The Weekend

Saturday we decided on a slower day. We slept in a bit and made grilled cheese at home before heading out. Surprisingly, this did hold us (me) over for a while. We headed right toward Hall Mountain Road which is about an hour and a half away. It was a beautiful day. 80*-90* weather all day, sunny, and a little breeze. I ended up with a sunburn on just my right arm from letting it hang out the window all day. We took in the scenery and made our way to our personal lookout location and started up the mountain road. About half way up we came upon 2 cars - one covered in mud with words and pictures drawn on it and 2 people. Now when I say covered in mud I think I know what you are picturing, mud on the tires, some splatter up the sides, maybe some spray on the windows and wind shield. What I mean is, I could not tell the color of this car because there was only mud to be seen. Every window had something drawn into the caked on mud. The guy we met was working on getting a tire off the muddy car and a girl sat in the seemingly working car. I could hear her talking but don’t know if she was talking to the guy or on the phone. They were on James’ side of the car. Anyway, we stop and ask if they need any help knowing full well we have nothing along in the car that would be helpful. James hits it off with the guy as he does and I sit there getting some work texts and generally trying to stay out of the conversation. I know I can’t help without any car knowledge so the only thing I would contribute is further conversation with someone I’m not entirely sure isn’t going to rob us. It’s just who I am. Any who, after rummaging in the trunk to further confirm our uselessness in this situation, we get on the road and let them know we will check back in on the way down.

For those curious, the guy’s cousin had just purchased this car 2 days prior and went up the mountain for some off roading and the brakes locked up. The guy there was trying to get some sort of nut off the car. His cousin was on the way back. He had left the car there overnight and someone else came by, stole the radio out of the car, and wrote all over the thing.

We drive up another few switchbacks and ended up backing down a small section. It looked a little rough ahead and we do still need to drive back home in this same car. I walked back up the hill (James stayed with the car) and took a few scenic pictures. It was lovely. Walking back up I came across 2 men in a side by side who checked to make sure I wasn’t stuck. I assured them I was just out taking pictures. They kept on going. When I got back down I walked a little down another path and checked things out. James had his drone out and got some video of the area. It was pretty hot walking around.

We come back down and check on the guy. We never did get his name. At this point the girl from the car had set up a chair along the path. I guess she realized it would be a while. The car owner (cousin) was no where to be seen but the guy said he was on his way. Nice guy. Turns out he was not interested in robbing us or really anything to do with us. He was just a nice cousin trying to help out. He had gotten 1 nut loose but hurt his wrist in the process. People are nice here.

We went from here back to the Foothills Parkway. This was back toward home. On the way we decided to stop for ice cream. We went to Mad Dogz or something like that. Not far from Dollywood - we passed the sign. I have never had the option of peanut butter cookies and cream ice cream before but I have now and it was delicious. James had a hot fudge sundae. The people were friendly and they had an indoor seating area which was nice because it was about 2pm at this time and it was hot.

Kacie “People are going to be jealous of this peanut butter chunk”

James “Did you just take a picture?”

Kacie: “Yes, people will be jealous”

Once we got to the Foothills Parkway James realized that is this Tail of the Dragon road people love to drive on. We passed some sort of car he was really excited to see but I can’t remember what it was. He will have to fill that part in. J- it was a 2015 Ford GT… along with a couple new McLarens, one was a 720S. I guess there aren’t many in the world and he hadn’t seen one in person before today. There were some pull offs and a lot of motorcycles on this road. It had pretty views and we had a lot of opportunity to use our cameras.

Like I said, it was a beautiful day. There are other pictures and I’m sure James will add his photos too. Maybe we’ll make a gallery for the rest at some point…

There seems to be a pretty severe drought going on here right now. All of the water I have seen looks super low. But that little waterfall was still cute and worth photographing.

We headed back toward home but had to stop at the store again…after our egg fail yesterday we still needed some to make French toast in the morning. We went to a different Food City and grabbed a few items then got home around 7pm. I set to making steak right away - of course I was hungry. We had bought fillets at Walmart and they were surprisingly good. I found some seasonings here at the place and used copious amounts of butter so how could they be bad? I also made some mac and cheese because it’s vacation so forget vegetables. We had an after dinner drink out on the deck and I have to say sitting there after our day exploring and a delicious meal, I felt very content. We cleaned up from dinner, looked at our pictures and checked the weather. The storms are supposed to roll in around where we are on Sunday. James, ever vigilant, stayed on top of the forecast and it looks like it will not be too bad here.

Sunday we planned on a stay at home day. Nothing too much to report here so I’m tacking it onto Saturday’s blog. We made French toast for breakfast and watched some TV. It has rained on and off all day but we did not get any of the terrible weather that is happening in western TN or any of the surrounding states. I was seeing a lot of destruction in the areas around us and we are very lucky to have missed out on that action. We heard one big clap of thunder and just some rain otherwise. I read a little on the deck listening to the rain, we played some pool, and sat in the hot tub for a while. It was a little cooler today with the rain so it was nice in the hot tub. We did some laundry and made cheese burgers at home for dinner. We are planning to find a movie to watch later. Tomorrow is our last full day in TN and we are planning to go back into the Smokey Mountain park for some more exploring and picture taking.