I really dropped the ball on photos for the first portion of our trip with my side of the family. As a result, I have no photo documentation of our 3 days in Gatlinburg. After a rough night on call, we arrived at the Knoxville airport to pick up our $6/day rental vehicle (Hertz's mistake). We drove through Maryville for old times' sake and continued on through the legendary Pigeon Forge to Gatlinburg. Everyone was excited to see each other and we started happy hour early so I could forget about my lack of sleep.
The next day was spent hanging out with the family, eating Pancake Pantry, letting the kids play in the "hot pool" and toss some water balloons around. Lisa showed up later in the evening so the decibel level instantly doubled. We got a few rounds of cornhole in and I confirmed that I am pretty rusty on tossing the bags.
On Saturday Paul and I got to hike a reasonable distance to Rainbow Falls which was quite crowded on a midsummer's weekend day. Unfortunately, I just covered the extent of my physical activity for the entire 10 days we were in Tennessee...when in Rome...
Our departure on Sunday morning was bittersweet as I felt like the time had blown by, but we were continuing on to a full week on Norris Lake with Emily's family. The drive to Norris was rainy, but brightened by two necessary stops in Eastern TN: the fireworks store and Wal-Mart!
The weather cleared by the afternoon and we enjoyed some standard daily activities at the lake: adult swim (where one parent would stay back and supervise nap time for all the kids), death tubing (where the boat driver would try to kill or maim the tube passenger), cruising the lake with beers and riding the inflatable couch. After the kids awoke we'd spend the remainder of the afternoon alternately playing in the water with them or cruising the lake on the runabout.
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| The kids learned to consistently catch fish with Big Den's help. |
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| Just try to throw me off |
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| Wicked sunset from the lakehouse deck |
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| Elliot hammering Maddie with water grenades |
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| Tom can't see Maddie because of her camo Rambo headband |
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| This pretty much sums up the trip: hanging out with the kids in the water, relaxation, beer |
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| The most disturbing thing I've ever seen |
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| The new most disturbing thing I've ever seen |
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| It's OK to bathe naked with your cousins in Tennessee...in fact, it's encouraged |
The pictures below were taken by some of the kids. Not bad for budding photographers.
One afternoon we rented a couple waverunners and cruised the lake. Maddie had never been on one and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Luckily, for the safety of Tom and Mike, the waverunners were speed limited so no one ruined the trip with a neck injury.
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| All smiles on The Couch |
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| A moment of Zen on the boat during sunset (I know the feeling) |
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| After catching lightning bugs |
While the Norris Lake trip was very different than our typical vacations, it was perfect. It offered an ideal balance of activities for the kids and adults, a relaxed safe atmosphere in a pretty setting with easy access to the water. The extreme relaxation hit me just right and let me recharge at a time where work was wearing me out. Thanks to Cindy and Big Den for an awesome trip.
As a bonus, we had two extra days in TN where we met up with our long lost Knoxville friends, John and Sam, for an afternoon and evening and then had the opportunity to meet Joe and Chelsae for lunch at TomatoHead. Coincidentally, we were both visiting Knoxville, they from Hawaii, we from Colorado.
Definitely a much-needed break full of fun, friends, family, food and drink. Ouch, my liver hurts.
