Have AnnualPass, Will Travel. 1st PTR *Update 10/04* The Trip Report is up!

[wdwgirl03]

I recently discovered that Simple Disney Things website too, through my sister's blog. It's supposed to be for her CP but really she just keeps posting pictures from that. It is a really fun site.

 

[BerrysGirl]

Congratulations Matt!!!!!

And congratulations on DOUBLE-DIGITS!

Love your Top 10 list - those little postcards are adorable! What a fun little does of Disney for everyday. So creative and cute.

And addicting! I put them in my rss feed and every time I see an update it's like my fix... that's not troubling, right?

Thank you all for your congrats. I am now counting down to my Disney College Program start date. Just 6 weeks until I am a Disney Cast Member.

Yup... just 6 weeks until you leave me! We joke that the neighbors will start to worry about me because this guy was around all summer and then one day will just disappear. They'll probably think we broke up!

I recently discovered that Simple Disney Things website too, through my sister's blog. It's supposed to be for her CP but really she just keeps posting pictures from that. It is a really fun site.

I love that! Sounds like something I'd be inclined to do....


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[BerrysGirl]

To practice for my very first TR in October, I thought I’d go ahead and document my mini-vacay earlier this month. Turns out the practice was a good idea. I’m horrible at remembering to take pictures of our food! But, without further ado, I bring you my Mini TR to Gatlinburg!

So our vacation week actually started a few days before we left. On Saturday, Matt graduated with a BA in Political Science . To say I’m one proud girlfriend is definitely an understatement. After the ceremony we went out to a nice lunch with his family at a local café then back to his parent’s house for some relaxation, margaritas, and corn hole. The next morning we dragged our tired bodies out of bed and packed up the rest of his possessions to prepare for the final move down to my apartment for the summer. It didn’t take too long and we had plenty of time to relax at home that night before our road trip the next day…

Monday: June 13

However, the weekend must have taken a bigger toll on us than I thought because we were very slow to get going this morning. Eventually, however, we got the car packed up, kissed the cat goodbye, and was on the road by 10 am. The drive was pretty uneventful. I slept, Matt drove because we took his stick-shift car and I’m not that manual-savvy yet, and we ate Wendy’s for lunch.

Our first and only real bump in the road occurred once we neared our destination. Matt had looked at a map before we left and had a certain route in mind that his father used to take when they visited Gatlinburg in his childhood. I had several routes and maps printed out, none of which were the routes Matt had looked out. Therefore, as I navigated him through Nashville and onto the final highway that ran through several cities, including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, he was convinced that we were lost. He even insisted we pull off the road to consult the map himself to discover that I DO know how to read a map ! After this little snafu, we were once more pointed in the right direction and heading into Pigeon Forge.

Oh. My. I wish I had taken some pictures of Pigeon Forge. Jokingly, Matt and I decided Pigeon Forge could best be described as the redheaded lovechild of Myrtle Beach and Las Vegas. That place was kitschy at its finest! I went ahead and pulled these images off the Internet just to show you the wondrous sites we experienced right off the road. Including:

A Giant Replica of the Titanic:

A Full-Sized Upside-Down House:

A Giant Castle with Laser Tag Using Wands:

We spent zero time in Pigeon Forge so I can’t personally comment on any of these sites but they were certainly surprising as we were just passing through. After the shell shock that was Pigeon Forge I began to worry just what I had gotten us into with this vacation but we continued on, out of the town and back into the Tennessee woods. We got stuck in some traffic due to construction but the trees were certainly pretty and soon we were sailing past this sign:

Then we saw the local trolley:

Mostly I took this picture for Matt’s Dad who would not stop talking about the trolley and how we should spend the $2 a day to be able to ride the trolley up and down the street (shhh, don’t tell him but we didn’t).

And we were here!
Next up? Our hotel room and our first evening in the town.​

 

[melmar136]

To practice for my very first TR in October, I thought I’d go ahead and document my mini-vacay earlier this month. Turns out the practice was a good idea. I’m horrible at remembering to take pictures of our food! But, without further ado, I bring you my Mini TR to Gatlinburg!

