Gatlinburg

Our last afternoon in Tennessee, we went to Ripley's Aquarium.....which was a lot smaller then we remembered it being!

We also went and found this waterfalls/ river rapids park area. And, even though it was pouring, it was still very beautiful!

There was a professional photographer there who offered to get a picture of us together, which I'm thankful for (we had tried to find this falls 9 years ago, but could never find it)!

As we left Tennessee, we stopped to get a picture of the TN/ NC line. We also saw  a flock of Canada Geese, who had already migrated south for the winter!

We really enjoyed our Anniversary outing and the rainy cold weather, but it was so good to see our state sign with some sunshine!

Pigeon Forge

The last day in the Smokey Mountains, we went to "The Old Mill". They have a dozen neat little shops to look at, see a little from the past! 

We ate lunch at the mill and the food wasn't only delicious, but each meal was enough to feed two! Tennessee definitely has great good, but we seriously got tired of eating.....they give you a ton of food!

For about 2 yrs now, Justin and I have wanted to get a small stone marking our Joel tree, in honor of our first born son, who was a stillborn, Joel Kaleb. 

While we were walking around the mill shops, we happened upon a stone shop and were able to get a stone engraved for Baby Joel, for a fraction of the price we'd seen anywhere else......and they had it done in about 4 hours! We were so excited to finally complete this desire we've had.

The rain let up just enough for Justin and I to play a round of putt putt golf, where we had played 9 years before, Saturday night!

We also got to go to a live dinner show, Dixie Stampede! The food was absolutely delicious, even though you had to eat with your hands (no silverware)!!

The show kinda reminded us of going to a rodeo, it was pretty good! But I definitely wouldn't  take little kids to it. The seating arrangements were very tight/cozy, it just wasn't child/ baby friendly at all!

One really neat thing about Tennessee is, that no one really celebrates Oct 31st! Here we were 3 weeks away from, what most people count as a Major Holiday, and everyone is decorating for Christmas instead!

                                      

Cades Cove

So, a lot of people told us we should go to Cades Cove.....you'll see tons of wild animals etc, beautiful!

I don't know, maybe we went at the wrong time of day........But to us, spending 3 hours sitting in a car, going 2 mph, having to stop every 1-2 minutes to look at NOTHING, wasting half a tank of gas, to see one bear for 5 minutes, was not worth the drive!

Justin keeps telling me, well at least we saw the bear! It would have been worse if we had seen nothing!!

We did see this little falls, on the drive to Cades Cove, and tons of turkeys!

Dollywood

We went to Dollywood, which we had never been to, and were so glad we decided to do!!

We'd never been, because we always assumed it would not be a great place to go, considering what the owner represented. But, I would have to say, that it was the best, most educational park I've been to.

Of course, I'm not saying it's got family friendly prices, but definitely Clean! I don't know anything about the 6-8 rides that they had, cause we didn't go on anything but the train ride.

I would say, the coolest thing about our whole trip to TN was that, here we were only 3wks from Oct 31st, and there was only a little fall decor' out, but mainly people were getting ready for Christmas! Nothing advertising the 31st...

Dollywood is like stepping back in time, everyone is dressed accordingly too. All the women wore dresses, aprons and most had hats on too!

You could watch glass blowing, wood working, carving, pottery, iron work, quilting, weaving, baking enough to make you fat or sick, painting etc.

The people were very friendly and told you step by step what they were doing. But to us, the glass blowing by far was the coolest thing!