Anyone know of any weird mountain rashes you can catch? I have this weird rash that broke out on me today. It started out on my chest area, and spread upwards to my neck, and then around the back of my neck and even the back of my head in my hair. The part in my hair itches, but the rest of it doesn't. My mom thought it might be a heat rash, but whatever kind of rash it is, it's weird...it's very bumpy. I've already had the chicken pox, so it's not that. I am up to date on measle shots, so it couldn't be that. I have no other symptoms, at least not yet. I didn't touch any plants in the mountains, or at least I don't think I did. This is just weird. Any ideas?

We're home, finally! I love vacation, but it sure is nice to be home! We had a blast. I'm definitely glad we made this trip instead of Destin. We got to do MOST of the things we had originally planned on doing, and came back with a few dollars left, lol. So here's what we did:

Monday: Loaded up everything, left the house a wee bit after 7 a.m., dropped the kids off, dropped the cats off, dropped the dogs off, and hit the road. Well, the one little disaster was that before we could actually get on the road, we had to stop at one of those little car washes to use the vacuum to suck up all the freaking DOG HAIR. Little Bear got a bath the night before, and so he was shedding BAD. We had the windows open driving down Goodman Road on the way to the kennel, and it was literally SNOWING dog hair outside, or so it seemed. We made good time getting to our cabin in Pigeon Forge. We made minimal stops along the way, and got to our cabin around 4-ish Eastern time. As we got closer to the cabin, we were excited like little kids. Our cabin was very cozy and stuff, complete with a heart-shaped jacuzzi tub for two, an enclosed outdoor hot tub on the back porch, a tv downstairs, tv upstairs, fire place downstairs, a couch, a kitchen with everything a kitchen is supposed to have, a full bathroom downstairs, a half bath upstairs, and even a porch swing and a rocking chair out on the front porch. Best of all, we stayed for 4 nights, but only had to pay for 3. It was very private, very secluded, very quiet, and VERY romantic, but I won't go into THOSE details. :-) Monday night, we went to eat at a really good steak house, kind of like Roadhouse, with the peanuts and stuff, and then just drove around a little bit, stopped in a souvenier shop to look around, bought me a new Dixie Girls shirt, and then just enjoyed the cabin for the rest of the night.

Tuesday: We made the drive to/through Cades Cove. Just the drive itself was incredible. We packed a good picnic lunch in our picnic basket, and made the tour. It's an 11 mile loop road in one of the most visited parts of the Smoky Mountains National Park. There are some old churches and cabins along the way, and a lot of beautiful scenery. There are little pull-offs along the way where you can stop and get out and take little walking trails along the way, or you can just keep driving. We stopped at one point and walked up into the woods and saw 3 deer. They let us get very close to them. Once we got hungry, we packed our SUV into a parking area in a secluded area in the woods, and just sat in the back hatch and ate our lunch. The whole time I kept thinking about bears and their keen sense of smell, though, lol. We never did see any bears, but we talked to some other folks that did. After we left Cades Cove, we zigged when we should've zagged and ended up going the LOOOONNNNG way into Gatlinburg. We thought we'd NEVER EVER get back into town because these are nothing but curvy, mountain roads, and the drive is pretty slow through there, plus you just WANT to drive slow to SEE everything. So I got out my map to see exactly where we were, because at this point, we were starting to get tired of riding, and I was like OOPS!! We went oh, about 27 miles or so out of the way. But we did finally make it to Gatlinburg, and we ended up coming into Pigeon Forge from the other side, so it all worked out, and we were able to see where all the places in Gatlinburg were that we were wanting to go to. So we went back to the cabin to snooze for awhile, then drove back over to Gatlinburg to eat supper. THEN we went BACK to Pigeon Forge and Sevierville to do some shopping in the outlet malls. We bought the kids some clothes in the Carter's outlet, Michael found a new wallet (his was on its last leg), and I found a denim jacket in the Levi's outlet, and I got it for like $20, and it was regular $78, so I did good there. Lord only knows I could've spent my ENTIRE vacation in those outlet malls had the money held up.

Wednesday: We went to Dollywood. Dollywood was pretty nice, but after Disney World, NOTHING can really quite compare, in my opinion. We rode some rides, got soaked, I conquered the Tennessee Tornado, and we bought some stuff. That place wore me out though! I never could figure out why they make certain pathways in a theme park UPHILL. We bumped into some friends of ours that we knew were up there the same week we were, but that was the first time we had bumped into them. They told us about a church they were visiting that night, and so we decided to go, too. As it turns out, a preacher that had preached at our church before was going to be there preaching, so it was kind of neat/weird/funny going to a church 8 hours from home and meeting up with all these folks we know. Church was really good, and afterwards we went out to eat with our friends, which was really great. It's funny because here in Horn Lake, we literally live right down the road from them, less than a mile away probably, and we just never can find the time to get together. But then we go 8 hours away, and what do you know? We get to finally hook up and have dinner with them! But either way, it was great, and we took some pictures with them outside. Meanwhile, it was POURING down rain outside, and little did we know that somewhere along the same highway that our cabin is off of, there was a TORNADO. I don't think anyone was hurt or anything was damaged, but that kind of freaked me out a little bit.