So our vacation week actually started a few days before we left. On Saturday, Matt graduated with a BA in Political Science . To say I’m one proud girlfriend is definitely an understatement. After the ceremony we went out to a nice lunch with his family at a local café then back to his parent’s house for some relaxation, margaritas, and corn hole. The next morning we dragged our tired bodies out of bed and packed up the rest of his possessions to prepare for the final move down to my apartment for the summer. It didn’t take too long and we had plenty of time to relax at home that night before our road trip the next day…

​

Ok, so I have to ask first....what is a corn hole?

And I love the sights you got to see along the way on your trip...the Titanic and the upside down house looked great! I'll be looking forward to reading more!​

 

[ifightfortheusers]

I would just like to point out that we went through Knoxville, Tennessee and not Nashville. I would also like to point out that even though I was a little stubborn about not going the right direction, the road was never labeled as the highway we were actually on. I also like to note that I did pull over and would have no problem asking for directions, but its not like we will ever need to if it is the two of us.

 

[dreamerchic33]

Just got caught up! Everything sounds great! Love your Disney bathroom!! Thanks so much for sharing that website! Xo

 

[BerrysGirl]

Ok, so I have to ask first....what is a corn hole?

And I love the sights you got to see along the way on your trip...the Titanic and the upside down house looked great! I'll be looking forward to reading more!

Ah yes, I DO live in corn country and anyone else with a little more class and civility probably has no idea what cornhole is Cornhole (if you cared to read) is a game where bags, originally filled with corn, are tossed onto boards spaced apart. The scoring is a bit complex (you get one point of you get the bag on the board, three if you get it in the one hole on the board, but no points of the person you're playing against also gets the same number of points on the board as you) but it can be a lot of fun. Go figure, I first heard of cornhole in college because it's easy to toss a bag in one hand and hold a beer in the other

I would just like to point out that we went through Knoxville, Tennessee and not Nashville. I would also like to point out that even though I was a little stubborn about not going the right direction, the road was never labeled as the highway we were actually on. I also like to note that I did pull over and would have no problem asking for directions, but its not like we will ever need to if it is the two of us.

And this little side trip was our first dose of southern hospitality because we were parked for no more than two minutes consulting our map when a lady pulled up to us offering to point us in the right direction. Wouldn't get that where we're from!
And Matt is right, while my road navigation is impeccable, my Tennessee-geographic knowledge of major cities is a bit off... we were in fact near Knoxville, not Nashville.

Just got caught up! Everything sounds great! Love your Disney bathroom!! Thanks so much for sharing that website! Xo

I'm so glad you stopped by! Since our trips are so close together we'll have to be sure to share all our info so we are the most informed people in the whole park!

 

[Villainess]

I'm joining in! I wanted to do CP sooo badly when I was in college. Unfortunately, the school I went to wasn't participating and none of the credits would have transferred due to my major, leaving me a semester behind had I done it during the school year.

Maybe when I retire I can work there!

 

[BerrysGirl]

We drove up the main stretch of Gatlinburg, taking in all the sights. Our hotel was on the other side of town so we got to see everything. There was a lot of crazy sites. It seems like half the town was owned by the Ripley's franchise. There were aquariums, mazes, odditoriums, and putt-putt courses as far as the eye could see... But there were also some very cute shops and restaurants along the way too that I was excited to check out later. We found our hotel without much difficulty and quickly got checked in.

I really liked our room

I was super excited for the king bed because we only have a double at home.

The fireplace didn't work which upset me a little but I guess the hotel figured no one would use it in the summer... I totally would have!

One last view of the inside!

I shelled out an extra $10 a night for a "creek view." We had a nice little balcony to enjoy it on.

I requested the highest floor possible because I thought it'd be quiet but retrospectively I think I would request first floor if I did it again... closer to the creek!

