Gatlinburg ... a Practically Unplanned Adventure! June 27 - July 5, 2009 About This Page:

[chezp]

You got some great photos at the zoo - I love the penguin ones.

[PrincessSharon]

Originally Posted by christiejay

Hmmm ... I sure did take a lot of pictures at the zoo!

Not if you ask me! Love them!

[pamcarey]

More great pictures! That looks like a really nice zoo!

[christiejay]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

More great pics!

Thanks Marnie.

Originally Posted by chezp

You got some great photos at the zoo - I love the penguin ones.

Thanks Cheryl. At first I was disappointed when we made our way to the penguin exhibit, as I couldn't see any. Then we spotted one in the corner. While we were standing there, though, the keeper came out and started feeding them. Whole fish. Not too appetizing to me, but they seemed to enjoy it.

Originally Posted by PrincessSharon

Not if you ask me! Love them!

Thanks Sharon. For almost all my pictures I subscribe to your "set it on auto and snap away" philosophy. (Mine's a Canon A560, which I believe is similar to your previous camera?)

Originally Posted by pamcarey

More great pictures! That looks like a really nice zoo!

Thanks Pam. Compared to our local zoo it is awesome. I know it's not quite as fancy as some others across the country, but they do have several top-notch habitats. Over our past three visits they seem to have always had something else in the works. I think their next major plans are to do something for the big cats.

[christiejay]

Continuing With Day 2 - June 28

Now we had made our way through the tortoises, and were ready to look at the other reptile exhibits. Here's where it can get a little creepy! The first thing we encountered was a small indoor exhibit for the Chinese Alligator:


Then it was back and forth past several other glass cases. Most held snakes. I didn't take too many pictures here because the glass on a lot of the cases was either cloudy or scratched up, making it a little hard to see. But here's the pictures I ended up with:






I love the green of this guy.










I love the sleeping place he found ... cozy, don't you think?




One more "pretty bird" - seemed like these guys were everywhere!


Coming back around the other side of the tortoise area, I happened upon this guy who wanted to go swimming:






The only thing left to do at the zoo was the Kid's Cove area, which we didn't have much time for on our last visit. I was sure Joshua would enjoy it, so we started down the ramp.


Looking down into the petting zoo area


The first thing we did was the Barn Loft, as the entrance to it was on the way down the ramp, before you got to the main entrance of the kids area. Inside were mice and owls (not in the same enclosure! ), animals that would normally live in a barn.








There were several exhibits and lots of pictures of old farms in this area. I asked Jay to take pictures of some of them, but he made some excuse about my batteries so I only ended up with one picture: [Please note how many more pictures I took ... so I have no idea what he was referring to!]


The rest of the Kids Cove area was down the hill, and the first thing we passed was a pig


There was a cow-milking activity - not a real cow, but some sort of machine. It was out of order but Joshua did agree to sit on this saddle


Next was a petting zoo but Joshua didn't want to do that - he was ready to just play!


Next door to the play area was the beaver exhibit so I took a picture of some I saw swimming under a door.


After a few minutes Joshua finished playing and we walked into an aviary, which also had an overlook into the beaver habitat. Of course they weren't visible right now , so we continued on to the Night Club exhibit. This was their cute name for the habitat for nocturnal animals. They were doing some work, so some animals weren't out. But we did see a few bats and a raccoon - kind of. He was sleeping in a hammock-like bag in a tree. I saw him stick his head out for a minute, but before I could get my camera ready, and attempt to adjust it for the low light inside this building, he was back inside and didn't come back out.

When we exited the Night Club area, we walked around the other end of the beaver exhibit and got to see them up close. Jay took some pictures while I walked with Joshua back to the play area.


Can't you just hear this guy talking to the Pevensie children?




Joshua found another slide


and we gave him a few more minutes to play. He announced he had to go to the bathroom, so while Jay walked with him I got another drink refill and found this turkey


After a few more minutes we decided we needed to get going so we walked back toward the entrance, getting a couple more pictures of the rhinos on our way - from the opposite side of their enclosure.




