Our Vacation

Andi and I had such a good time on vacation last week. As usual, it wasn't long enough, but we had a blast. We went to Gatlinburg, TN for a couple of days followed by a great trip to Kingsport where I was able to show Andi the city I grew up in.

Upon getting to Gatlinburg in the evening of Thursday, August 7th, we headed straight to the most important place in the entire city; The Donut Friar. We grabbed a few d's for the hotel room later that night and headed to find a place to eat. After being momentarily distracted by a new magic shop, we found the Mountain Edge Grill, a cute little restaurant located in Baskins Square. Andi and I had never eaten there, so we decided to give it a try. We were quickly seated by a nice host, but when I sat down I noticed that I was sitting in a pile of Sprite or some other similar liquid. I thought that was not too cool, so we moved to another table. The atmosphere was nice, a sports kind of thing, and the food was pretty good. I think we will go back.





We then checked into our motel, the Park Vista (thank you Hotwire!). We were in room number 619 and had a terrific view of the Smokies! Basically, we could just stay in the room the entire time and be happy. God was so good to send me a wife who shares my love of motel rooms! Plus, the Olympic opening ceremony was going to be starting that weekend, so we weren't going anywhere! The room was nice, a little musty smelling, but we didn't care. We were a bit bummed out because some of the TV channels were not working, including Fox News, but at least NBC was coming in. I called guest services to check on the television. The response I got was, "yeah, those channels aren't working." Wow, thanks for the help.



On Friday we slept in till about 11 (well I think Andi got up at around 10) and then we headed out to enjoy the day at Gatlinburg. We ate lunch at Blaine's Grill (where the old Haunted House used to be, RIP) and then went to purchase Callie's Halloween costume. I can't tell you what it is just yet, but I love it! We then ducked into the Ol' Smokey Candy Shoppe to purchase 4 dark chocolate covered cherries (for Andi) and a 1/4 pound white chocolate pretzels (for me). We continued to walk around Gatlinburg and realized that it was really hot outside! As we passed Fanny Farkle's, I texted my best friend to let him know I was looking at the big corn dogs (its a tradition). We decided to head back toward the room, get in some reading, and then enjoy the Olympics. Ordering room service was the topping to a perfect evening!





The next day we drove to Kingsport, TN and I was able to show Andi some of the places I used to live. We met up with Aaron, Brittany, Keyth, and Greg and went to Discovery Ice Cream (where a robot serves ice cream, Bella would love this!). Greg, Aaron, Keyth, and I got sidetracked (as usual) by talking about old memories on the road with JF. We also enjoyed some real nice Broad Street cruising with really loud cars.



All in all, we had a great trip, but it is always nice to get back home. I love home. Talk to you soon.