It has been cool and dreary the last several days. I love wintertime, but if we’re done with the snow I’m ready for spring to be here. It’s got to be right around the corner since the crocus and buttercups are in bloom and the tree frogs are starting to wake up. Today’s weather lived up to all springtime expectations.
A MUCH NEEDED BREAK. We ended our third nine weeks of school on Friday and started spring break. This last week of school was pretty uneventful. About the only big thing to happen was that Vicki went along as a chaperone on a 6th grade field trip to the Adventure Science Center. From the sound of it everyone had a lot of fun.
Saturday morning we all piled in the van for a short trip to the Smoky Mountains. As we were packing Ben came downstairs with his bag and said, “I need more stuff. All I have is a belt, a comb, and a $50 bill in here.” (I think my kids have more money than I do.)
A MUCH NEEDED GET AWAY. I think we were all quite ready to leave town. We had reserved a condo for three nights but wound up staying four. We stopped at McKay’s in Knoxville and loaded up on used books Saturday afternoon on our way there.
Sunday morning we tried the Wood Grill Buffet for brunch. From there we went to WonderWorks (http://www.wonderworkstn.com/) which is something like a science museum. The kids had been wanting to do the upside down building for several trips. After a couple of hours of this we returned to the condo for swimming. We went back out for supper that night. We wanted to try something new, but since the restaurant where Vicki wanted to eat was closed we went to the Smoky Mountain Brewery (http://www.calhouns.com/smbSite.shtml).
The next morning we drove to Gatlinburg for breakfast at the Log Cabin Pancake House (http://www.logcabinpancakehouse.com/). This has become a treasured family tradition. Afterwards we went shopping around town. When we had finished shopping we decided to go for a quick hike in the mountains, but someone told us there was snow at Newfound Gap so we drove up there to see it.
The drive up to Newfound Gap was simply amazing. It’s about 12-13 miles from the Sugarland Welcome Center just outside Gatlinburg to Newfound Gap, and you climb about 3500 feet along the way. The trip up the mountains was sort of like doing winter in reverse (our perspective since spring is just days away). About halfway up snow began to appear. Once we got to this point it was only a couple more miles before we were driving in a winter wonder land. Everything was beautifully white and I wound up putting my sunglasses on in spite of the overcast day. When we got to the top there was six inches of snow still on the ground. It was cold and windy so we only stayed long enough to get pictures and have a brief snowball fight.
Back down at the bottom of the mountains we returned to WonderWorks (our tickets were good for two days) where we also enjoyed the Hoot ’n Holler dinner show and a game of laser tag.
We stayed around the condo most of the day Tuesday. Vicki went shopping while I took the kids swimming. That evening we went to Mel’s Diner for supper and found an ice cream shop for dessert.
We came home yesterday, making three stops along the way. The first was to drop in for a visit at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at UT where we saw Betsy Ingle, one of the directors there. We had a great visit with her and she took us on a tour of the newly renovated building. (I should note here that this was where Vicki and I met and Betsy was on staff when we were students at UT.) A bit further down the road we stopped at the Appalachian Center for Craft (http://www.tntech.edu/craftcenter/home/) which is where I went for a workshop on building a table a couple of years ago. Our final stop was to meet Mom and Aunt Mar for supper at Cracker Barrel in White House.
There were also two favorite memories that happened throughout the entire trip. First was Ben’s spirit hair cap. Our cousin, Judy, gave him this for Christmas and he sported it the whole trip. It was funny to see how people reacted to his hat. The other favorite memory was each night the boys wanted to take a bubble bath in the jacuzzi. Those boys were hilarious. One night Ben decided to add extra bubbles. We wound up scooping them out of the tub to carry them to the shower by the armload. Of course, I’m still trying to figure out why you’d put bubbles in a jacuzzi.
I’M SO CONFUSED. Whenever we go on vacation, whether it’s to visit relatives or go to the mountains, we seem to always go to the Eastern Time Zone. Whenever I leave the house on a trip I simply set my watch forward an hour because I find it easier to operate in local time, unlike some relatives (you know who you are) who visit me and leave their watches set on Eastern Time. (I can understand a TV network giving showtimes in Eastern and Central, but I could never live my vacation that way.)
This trip, however, came on the weekend when we “spring forward” to daylight saving time, and I’ve been confused ever since we left the house. To make matters worse, when we got to Pigeon Forge Saturday night we found some of the electronic signs had been advanced to daylight saving time to be ready for the next day while others had not. I don’t think I was ever sure of the time without looking at my cell phone.
This was great for Vicki as it was one of the few times that she, being the night owl, was in sync with me, the early bird. I’m pretty sure I have managed to get a case of jet lag without boarding a plane or leaving the State for Tennessee.
To top it all off, on the way home everyone in the van went to sleep while I was driving from Knoxville. When we crossed back into the Central Time Zone I reset the van’s clock. Some time later everyone began to wake up and Nate asked if we were close to home yet. When I told him we weren’t he said, “This is the longest trip ever. We’ve been on the road for twelve hours! Last time I saw the clock it was 1:15. Now it’s 1:02!” The poor boy was as confused as I had been the whole trip.
LIT2GO. Last week I got an email at work telling me about a new site on iTunesU. You can find a lot of neat things on iTunesU where many educational institutions publish content -- all for free. The University of South Florida is now producing audio books that you can download and play on your computer or music player. There are over 200 classic book titles available (at my favorite price). If you don’t have iTunes installed on your computer you can still find everything at their web site (http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/), you’ll just have to download each audio file manually that way (each book chapter is its own file). I have been enjoying Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne this week.
Joe
