The Break Glass In Case Of Emergency Vacation
The dream Alaska vacation didn’t happen. We’ve already covered that. But we did get to drive through Dayton, Ohio. So we had that going for us, which was nice.
But as strange as it may sound, that wasn’t quite enough to satisfy our wanderlust during the pandemic summer of 2020. We all had our difficulties during the past year, and we all reacted to the stress in different ways. In our case, we ended up doing something completely, wildly, insanely out of character:
We put together a vacation at the last minute with little advance planning.
I’m not necessarily proud of that kind of reckless behavior, but I just wanted to give an example of the kinds of things people under abnormal stress will do. Anyway, it had been at least a week or two since our little road trip to see my brother, and we were already getting tired of being stuck in the house again. The COVID infections didn’t seem to be spreading too terribly fast over the summer, and we were emboldened by the success of the previous trip. But naturally, we still wanted to stay safe and not be overly risky with our health.
The solution we came up with was to rent a cabin for a week in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. It checked all of the boxes: we could still avoid/minimize too many interactions with other people, we could see some beautiful scenery, and we could see something other than our house.
We found a place online through a local rental company that was offering a 20% off deal for rentals. It was too big and too expensive for us alone, so we asked some friends if they wanted to split it for the week with us. They were apparently under great stress from the pandemic as well, because they readily agreed. And we all took precautions before leaving—making sure no one had symptoms, getting COVID tests, etc. All of us were negative.
We left on a weekend in August, driving a few hours west into Virginia to stay at a hotel near Front Royal, VA, which is the gateway to
Shenandoah National Park. Our reasoning was that if you’re going to drive down to Tennessee, you can either go straight down the interstate or do a portion of Skyline Drive in Shenandoah—and we’ll take Skyline Drive anytime.
In the morning, we skipped the first portion of Skyline Drive and instead entered the park at Thornton Gap. We hadn’t been on the middle section of the road since 2011 and wanted to see that part of the park again.
Our first stop was a parking area just before the Skyland Lodge area, which served as the trailhead for Stony Man Mountain. This is the highest point in the park, and there’s about a 1-mile trail that leads to a nice overlook on the side of the mountain.
If you’re thinking, “either those kids have gotten really big or I’ve gotten really old”, the answer is yes.
It’s always kind of fun to stand on a mountainside and watch clouds drifting below you.
Further down the road, there is another trail head for Dark Hollow Falls, yet another 1-mile hike that is supremely conquerable for families. We’d taken this hike way back in the spring of 2010. The kids were much smaller then. The falls were the same—about 75-80 ft. high.
From there, we rejoined the interstate and drove all the way down to Knoxville, TN. You don’t realize how big Virginia truly is until you have to drive I-81 through the southwest corner. It just keeps going and going and going…
And it was really depressing when we finally reached the Tennessee border just to find that we had another 100 miles or so to get to Knoxville. That was a long stretch.
We were in Knoxville to do another DIY-tour of the University of Tennessee, which has an aerospace engineering program that had interested David at the time (now he’s focusing on mechanical engineering).
I can say that we had a very nice dinner that evening at a place called
Corner 16, a sports bar-type restaurant west of the city.
In the morning, we wandered the school campus. We found that the campus itself was very nice, but Dave was less impressed with the city of Knoxville itself. Considering the length of a drive, that’s probably not going to make the college rank high on his ultimate list.
We’d come prepared for this road trip and ate our customary PB&J sandwiches for lunch. Then we left for the short drive down to Pigeon Forge, TN. It was only about an hour and change from Knoxville, so it went pretty quickly. We got there a couple of hours ahead of our official check-in time, so we drove down the main drag of Pigeon Forge to check it out.
How can I describe Pigeon Forge? Imagine every crappy t-shirt shop from every beach town you’ve ever visited, combined with every crappy tourist trap attraction in Niagara Falls all mashed together on one highway. Or perhaps you could picture a developer who wanted to recreate Las Vegas but didn’t have the budget to match his dreams. As we drove, Scotty looked around in horror at the random assortment of attractions (the Titanic Museum, a Jurassic Park ride, an Alcatraz Museum, Wonderworks, and countless others) and asked, “What is this place?”