We vegged in the room for a little bit, just enjoying our vacation and the fact that Matt was forever done with school and then started to get hungry. I had heard about a place right across the street that was suppose to have good pizza so we called in a take away order and headed out to pick it up to bring back to the room. We wandered around our side of the town for a little bit and found a restaurant we wanted to try later on in the week and then swung into The Best Italian Cafe for our dinner. We had quite a wait and I don't think they started half our order until we actually got there but we finally were out the door, dinner in hand.

Ok, if you can't see the obvious, we had TOO MUCH food (a general trend you will see throughout this trip). We got a pizza with fresh tomatoes and spinach, an antipasto salad, and an order of the "famous" garlic rolls. I had brought two bottles of wine to try to save some money so we opened one with dinner.

... a funny side story that goes along with the wine. While we were packing I had said we should pack two wine glasses for the bottles we were bringing. Matt didn't understand why we should bother because we could just get them from the hotel (can you tell the boy goes to Disney a lot?). Well, I let him win and didn't bring the wine glasses. We had a bet that we would ask for wine glasses at the front desk when we got there and whoever's predicted outcome was right owed the other a souvenir. Right before we headed out to get dinner, Matt asked for wine glasses at the front desk. And they didn't have them! I will show off my trophy later on ...

Dinner was awesome. I don't understand why the garlic rolls were so "famous." They were essentially store-bought rolls, covered in butter, with some of that jarred chopped garlic thrown on top. Not something I'd get again but they were fine at the time. We had to save some of the pizza (which came in handy later) but we sat out on our balcony and enjoyed the evening. After a relaxing time and some nice conversation we decided to go out and explore the town.

We found some nice little areas to enjoy

And followed our creek until it got bigger.

Matt's mom had requested salt water taffy from Gatlinburg (apparently it's amazing?) so we were sure to stop by and pick up some of that before we forgot.

We found another set of shops that had some less-kitchsy, more traditional goods and looked around a while.

Overall, I would not pay for a lot of the activities in Gatlinburg. There were a lot of hokey putt-putts, side shows, and shops that sold strange curios like airsoft guns, t-shirts, and weapons. But there are some real gems in the town too (as you'll see later). The salt water taffy was fun, we found a cute shop that sold celtic-themed items, some shops that specialized in local flavors (bbq & hot sauce), and some beautiful arts and crafts.

I had a lot of fun just looking around but we soon started to get tired and headed back to our room for bed.​

 

[ifightfortheusers]

It was really weird driving into town and having memories from when I was a child flashing through my mind. Gatlinburg had changed so much in the years since I had been there. I am glad that after this day we basically just parked the car. Driving down the main parkway was very tedious due to the amount of people and vehicles. If it is your first time going, you have to drive down the main street because it is just fabulous looking at all the sights and shops as you enter.

I really enjoyed the Italian Cafe, but the rolls just covered in butter. I could not eat multiple rolls. The pizza was delicious and I am not sure if we needed the anti pasta.

I really enjoyed walking around at night in the Smoky's. It wasn't real hot and very comfortable to walk around. I was attracted to all the miniature golf places and I did get Megan to go in a few of the "kitschy" shops, because I just wanted to look around.

 

[MyPeanut&Bug]

Late to the party as usual, but joining in! Just have to go back and actually catch up now!

How awesome that Matt is doing the college program! My brother used to date a girl who went through that and was a princess for awhile at WDW. I really wanted him to marry her, but alas...guess I can't force it since neither one of them agreed.

 

[BerrysGirl]

I'm joining in! I wanted to do CP sooo badly when I was in college. Unfortunately, the school I went to wasn't participating and none of the credits would have transferred due to my major, leaving me a semester behind had I done it during the school year.

Maybe when I retire I can work there!

I know how you feel! My Dad always says when he retires he wants to drive the boat between Port Orleans and Downtown Disney... now he has an in!

