leather clad living room, king-sized master bedroom (with built-in jacuzzi by the bed) and a studio apartment attached that Tim and Clair claimed as their own. Saturday night was spent mildly relaxing amongst the plush accomodations and planning what we would do the next day. As Sunday rolled around, the girls took us on their shopping spree across Gatlinburg. We walked the half mile or so to the main street and headed right, up the street, to begin our trek, after having devoured a huge breakfast in some Pancake place on the same road as our hotel. Soon after our travels began, the girls delighted upon a hawker eagerly selling discount packages to all the attractions in town. We began our journey in the Ripley's Haunted House, where, as I'm sure you'll hear from April, I was jumped by a dead body in the elevator at the end. I'll let her regale you with this tale, as I'm sure she's dying to practice her embellishment skills. After this event, we toured some more local shops, and headed on to Ripley's Amazing 4D Theatre. Twenty grinding minutes in the four dimensional (although technically it was only 3 dimensional as the 4th dimension is time, not motion.. but I didn't feel the need to argue semantics at this point in the trip) theatre left me feeling quit nauseous so we headed back to the condo to enjoy a repast of ham sandwiches and hot chocolate. Mid afternoon found us back on the streets, headed down the opposite street to see what wonders were to be found there. Here we traversed more shops, more knick-knack stores, the Guinness World Record Museum, and the Ripley's Aquarium. Of all the events, being a huge nature fan, the aquarium was by far my most favored attraction up to this point. (Of course, no dead bodies assaulted me in the elevators here, so it was already in the points lead by the time I arrived.) We have probably close to one hundred photos detailing our events throughout the aquarium, so we'll share those with you on here later. By evening, starving, tired of walking, and in search of sustenance, we found our way to the Park Grill for dinner. A beautiful antiquarian building with absolutely stupendous steaks made our day complete. Sunday evening was spent coupled up in various jacuzzis throughout the complex. I'll let you determine the results of the rest of the evening on your own. Monday morning was what I was waiting for. In an attempt to recoup some of the costs of the vacation, we split up and each couple visited a time-share presentation. We walked, they talked, we didnt buy, and they gave us one hundred bucks. Not a bad use of time at all I'd say. In a rush and bundled up for an arctic event, we headed for the ski slopes. Unfortunately there are no pictures detailing this event. We thought, and correctly so, that the cameras would not survive the tumult in which we were about to immerse ourselves. Boy Was I Right! We spent an hour in Ski School, during which I only crashed into the main instructor twice, the secondary instructor once, and the big blue retaining fence numerous times. After an hour, our instructor relesed us to the slopes and to our own demise at nature's hands. As April and I headed down the slopes the first time, Tim and Clair passed us TWICE, once at such speed that I was sure I was going to find Clair in a bundle at the bottom of the hill. She had attempted to slow down to see if April was ok on her second visit past us in our initial descent. Her attempt at help was more akin, however, to a passenger in a speeding car screaming out an open window. She blew by me at about 40 miles per hour, hands out, knees locked, ski poles flailing, and yelling "are you ooooooookkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk?" Later, I made a second descent alone, just to enjoy one final time at coming down the hill. Somewhere in the middle of two slopes and two curves, my legs finally figured how to maximize their position for speed. Unfortunately, my feet were still working on the stopping lessons I had been fervently teaching them earlier. The result was a feet-splayed smash into the snow, at about 30 or 40 miles per hour. I hit face first so hard that I scraped all the finish off one side of my sunglasses. Thirty minutes later, I was trying to get my ski clothes off and was STILL finding giant balls of ice and snow stuffed in various places from that fall. Suffice it to say, all things considered, I had an absolute blast on the slopes. We returned to our rooms, ate dinner inside, and immediately seeked refuge in the hot tubs. The english tobacco, dominican cigars, hot coffee, and jacuzzis made a nice way to forget the stress of the day's events. Now, that being said, no one moved a muscle for the next four hours on the couches. We were sore in places that we didn't know existed. Today, we rose and began the long drive back home. Now, hours later, I am once again comfortable, back behind my keyboard, telling you all my story. To those of you who called a hundred times, we ignored the phones on purpose. lol April didn't want to alert the SBN (Scooby Broadcast Network) individually and thought instead to let everyone know at once what happened and what we did. So, there is my story to all of you. I hope you have had a wonderful week yourselves. Know that I missed you all, and those of you I'm speaking of know who you are. I'm glad to be back to my home, listening to my narcississtic cats, and banging away on my keyboard. Hope to see you all soon. Me.