The only thing we had left to do was to see the black bear exhibit. It was right at the entrance, but we walked past it when we arrived because we were heading straight back to eat lunch. We had good luck seeing the bears today as you can see:














We exited through the gift shop. They had a lot of nice stuff, but Jay and I decided not to get anything. Joshua picked out a zipper pull with his name on it. After paying for that we walked back out to the truck to finish our drive to the resort.

Up Next: Traffic? What traffic?

[Colexis Mom]

More great pictures! The zoo looks like it was a great time!

[chezp]

More great photos. Love the shots of the black bear.

[lauren-roxy]

Great photos from the zoo Christie!! I had to laugh at the photo of the condor wingspan, we have one of those at our zoo and the kids always want a photo to see how much they have grown!

[christiejay]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

More great pictures! The zoo looks like it was a great time!

We did really enjoy our time here on this trip. Since we're familiar with the layout now we knew exactly where we wanted to spend our time at. Plus even though we weren't there for very long it somehow seemed to be a pretty relaxing visit. Don't ask me to explain that though!

Originally Posted by chezp

More great photos. Love the shots of the black bear.

I love how zoos are using more of those plate glass windows to allow you to get closer to the animals. I don't remember ever having one of the bears that close, though.

Originally Posted by lauren-roxy

Great photos from the zoo Christie!! I had to laugh at the photo of the condor wingspan, we have one of those at our zoo and the kids always want a photo to see how much they have grown!

That's great! It would make a cute set of scrapbook pages.

Thanks everyone for keeping up. Got some "chores" to do, but will post the next update in just a little while. Ready to move on to the next phase of the trip?

[rhinohunter]

Just found this today. Enjoyable reading. So many adventures and you havn't made it to Gatlinburg yet. Looking forward to reading more of your TR.

[christiejay]

Originally Posted by rhinohunter

Just found this today. Enjoyable reading. So many adventures and you havn't made it to Gatlinburg yet. Looking forward to reading more of your TR.

Thanks! That's what I was just thinking, we're still not at our destination! The next update gets us there, though.

[christiejay]

Conclusion of Day 2 - June 28

We were back on the interstate within a few minutes, excited to know that we would soon be at our destination! Unfortunately, the major traffic jam we ran into last time was looming in the back of my mind. I was so worried we'd be caught in the same sort of thing again. The only good part would be that we could anticipate it this time, and be prepared for our drive to take a very long time. Plus, some storm clouds were moving in and we didn't want to be in a traffic jam in the middle of a severe thunderstorm! As we continued driving, though, getting closer and closer to our exit, we still weren't seeing any traffic. I was scared to say anything positive about it, or I might jinx us! But after just a few minutes we got to our exit, and easily made it a short way up the road to our first stop, the Sevierville Visitor Center.

It was starting to sprinkle rain, but it looked like the worst of the storm clouds would miss us. We ran in quickly and started looking around for brochures and coupons. Having done that, we headed to the other side of the building to the National Park bookstore, which wasn't quite ready to open the last time we were there. I found lots of things in there - a magazine that I had missed a couple of years ago in the mail, a photo album that my sister had requested, a map of all the Mt. LeConte trails for my dad, a replacement driving booklet for me because I lost my old one, an Alum Cave Bluff trail booklet, and a book called Place Names of the Smokies.

We made our way back onto the road, hitting a little traffic at the point where one of the other main entrance routes joins up with this road. But after a few traffic lights it cleared out a little and we were soon coming into Pigeon Forge. Our next stop was at the Pigeon Forge Welcome Center. I was disappointed here, though, as we pulled into their parking lot I noticed they had just closed. I thought it was odd that a welcome center would close at 5:00 on a Sunday in such a touristy and heavily-visited area, but there was nothing I could do about it! So we got back on the road to go eat supper. On the way I took a couple of pictures. Here's the WonderWorks Museum, which I was wanting to visit:


And the Titanic museum which is still obviously under construction:


The traffic moved fairly evenly through Pigeon Forge, so it didn't take much longer before we stopped to eat supper at KFC. Jay had a 2-piece meal, I had a bowl meal and Joshua had a drumstick kid's meal. I had been looking forward to one of those bowl meals since the last time we were here - how sick is that? Jay much prefers to eat Popeye's chicken, but for some reason he always agrees to eat at this KFC while we're on vacation. So I had to wait three years to eat here, since I'm too cheap to take myself out to eat at KFC at home! We sat upstairs, looking out over the Parkway. We enjoyed the time to relax, and watching the traffic pass by. It was a beautiful day - the nasty weather didn't come this direction after all - and the restaurant was not crowded so it was quiet too. Before we left I was going to use their restroom but it was so filthy I turned right back around. It's a good thing it wasn't an emergency!