We kept on going to the town of Gatlinburg, which is the gateway to the Smoky Mountains. It’s been heavily developed over the years with even more tourist traps and is packed with visitors nearly year-round at this point. Our friends were already in town, so we texted back and forth and eventually found a place to meet up with them. We turned up our noses at the various tourist traps around town and instead chose to support a much higher-class destination:
Hillbilly Golf.
What can be more refined than playing mini golf on the side of a mountain through farm tractor equipment?
The place was a lot of fun, actually. To reach the course, you had to ride a funicular up the mountain to get to the first tee. And some of the holes themselves were very unique. This one allowed you to play the normal boring way, or you could use the alternate path to play Plinko.
We all chose the Plinko route, because why wouldn’t you?
A good time was had by all. At that point, we were allowed to “check in” (i.e. enter) our rental home for the week, so we drove back to Pigeon Forge, turned to the west, and after a couple of turns found ourselves climbing the side of a rather steep hill. Switchback after switchback followed, until we finally made one last turn, descended another hill and found the driveway for the “cabin”. What do you think?
We absolutely loved this house. It was huge, new and well-appointed. There was a foosball table, a pool table, hot tub, arcade games…but our favorite part was very low-tech. We had this deck with a view of the Smoky Mountains.
The morning coffee was enjoyed daily while gazing upon this:
Yeah…that’ll do. That’ll do nicely.
We spent the week mostly enjoying the house and the Smoky Mountains. We tried to do some things we hadn’t been able to do on our first visit a few years ago. If you recall, we’d tried to visit the highest point in the park, Clingman’s Dome,
only to give up on the hike when we found it to be completely socked in with clouds. This time, we used the Rope Drop Principle to get to the top of the mountain road as early as we could. We were still racing the cloud cover as it moved in, but we were able to successfully complete the hike and reach the observation tower before the views were completely cut off.
Another morning, we once again got up early in order to beat the crowds and secure a valuable parking space so we could to a 1.5-mile hike to Laurel Falls. That one proved to be well worth the effort to get there. Especially when we came back and found lines of cars attempting to invent parking spaces along the road.
Another evening, we took the drive into Cades Cove, which I have a love/hate relationship with. On the one hand, it’s the only place I’ve found in my travels where we have consistently seen bears in the wild whenever we take the drive.
On the other hand, it takes approximately 2 hours to drive 11 miles every time we visit, because people crawl along the road looking for wildlife and refuse to use the pullouts to allow other cars to pass, no matter how long the line gets behind them. It’s excruciating. So you have to go in knowing you’re committing the time.
We mostly ordered takeout for dinner so we could avoid crowds, especially once we saw that the crowds were basically acting as if COVID didn’t exist. So our meals were mostly fine, but they definitely lose something when you’re eating them lukewarm out of a takeout container rather than fresh off the grill. We can definitely recommend the
Applewood Farmhouse and Grill, however, since they provided their fried apple fritters and homemade apple butter to dip them in with every meal. How can anyone turn that down?
All in all, we had a very relaxing week. I took the boys to play golf at the
Gatlinburg Golf Course, which proved to be a fun hillside course with lots of elevation changes. The biggest one was this par 3 that involved about a 100-ft. drop down to the green.
There are several “mountain coasters” in the Pigeon Forge area, and we couldn’t resist trying one of them out. We chose one at a place called
Goats on the Roof for obvious reasons. I mean, you try resisting the siren call of a place called Goats on the Roof.
Yes, there were actually goats on the roof.
The other perk that sold us on this place was that they had a $5 replay rate, so after your first ride you could come back as many times as you wanted the rest of the day and all rides would only be $5. On the downside, it was cash only, but at least they had an ATM conveniently located for all of your mountain coasting needs.
I’d never been on a mountain coaster before, but it’s basically the same thing as an alpine slide if you’ve ever tried one of those. You sit on a little sled with one handle. You push the handle forward to let it slide, and pull back for the brakes. That’s all there is to it—gravity does the rest of the work.
They have a tow cable that pulls the sleds all the way up the hill, and then you get turned around and set loose on the downhill section. It’s a ton of fun. Drew was apprehensive at first, as little kids tend to be, but screamed and yelled his head off the whole way down and then begged for more and more rides. We ended up taking a couple of rides during the day, and then coming again at night when it was lit up for more fun. It was a blast.