It was really weird driving into town and having memories from when I was a child flashing through my mind. Gatlinburg had changed so much in the years since I had been there. I am glad that after this day we basically just parked the car. Driving down the main parkway was very tedious due to the amount of people and vehicles. If it is your first time going, you have to drive down the main street because it is just fabulous looking at all the sights and shops as you enter.

I really enjoyed the Italian Cafe, but the rolls just covered in butter. I could not eat multiple rolls. The pizza was delicious and I am not sure if we needed the anti pasta.

I really enjoyed walking around at night in the Smoky's. It wasn't real hot and very comfortable to walk around. I was attracted to all the miniature golf places and I did get Megan to go in a few of the "kitschy" shops, because I just wanted to look around.

It wasn't that hard to get me into the "kitschy" shops. There were replica weapons from Lord of the Rings!

Late to the party as usual, but joining in! Just have to go back and actually catch up now!

How awesome that Matt is doing the college program! My brother used to date a girl who went through that and was a princess for awhile at WDW. I really wanted him to marry her, but alas...guess I can't force it since neither one of them agreed.

A PRINCESS!?!?! Definitely sounds like marriage material to me!

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[MyPeanut&Bug]

A PRINCESS!?!?! Definitely sounds like marriage material to me!

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I know, right?? I kept telling him, "You could grow to love each other!! The other stuff will work itself out. SHE WORKS AT DISNEY WORLD!!!"
(Although I've still got her on Facebook and she doesn't work there anymore. Just as well b/c I may have had to disown her as a SIL for leaving... )

 

[BerrysGirl]

Tuesday: June 14th

We woke up at 8 am refreshed from a sleep in an awesome King-sized bed (seriously, I WILL be owning one of those in the near future… but the Westin Heavenly Bed from the Swan & Dolphin. Have you ever slept in those? Oh. My. God). We went downstairs for a wonderful complimentary breakfast of Oatmeal and Yogurt for me and Breakfast Pastries, Meats, and Eggs for Matt. I enjoyed my morning coffee while Matt set to experimenting. My memory is starting to become hazy, but from what I recall Matt made hot chocolate with coffee as his base instead of water (something he does quite frequently) then added BOTH French Vanilla and Hazelnut creamer to the concoction . He said it was wonderful.

Our Room Number was 304 (notice the shirt? a gift from my Dad ):

After breakfast we set off for a stroll down the main Gatlinburg stretch. The night before, we had stopped off at the Hard Rock Café because Matt collects their pins and were told that if we came back tomorrow we could purchase commemorative 40th anniversary pins because June 14th was the official 40th anniversary of the Hard Rock Café Company. We decided to hold off and came back at 10 am when merchandise was suppose to start selling. I was all giddy because the Hard Rocks were just as old as Disney World (it’s a year of 40th anniversary celebrations for us apparently )! We arrived at 10 on the dot and were met with a wall of boxes filled with the new merchandise. And one lowly worker unpacking all the goods . Sigh… We hung out for maybe ten minutes but decided we would just come back later as it did not appear the store would be opening on time. Seriously, it’s the anniversary of a very large franchise and you don’t open on time . Strange to me…

On the way back up the street we passed the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts founded by Pi Beta Phi:

That was Matt’s Mom’s sorority back when she went to college so we got a picture and stopped in to browse. I’m sure this wasn’t very thrilling for Matt but I really enjoyed it. The jewelry was beautiful and I would love to have some of the artwork in my home someday… Too bad it was so expensive .

