The rest of our trip to Gatlinburg.

I'd like to say that we spent the rest of our trip exploring the great outdoors and becoming one with nature, but that's just not what happened. Paul and I went on an all-day winery tour with our family and friends, and also explored the ultra-commercial downtown area in Gatlinburg. There were free moonshine samples, whiskey samples, and wine samples everywhere. We even found some vegan jerky in a neat little shop.



My maiden name is "Barr"




We also stopped through this cute little "European Village" in the middle of downtown. There were so many shops, including a tiny shoe store where I found a new pair of Toms. I really loved the pottery shop pictured above, and picked up a piece for the friend who checked on our kitties.





We had to leave early in the morning of our last day, and hated saying goodbye to everyone. It was such a fun trip with a great group of people.

Gatlinburg: Day One.

One of the craziest experiences in our lives took place near the end of July in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We decided to go on a mass-vacation to the Smoky Mountains with almost twenty people. We split a huge, beautiful (RUSTIC) cabin on the edge of a mountain.



View from our cabin, the afternoon we arrived.



Our first afternoon there, a Mama Bear and her two cubs came up on our porch for a little snack. Brian was pretty unhappy about his sunflower seeds getting stolen, but figured it was for a good cause. We made sure we never left food unattended out there again.


The morning view, our first full day.



The morning of our first day, we went for a little "hike" to Laurel Falls. I use that term loosely, as I was in flip flops the whole time, and it wasn't very difficult. The scenery was just gorgeous, and the waterfall at the end made all of the walking worth it. We splashed around in the calmer waters below before our long walk back.






















This day ends with a group photo (minus Peter) from right before we embarked on our epic tubing adventure. It was actually a very relaxing lazy river trip, but our second go-around left us stranded in the river with the skies opening up around us. There was a ton of lightning, and the wusses (i.e. ME) in our group forced everyone out of the water to take cover at a nice couple's house on the river. We ended up standing in the rain (shivering, in my case) waiting for a ride from a local back to the tubing place. We were told by said local that the very same tubing place had six deaths in the very same river last summer in a similar situation. GREAT.

Regardless, it was an awesome day.

Disney World Honeymoon: Evening Two.

I'm trying to space out these Disney posts so that they're not repetitive, but it now feels like this trip was so long ago! Summer is drawing to a close, and we are nearing our six month anniversary. Wow!





After having dinner at the Animal Kingdom Lodge earlier in the day, we hopped a bus to Downtown Disney to have a look around. After a quick walkthrough (it was crazy!), we rode the ferry back to our resort to get changed for the evening.




From there, we grabbed a bus headed for Hollywood Studios for an awesome fireworks and water show called Fantasmic! While I held onto our seats, Paul walked up to the concessions stand to get us some hot chocolate and popcorn which happened to be served in an R2-D2 container! Despite being in May, the nights were still a tad chilly, so the warm treats were perfect.




Near the end of the show, we finally spotted Meeko! Paul could barely contain his glee while I struggled to take some photos of him. If you don't already know, Paul loves raccoons, and especially Meeko. :)





We ended our night with some fun rides, heading back to our resort sometime after 1 a.m. It was an extremely long, extremely happy day.