~Trips~ Aka "Life's Journey's"

~Trips~

Who doesn't LOVE to take one?

I have always been a bit "Gypsy" at heart......I say that in the kindest of ways.
But I love to roam around.

(Our good friend Chantelle and her family)

My husband and I just took a "trip" to
Gatlinburg, Tennessee,  

via,
 Birmingham Alabama.

Stopping there for several days to

 visit two SETS of dear friends of ours that live in that area.

(Our dear friend Doug, and his family)

So this became more than a "Trip".......

it was a "Journey"

 because we shared lives and this was more

meaningful than just some

ol' "Trip."

We HAD to go to Gatlinburg.......

because we had a free condo waiting for us that we paid for a year ago and it was about to expire. We didn't want to loose our condo time.

Little did we know that after we paid for it, my husband would loose his job and we would start our own business and struggle with all those issues of trying to stay "on top" of business matters when leaving town, etc..

We were to take our trip to "Colonial Williamsburg" in Virginia......

however we opted to move our vacation "Stay" place closer to home so we wouldn't spend so much time and $$$

on being away, gas, etc.

We Mahans can travel for cheap,

that's the great thing.

But time is also money.

 So we had to guard our time.

We had 10 days slotted for this trip......which involved the husband working from his computer while we were away and making many phone calls.

Problem was......once we arrived to Gatlinburg..we had no wireless service for our laptop in the Mountains where we were staying so this was frustrating for him and his builders.

We had to keep popping into little "Wireless Internet Cafes" and such.

Bothersome. But fun still.

Because we got to eat fun foods like this:

We LOOOOOVE us some "Fish and Chips!"

Which we found at "The Roaming Gnome"

in Pigeon Forge.

It is a NICE "Irish Pub" with good food and lot's of

"Gnome Decor"

on the inside....

like you've never seen before.

Besides having no wireless service....we also encountered very BAD weather.

I took this photo at about 10:30am one morning.....not good!

It didn't get any better the rest of the day.

It was like London on a foggy day....but with Mountains and scary roads.

We only had ONE day of good weather in the Gatlinburg area and that was the day that we arrived.

So we took major advantage of it that day and went to The Smokey Mt.National Park 

and nearly wore ourselves out trying to see as much as we could, as fast as we could knowing that bad weather was on it's way!!

Glad we did that too.......because the rest of the week was dreary and depressing...rainy, foggy, cold.

I'll post those "Sunny" photos next time.

Do come back!