Tennessee Vacation

From June 10 through June 15 we vacationed with Dave's family in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  We drove to Denver and then flew Frontier to Knoxville.  We rented a van with points and drove to Gatlinburg.  We got in Sunday night and settled into our hotel rooms.  On Monday we all slept in til like 10:00.  (dang time difference).  Breakfast was only until 10:30 so we got up quickly and went to eat breakfast.  We met up with Bruce and Lynn later and we all went the The Track and rode go karts.  Ben and I went to the arcade there for awhile.   We headed back to the hotel around 3:30 and the Flachs and the Brian Deters were arriving the hotel.  The guys immediately settled into some card playing so the rest of us walked into town and ate at Bubba Gumps.  The waiter did a great job taking care of all 16 of us and I'm sure the kids will remember that trip for a while.  Then we took an arial tram ride up to the top of the mountain and took photos and bought a gift.

When we got back to the hotel, the guys were still playing cards and having a great time.  The next day we all headed to Dollywood.  It was pretty expensive and hot, but the kids had a great time.  We headed to the resort from here and met up with the rest of the family.  It was our night to help with supper, so I baked a bunch of potatoes and made hot dogs in our room, then we all went and ate together.

Wednesday was spent at the other side of Dollywood - Splash Country.  Kathy, Lylah, Connor and I hung out by the splash pool for a while then Kathy and I went twice around the Lazy River.  I was getting pretty red, so after lunch I changed my clothes and stayed in the shade.  We hung out back at the resort that evening enjoying Kathy's sonic/vodka drinks.  They were actually pretty good.

Thursday, most of them went rafting and had a GREAT time.  It was hard to wake Ben up for this and he grumbled all the way out the door, but he enjoyed it.  His tour guide told them about how The Hunger Games had been filmed only 30 miles from where they were rafting and how they had brought in fake trees and blown them up during the filming.  He loved hearing about that.

We flew home on Friday - flight was smooth and the pilot even let Ben up in the cockpit before the flight - fueling his desire to be a pilot.  It was really cool.