I told Matt that since this trip was in celebration of his graduation we could do whatever he wanted… no concrete plans were made and we just went with the flow. There was one shining exception to this. The Hollywood Star Cars Museum. To save some $$$ I opted to pre-purchase our tickets online. Therefore, we HAD to go there. Matt loves cars. And movies. And, most of all, Transformers. And it just so happens this museum had some of the cars from the new Transformers Movie. Yup, it pretty much worked out perfectly. So we went in, and the very nice old men who run the place chatted with us briefly and helped us take the best picture of Bumblebee, one of my personal favorites:

And we were off! I was a little surprised they had so many cars in their collection, from the outside it seems quite small and I was disappointed that you could see Bumblebee, one of the main reasons we went in the first place, from the street without even paying for a ticket, but I’m glad we did it. Matt had a lot of fun. We saw Ghostbusters:

And Dinosaurs:

And Batmobiles:

And, of course, in honor of the DIS I HAD to get a picture with Herby :

Overall, I’m glad we chose to actually go into the museum. Would I do it again? Probably not. I think most people go for different reasons than we did. We went to see the cars from movies (can you tell?) but there were a lot of cars that celebrities owned inside the museum too (like Elivs, Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, and Bob Hope) and most people seemed more interested in those cars. But it was a nice way to spend a morning and I could tell Matt really enjoyed himself.

After the museum we headed back down the road to the Hard Rock. By this time the restaurant was open and they should be serving lunch so I figured the merchandise store HAD to be open too…

And it was! Matt made his purchases (a pin for himself and another two for his mother and brother, and a t-shirt for his dad) while I used the restroom. If you’re ever in Gatlinburg and need a potty, I highly recommend stopping into the Hard Rock . Because these are the kinds of things you need to know in life

At this point we were getting kinda hungry and starting to think about lunch. We were a bit indecisive so we just started to head back to the room with the intention of putting the souvenirs away. I had found a restaurant online called the Wild Plum Tearoom or something like that that came highly rated which we thought about maybe checking out but it required a drive out of town. We were really enjoying just being able to walk everywhere so when we passed a restaurant called the Mellow Mushroom we decided to check it out.

Best. Decision. Ever.

The restaurant was on the second floor and we were able to sit on this beautiful balcony with a comfortable breeze overlooking the street. Mellow Mushroom was known for its pizzas but since we just had pizza the night before we opted to be different.

*Author’s Note: DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE DIFFERENT. We both got sandwiches and they were amazing!!! I believe Mellow Mushroom is a chain so if you ever stumble across one and you aren’t feeling pizza TRY THE SANDWHICHES!!!*

We started with the Tortilla Soup:

Which was so good we were halfway through it before I remembered to take a picture .
Here’s how it’s described on the website’s menu: “Vegetarian soup with sour cream, avocado, cheddar cheese, and a lime garnish.” The avocado was what sold me but it turned out to just be a slice thrown into the soup… The rest of the soup was AMAZING! A little spicy but warm and comforting.

For my main course I had the Tofu Hoagie on a whole-wheat bun:

It looks like a hot mess but let me tell you, it was amazing! The tofu was marinated in a teriyaki sauce and complimented the mushrooms, mayo, and provolone cheese so well.

Matt had the BLT on pita:

He also really liked this but agreed mine was better, and he doesn’t even like tofu that much!

I LOVED Mellow Mushroom… and you will see just how much later on.

On the way out I snapped this final picture of the bar:

It was so neat. The moonshine bottles changed colors and the entire atmosphere just looked like a lot of fun. I also snapped this picture:

Margarita hookahs! It was a big glass, shaped like a hookah for two with straws instead of pipes. I wanted one so badly. I own a hookah from when I studied abroad in Egypt but I never use it… I HATE smoking. So the idea of enjoying a refreshing margarita from a hookah had me considering a trip to the bar.

But after taking this final picture, an interesting message popped up on my camera.

Coming Up: What could that message be?!?!
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[MyPeanut&Bug]

My husband and son would have been ALL over that car place! My son saw Bumblebee over my shoulder and came running, lol.

 

[ifightfortheusers]

My husband and son would have been ALL over that car place! My son saw Bumblebee over my shoulder and came running, lol.

It was a really cool experience. Bumblebee was awesome to see in person and the other car was a military one from the end of the movie. They also had a bunch of James Bond movie stuff, but the it was so dark the pictures didn't come out right.

I hate that picture of our door. We had just gotten up and obviously I had not combed my hair.