After supper we drove out of Pigeon Forge and onward to Gatlinburg. Just before coming into town we stopped at the Welcome Center. I picked up a few brochures, but didn't get anything in the National Park gift shop here. I went back to the truck (Jay and Joshua had opted to wait for me instead of coming in) and we drove into Gatlinburg. I was so happy to see that the traffic was still moving smoothly. At least at this point on the road we knew an alternate route to our resort, but we didn't have to use it this evening. After a few more minutes, we arrived at the entrance to our resort, Mountain Loft.


Sorry about the crack in the windshield getting in the way here.

There was nobody in the security booth, so we drove on up to the clubhouse to check in. I refused to go in because every. single. time. you check in at one of the resorts in our club you get asked to come to an "owners update" meeting. Except that it's not - first they want you to upgrade your membership by buying more points. Then they want you to give them the names addresses and phone numbers of 3 other people they can contact about taking a trip to tour a resort. I hate this! And the last couple of times I've gotten ugly with them about it. So I just refuse to go in to the check-in facilities anymore - I send Jay in instead.

Check-in didn't take too long - Joshua and I waited in the truck. There didn't seem to be too many other people in there at the time. Soon Jay came back out and we headed up to see our townhouse. I noticed that we had been assigned to a unit that might have a good view, but as we pulled up I realized we wouldn't be far enough down for the views. That's okay, though, I was still happy to be in a townhouse instead of the cramped condo unit like we had last time. Here's the pictures I took of our unit.



Inside to the left was the second bedroom with two twin beds - Joshua's home away from home for the week.






Walk straight past that bedroom and you enter the kitchen/dining/living room.


That is the connecting door to the 1-bedroom unit on the other side. It's possible to rent it out as a 3-bedroom unit but we didn't need that much space. The fireplace was gas logs, on a timer.


As you can see, the 1-person kitchen was a little small for Jay, who's 6' 2"


There was a small deck, which was completely taken up by that table and 4 chairs.


I was trying to show the vaulted ceilings - it was hard to fit it all into one picture.


To the right of the front door, on the front of the unit, was a full bathroom.

No, that's not Joshua's victory dance for using the potty! I have no idea why he was doing this.

Right outside this bathroom were the very steep stairs leading to the master suite, as well as the laundry facilities.




The master bedroom as seen from the top of the stairs. It had a large deck with only a couple of chairs and a small table, so plenty of extra room up here as compared to the downstairs deck.


It had vaulted ceilings, too.


Jay asked me if I wanted him to be Vanna White. I said sure and snapped the picture!




I was standing in front of the closet, looking back toward the top of the stairs on the far right, and the entrance to the bathroom.


It was hard for me to get what I thought were good pictures of the bathroom, but here's what it looked like -




This was the only mountain view we had - from the upstairs balcony. That building is one of the condo buildings. There are several others on property.


We brought our things in and started putting them away. I was checking everything closely to see if there were any problems to report, but except for having no light in the laundry closet, everything seemed to be in good order.

After we got all settled in, we called home to check in with my family and let them know we had arrived safely. Then I started my nightly ritual of preparing everything we would need for tomorrow's outing - it would be the first of several early starts to beat the crowd into the National Park. We got Joshua settled into bed in his room, then headed upstairs to go to bed ourselves.

Up next: Day 3, Our First Day in the National Park

[Colexis Mom]

Your resort room looks very nice!

[chezp]

What a lovely room! Shame the welcome centre closed so early.

[lauren-roxy]

What a nice townhouse!!!!