Thursday: We wanted to do all the Ripley's stuff, and I have an online friend (who reads this on occassion) that lives up there, so she was able to get us a discount on some of the tickets, just by showing her ID. So we called her to figure up where we wanted to meet up with her, and while we waited, we ate breakfast at the Pancake Pantry there in the Village in Gatlinburg, and this place has THE best pancakes I've ever had, not to mention so many different varities to choose from. Well, my friend getting the discount tickets for us worked for the Ripley's Aquarium, but not so much for the Ripley's Haunted Mansion. I guess they are trying to crack down on locals giving people discounted tickets, and so when she bought the tickets, they wanted to watch her go into the haunted mansion. They wouldn't let her just buy the tickets and walk away with them, so she had her daughter and another friend with her, so she had to say "Here, go into the haunted mansion." So we didn't get the discount on those tickets. But that was MORE than okay. The aquarium had the most expensive tickets anyway, and I MORE than appreciate her efforts to drive down there and help us out!! Thanks, girl! :-) The Haunted Mansion was freakier than freaky. Everyone had to stand in a single-file line and put one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you. They didn't allow you to take in with you any light sources, other than the little lights they sell where you buy your tickets. The lights were like $2 a piece, so I bought one of course...no way I was going to feel my way around in the dark!!! ::SHIVERS:: Most of the stuff that jumps out at you wasn't really that scary. The SCARY part was when you enter this one room that is total darkness, and you have to feel along the wall to move ahead. The only problem was, as you went, you'd turn a corner to go left, then another corner to go left, then another corner to go left, and soon you were back where you started...it was like there was no way out. Then a door on the other side of the room opened, but by the time we made our way over to the door, it had shut again. The leader of our group was a little girl, and her dad was standing behind her, and I was behind the dad, and the dad was freaking out more than anybody, which was kind of funny. Needless to say, we did make it out alive. Next we went to the aquarium, which was pretty neat, but there really wasn't anything different that I hadn't seen before at other aquariums. It did have a very long fish tunnel you walk through or you can ride the little conveyor belt through it, which was pretty neat. There were lots of sharks and saw fish and lots of other kinds of fish. I always wondered why the sharks didn't just eat up the other fish, but I guess as long as the sharks are fed on time, they don't get hungry and get tempted to eat a "snack" between meals. Then we did a little shopping there in the village. Before we went back to our cabin, we stopped at this Christmas strip of stores called "Christmas Place". I kept seeing it every time we went up and down the main road there in Pigeon Forge and wanted to stop, but earlier in the week when we stopped there, it was closed, so we went back by there Thursday and it was open. Now there was one store that had trains and toys and we found Travis' birthday present in there...a John Deere tractor he can ride with a little cart you can buy that attaches to the tractor. We spent about $200 right there, which was a good thing we had the kids' birthday money with us. Then we went over to the part where they have tons of Christmas decorations because I wanted to buy a Christmas tree ornament that had the name of where we went and the year on it...it's kind of become a tradition for us to buy a Christmas tree ornament that commemorates where we've takens trips...we have one for Destin, Disney World, the Bowl Game in New Orleans, and now one for the Smokies. That store was MASSIVE. You could really get lost in there, not to mention spend a million dollars. Thursday night, we went to the Dixie Stampede, which is a dinner and show. When you buy your tickets, you get to choose which "side" you want to sit on, the North or the South, and of course we chose South. It's in this huge arena and everyone sits down to a table with your dinner plate, and all the servers are dressed in Confederate uniforms on the south side, and Yankee uniforms on the other side. After the show gets started, the servers start bringing you the food, one course at a time, and the thing is, there is NO silverware, so you have to eat everything with your fingers. They bring you a freaking whole rotisserie chicken, and everyone is sitting there chowing down like cavemen, and then they bring you a big, wet, hot towellette thing to clean your hands with, which was a good thing...that chicken was MESSY. Anyway, each side has different "contests", and at the end of all of the events, whichever side won the most metals wins the "war". And of course, the south won, which I wonder if it's rigged to work out that way, because the lady sitting next to me said that she's been to the Dixie Stampede several times and said the south has won every time. Either way, it was great...all of the live animals and everything...it was just neat.

Friday: We left our cabin to head to Chattanooga. We got on the road around 7:30-ish Friday morning, and we got to Chattanooga around 10:30-ish. First we went on the incline that takes you to the top of Lookout Mountain, and you're supposed to be able to see like 7 states or something from up there. The incline gets pretty dang steep...they say it's the steepest railway in the world. The high elevation gave me a major headache, so we didn't stay up there for very long, and we caught the next car back down the mountain. Down below we found a Pizza Hut, had lunch, and then we drove over to Ruby Falls, which is nearby. We had a fun time finding it because one of the road signs pointing to it was turned around and we missed our turn, and only when we turned around did we see the sign pointing to where we were supposed to turn. I can say, though, that Ruby Falls was one of the highlights of the trip for me...it was absolutely beautiful and amazing to me. What I found really interesting was that after several attempts, they still do not know the source of Ruby Falls. They know that it flows out into the Tennessee River, but they do not know where the water comes from. The last attempt was back in 1995, and the rope is still hanging there from where they tried to climb up and figure it out. So after we left Ruby Falls, we decided there was no point checking into our hotel room we reserved there because it was only like 2'ish and we decided to just skip Rock City and drive on home. We took a minor detour to visit one of Michael's friends that's getting married in July, and then I think we got home around 8:30'ish last night. We dropped off all our junk at the house so we could fit all the kids' stuff in there, and then we went to pick up our boys and they were SO HAPPY to see us! Travis was jumping up and down, "MAMA, DADDY!! MAMA, DADDY!!"

All in all, there are no complaints of the trip at all. We loved it and had a great time, and I can honestly say all married couples NEED that kind of time to themselves. We missed the kids TERRIBLY, but if you can come up with the money and a babysitter, don't think twice about taking some time to yourselves like that. It's more than healthy for a marriage, even if it's just for a couple days to get away from it all. Now it's time to plan a trip for next year!!