Gatlinburg Trip, Day 1

Friday—July 3, 2009
Left Plainfield 2 hours+ later than hoped. Didn’t actually get on the road until 11:30-11:45 AM. Made several stops along the way. Kids were somewhat contentious but we tried to remain patient.
Got off the interstate at Sevierville, TN, for the last few miles of the trek, only to find a mile-long line at the exit ramp. Thought this was our Gatlinburg traffic…but it turned out that MOST of it was heading the other way, to a stadium. Some sort of game was going on. I figured we’d actually be at our cabin by 8:00 PM, since there aren’t many miles from Sevierville to Gatlinburg. Au contraire! Unfortunately, Pigeon Forge is in between. Getting through it was horrific. Took a LONG time. Driving through Gatlinburg on the way to the cabin, we noticed people all lined up on the streets for the parade, three hours early! I figured we didn’t have a prayer… We didn’t even get to our cabin until, like, 9:00 or after.
The so-called cabin is bigger than our house! It is on two levels. Upstairs is a living room with fireplace, kitchen/dining area, two bedrooms (one with queen size and one with king sized bed), and a bath-and-a- half. On the upper deck are chairs and a picnic table. Downstairs, there is a game room with a pool table, and a separate area with a jacuzzi. On the deck on the lower level is a hot tub. There are TVs in the game room, the living room, and both bedrooms, complete with DVD players. Ryan was smitten with the place!
After we unloaded the vehicle, we decided that we needed to find a grocery store and a place to park to watch Gatlinburg’s “Midnight on the Fourth” parade. (I mean, it’s the only place in the country that offers a Fourth of July parade at midnight, so I figured we should try to see it, however tired we were…for the children’s sake.) Never found a grocery, but we did find a little Mexican joint that sold eggs and milk…blah, blah. We parked in some motel’s space, hoping not to be towed, and put the perishables in the vehicle, hoping they wouldn’t spoil during our 2-hour wait for the parade to start.
The smartest thing I did all day was put long pants and sweatshirts on the grandchildren before we left for the parade. The evening turned off quite cool. The children were comfortable. Meg and I got a bit chilly. God bless the kids: they were good in spite of a long wait for the parade to start. It was late, of course, and they had been on the road all day, so their delightful behavior was particularly appreciated. Robin was prepared with a plastic sack for candy, but this parade didn’t provide any. What a disappointment for her! We sat on a curb. Robin found an adult friend right next to her…a woman named Arie from near-Effingham, IL. They chatted during the wait. Turned out to be beneficial because, toward the end of the parade when Robin had to go to the bathroom, and there were no open establishments to be found, we walked back to Arie’s cabin for bathroom privileges, arriving back to the parade at the very end. (I can’t believe that Gatlinburg doesn’t have porta-potties around for this event!)
Ryan was asleep in the car on the way “home” in minutes. When we got back to the cabin, we found him snuggled under Meg’s blanket on the bed they were to share. He was sooo tired! Robin conked out quickly, too. It was probably 3:00 AM before Meg and I crashed for the night. She worked to get an AOL dialup working so she could talk to her friend, Denis, in California. It wasn’t great, but better than nothing.