I also loved the Mellow Mushroom. It was difficult picking a sandwich. They had a great selection and I suggest stopping in for lunch if you ever see one.

 

[BerrysGirl]

Tuesday: June 14th Part 2

So the last I left my faithful readers we were finishing up a scrumptious lunch at the Mellow Mushroom with a final parting photograph. However, I was about to have quite the surprise when my camera displayed a cryptic message. One never before witnessed on its display:

NO MEMORY REMAINS!!!



WHAT?!?!?

Oh, yeah. Last summer I worked for the CDC with a collection of Historic Industrial Hygiene Equipment they wanted conserved and curated (I promise, this is totally relevant).
Well, considering the department I worked for was a bunch of scientists and they don’t normally do the kind of documentation I was doing of the objects (and it IS the government, after all) they didn’t really have the kind of digital camera I needed for the project. So, even though it wasn’t ideal I decided to bring my own. To help matters, however, I upped all my settings to highest resolution, highest quality possible. It hasn't been a big deal because I only took a few pictures at a time between then and now. But now, I was taking hundreds of pictures a day at the largest, highest quality possible. Needless to say, I had run out without glancing at the “pictures left” icon and hadn’t even noticed! To further this ordeal, Matt had asked if I wanted to bring my camera cord to upload pictures to my laptop before we left. My response? “I don’t need to. This memory card is large enough to hold all the pictures I’ll take.”



Sigh… and Matt says he’s never right.

Well I shortly realized that to continue with my amateur photojournalism I’d have to bite the bullet and purchase another memory card. Thankfully there was a Walgreens in town and I was able to find a 2 GB memory card for only $8. Overall, not a total crisis, and I was sure to turn down the settings on my camera a little so that I now had a 1500 picture limit on the new card.

Crisis averted, we decided to head back into town (after a quick stop back at the room for a shoe change – Matt had blisters ). There was something I had wanted to do since I read about it online and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity.

Moonshine tasting!

The Ole’Smoky Mountain Distillery made their own Moonshine (Whiskey for us northerners) right in town and offered free tastings. I had never had Moonshine before and I thought it’d be a fun, quintessential Tennessee experience. Matt was very apprehensive but agreed to give it a go.

We went into a sparsely populated store with a large tasting counter and walls lined with Moonshine… and not much else.
We were helped by a young man who probably should have been named Bubba (no idea what his real name was) complete with overalls and plaid shirt. We were given three thimble-sized (trust me, that’s all you need) tastings of their three varieties of Moonshine: White Lightning, Corn, and Apple Pie.

Wow.

I really wish I would have taken pictures because they definitely would have competed with any of the Beverly pictures circulating right now. Our faces were priceless.

Moonshine=Yuck.

The White Lightning was definitely the worst. It’s your basic hard liquor-taste and not much else. The Corn was ok. It was yellow in color and didn’t have that alcohol bite that the White Lightning had. Surprisingly, the Apple Pie was quite good. Probably because it was half White Lightning, and half apple cider .

Overall, I’m glad we had the experience but will I be returning anytime soon? Not on your life.

After our taste of the smokies, we decided to do something I had been eyeing since we got there. The Skylift!

Basically it looked like an old ski lift that was used to take tourists up the side of one of the mountains for the view, and then back down. We decided to spend the extra three bucks for an all day pass so we could see the views during the day and at night.

Up top, Matt bought me a souvenir picture frame for my “wine glass bet” victory and a nice lady took our picture to put inside it .

The Skylift was a pleasant break in the middle of the day and I’m glad we did it. It was a little scary going up because the lift creaked so much and it looked about 100 years old. I had a little trouble with vertigo going up but I adjusted quickly and then it was just pleasant.

Coming Up: Ice Cream, Trivia, and the Mysterious Mansion!
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[SOUTHERNtinkerBELLE]

Hi Megan! I'm following you over from my TR and joining in! I am so jealous that you're getting to go during F&W. It seems like everyone here is going to Disney this October. I am bound and determined to make it down there next year. It seems like the perfect time to go! Can't wait to read more about your trip!