The week went by too quickly, and we were very sad to say goodbye to that beautiful house and the views from the deck.
We had one more bit of fun to enjoy before heading home, though. A couple of years ago, I’d taken my father to play a golf course that had been on our bucket lists for several years:
Tobacco Road, near the town of Sanford, North Carolina. It had been a great day and instantly became my favorite course that I’d ever played due to the absolutely bonkers nature of the course design. My father and I had remarked that it would be a lot of fun to go back and play again, now that we knew the layout and where some of the blind shots would end up. When I’d gotten back home, I’d told my sons: “You’ve gotta see this place.”
Well, North Carolina is sort of close to Tennessee. That was enough of an excuse for me to drive over to Sanford so we could play this course.
I must give a special shout-out to Julie and Sarah, who basically agreed to try and find something to do for 4 hours while we played, even though they really only had enough activities to occupy about half that time and had to deal with a whiny 7-year-old at the same time. They really took one for the team here.
The course is very polarizing. You pretty much know on the first tee whether you’re going to love it or hate it. Obviously, I love it. I think it’s great fun to try crazy shots you’d never get to see anywhere else.
I was right that it was really fun to play the second time. And I did so much better this time, having a much better idea of where to hit my shots. One of the fun things about this design is that if you hit the right spots, you get rewarded. On this hole, I was able to hit my tee shot to the slope just to the right of where Scotty is standing. The ball ended up where you see it in the photo.
I felt proud that I was able to hit a shot that carried this colossal bunker, too. But we had to climb down in there anyway just to see what it was like.
It was a great time and a great day. I’ll make special note of Scotty’s perseverance too. Late in the round, he put his shot into this just-about-impossible situation. He considered picking his ball up for an unplayable lie, but then said, “You know what? I’m just gonna go for it.” Darned if he didn’t put that ball on the green, too. I love that attitude.
That was the extent of our attempts to escape quarantine in 2020. After Julie and I were vaccinated in the spring of 2021, we did manage to take another day trip during Sarah’s spring break to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. This town is a
National Historical Park, having been originally chosen as the location of the U.S. Armory due to its proximity to Washington, D.C. and location at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. The arsenal was late the site of a raid in 1859 led by abolitionist John Brown, who had hoped to secure the weapons stored there and start an uprising of slaves throughout the country. But the raid was put down and Brown was hanged for his crimes, and the Civil War would begin just two years later.
Harper’s Ferry is also the site of a nice 2-mile (one way) hike across the railroad bridge and up the side of a mountain for a great view of the town and the confluence of the rivers. And when it’s spring and you’re once again tired of being cooped up in quarantine, you take any excuse to get out and explore.
We also took the opportunity to check out the Great Falls of the Potomac, just a ways down the road in Washington, D.C.
I’m thankful that we had these chances to get out as a family during the pandemic. It’s been a long, hard year (and a half) for all of us, but I feel like we’re finally reaching the end of the tunnel. I can now safely say that I’m not a big fan of pandemics and never want to experience another one.
But I’m also thankful for the blessings we had. I got some house projects done. Julie and I worked hard to get in better shape and lose some weight. We still managed some getaways to keep our sanity, and the time reinforced our desires for travel and for real relationships with friends and family. I was also thankful for everyone in my family. Somehow we managed to go a whole year stuck in the house together without blowing the place up. I don’t know how many times Julie and I took stock of the situation and said, “It’s a good thing we like each other.” These are the people that make my world go round, and I’m so thankful for the many ways in which they bring me joy.
I also can’t wait to get back on the road, and this seems like a good time for me to tell you that the next update I write will be a new chapter in a new trip report.
Thank you all for reading this nonsense, for commenting, for sharing your lives and observations, and for your friendship. I love hearing from you all.
Next stop: Alaska.
I wish I'd thought of that! I could have put in a shark tank down there or something.
So glad you got to escape during the pandemic. We managed a trip to Universal right after they opened up. Wearing a mask in 9,000 degrees was no fun but walking onto every single ride was an experience we won't soon forget! I hope Alaska is this summer! Can't wait to see those pics.