 

[BerrysGirl]

Hi Megan! I'm following you over from my TR and joining in! I am so jealous that you're getting to go during F&W. It seems like everyone here is going to Disney this October. I am bound and determined to make it down there next year. It seems like the perfect time to go! Can't wait to read more about your trip!

Hi Courtney! Thanks so much for stopping by! I am so excited to see Disney in October. I think the Halloween decorations will be amazing... hopefully I can get some CM-inside details from DBF too

 

[BerrysGirl]

Ok, this Mini-TR is taking much longer than I anticipated and for that, I apologize. I must say though, this is excellent practice for things to come because I now fully appreciate how time consuming it is to do the wonderful posts I read on a daily basis. So for that, I say thank you Now on to the show!

Tuesday: June 14th (Part 3)

After the wonderful views up the mountain, I decided it was time for a little smackerel (DBF and I are going to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie later today. So excited!). There's a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop in town and I loooove going to the real B&J stores when I can.
We looked through the literally hundreds of options including such classics as Cherry Garcia and Matt’s personal favorite, Stephen Colbert’s flavor, but I decided to try one of the flavors exclusive to the shop. I can’t specifically remember the name but it was very close to “Goddess Goodness Cake Chocolate Chip.” It was Chocolate and Coffee and Peanut Butter and Birthday Cake Ice Cream with fudge pieces and marshmallow. Pretty much, it was heaven in a cone.

Oh, the cone? I told myself, I’m on vacation, what the hey. And I ordered a waffle cone dipped in chocolate with sprinkles on top… . It was insanity and deliciousness all wrapped up in one.

Matt was much tamer than me (which is an anomaly in the ice cream world, let me tell you). He went for Cluster-Fluff which was Peanut Butter and Caramel ice cream with a marshmallow swirl. He also just got his in a cup.

The verdict? Both were wonderful and delightful and tasty. I only regret my double scoop in a waffle cone decision because I couldn’t finish it. Thankfully, since Matt just got a small portion in a cup he could help me out.

After being stuffed to the brim with ice cream we decided to take a walk… a quite long walk. On the outskirts of town I had heard rumor of a winery. Matt and I are budding wine-lovers so we decided to check it out. It was quite a trek, uphill, but we had some ice cream to burn off and plenty of time to kill.
On the way, we saw this:

I always wanted to be the registrar of my own museum… doesn’t this sound like an interesting collection?
We found the winery without a problem (I swore that I took a picture but for the life of me I can’t find it anywhere) and went inside.
It was a small space lined with bottles and a tasting counter at the end. We chatted with the owner who was nice enough and tasted a few of the varieties that sounded interesting to us.
I’m proud to say that our palates have changed and we are maturing in the world of wine.
All the sweet fruity wines we tried which I know we would have loved a year ago were not appealing to us. Instead we settled on a much drier Rose which we really enjoyed. We wrapped up our bottle and headed back into town.
Overall I liked the experience at the Smoky Mountain Winery. I found a few bad reviews of the place online, mostly from people complaining about certain kinds of wine being out of stock or the owner being rude. I will admit that a few varieties were sold out which was disappointing but the other wines more than made up for that. As for the quality of service, like I said the owner was nice enough to us, but when we first came in there were quite a few people in her shop and she seemed a little short with those customers. After they all left we approached the counter and she was perfectly civil. I think perhaps she doesn’t handle crowds in her shop very well.
Anyways, we headed back into town:

...but a certain shop caught my eye. Two years ago, my BFF and I had taken a road trip down to Tampa (stopping in Disney, OF COURSE ) and found a shop that sold t-shirts that changed color in UV light. I’m sure you’ve seen them before. The shirts have a pattern on them (once upon a time my Dad bought me one with a sun on it from Las Vegas) that’s black and white inside, but once you step out in the sun, the shirt transforms into a colorful picture (the one I had, the sun turned vibrant shades of yellow and orange while the background turned purple). When my BFF and I browsed the store in Tampa we found nail polish that changed color in the sun. We both bought a bottle and fell in love. I had a blue polish that turned green and she chose pearl polish that turned pink. Sadly, I recently had to throw out my polish because it was getting all “goopey” the way nail polish does. However, what do I happen across in town? The very same UV Sol–brand store! YAAAY! .
Of course I HAD to go in, and promptly purchased TWO bottles of nail polish, a pink color that turns orange, and a silver glitter color that turns ruby red (I call it my Wizard of Oz nail polish because it turns the two colors of Dorothy’s slippers… silver from the book and red from the movie)! We went back to the room to relax for a while and I promptly painted my nails .

After a bit of a rest, we were starting to feel hungry again so we decided to head over to the Smoky Mountain Brewery for dinner.
We were quickly seated and decided to order a sampler of all their beers to drink .

I know it looks like a lot of booze but those glasses only hold about 4 oz of beer each AND Matt and I shared all eight of them.
We love trying new wines and beers so this was a lot of fun for us.
Matt and I like to try all sorts of new things when we go to restaurants so quite often we split an appetizer, entrée, and dessert between the two of us. We’d totally rock out the Disney Dinning Plan if they let us just buy one Plan for the two of use (and yes, we’ve called to ask that exact question).
For our appetizer we had the Oven Baked Soft Pretzels with Beer Cheese Dip:

SOOOOOO Delicious!

Our entrée was the Brewery Ale Steak with Redskin Mashed Potatoes and Broccoli with more Beer Cheese.

The steak was good (and yes, that's just a giant ball of butter on top of the steak), the mashed potatoes were scrumptious, but the broccoli and cheese were just ok. But we really needed some fresh veggies in our diet at the moment so they were welcomed… even if they were covered in beer cheese.

For dessert I HAD to try the Bubble Gum Martini:

Here’s the description: Three Olives Bubbles Vodka, cranberry juice, ginger ale, served in a sugar rimmed glass and garnished with gummy bears.

I’ve had bubblegum vodka before but I normally just mix it with Sprite so I wanted to try it a new way…
The verdict:

I’ll stick to my Bubble-07’s, thank you very much.

But of course, no desert is complete without:

Key lime pie! It was decent pie, not the greatest in the world but certainly a nice ending to a wonderful meal.

I loved Smoky Mountain Brewery. It was a fun environment and they had a game of trivia going on while we were there too. We answered the questions but didn’t compete. Good thing too, we sucked!

After our tasty dinner Matt bought a souvenir bottle opener from the gift shop and we made an interesting discovery… I noticed earlier in the day that after tax things were much higher in price than we expected. Matt did the math off his receipt (they didn’t directly list the percent sales tax) and came up with about 9% 9% sales tax? That can’t be right… More on that later.

After dinner we decided to head back to the Skylift to get one last ride in (you know, to get our money’s worth).

It was pretty at night but I think if I ever did it again I’d just pay for the one trip and see the view during the day. I went up to see the Smoky Mountains, and obviously you can’t do that in the dark.

Still, it was awful romantic up there at night .

After we came back down it was starting to get late and we wanted to be up nice and earlier tomorrow for our day at the National Park. We decided to avoid the crowds on the main road and take one of the back roads back to our hotel. It was a nice walk because it was peaceful and took you closer to the creek which I enjoyed following. It was nice, that is, until we started to hear eerie sounds and a strange glow from ahead…

When we got closer we realized it was a haunted house, in between some hotels nestled right up against the foot of the mountains weird…

The place was called the Mysterious Mansion and it kinda looked like the Haunted Mansion. It even had a doom buggy up front just like they do at Disney. We did not go in but it was hilarious to see so out of place and in June.

After our experience with the afterlife, we got back to the room, enjoyed one last bottle of wine , then called it a night.

Thanks for following along! I will finish someday!​