My wife and I returned Tuesday evening from our anniversary vacation, and in keeping with grand Rinkworks tradition, the following is a fairly detailed log of our adventures.

FRIDAY, September 29: I got off work at 5:00, and drove to my parent's house, which is only 8 minutes away from my workplace. Mrs. Grishny and Jonathan had spent the day there. Our car was already packed, and so we said our goodbyes, leaving the Rinkbaby in the care of his grandparents, and headed south for Lexington, Kentucky where we would be spending the night.

I won't bore you with the banal details of interstate travel. Our first stop was for supper in Cincinnati. We had a very romantic meal at McDonalds, including a FREE sundae that we got with a coupon. We wanted a milkshake, but their shake machine was broken. I hate that. Seems like whenever I really have my heart set on a milkshake, no matter which restaurant it is, the inevitable response is, "machine ain't workin'." Oh well.

After supper we continued on our way. We made it to Kentucky before dark, and I was glad, because one of my favorite things is the view of the Ohio River as you drive over the bridge on I-75 from Cincinnati into Covington, Kentucky. Traffic kept moving pretty well southbound, but we noticed a really long backup northbound going into Cincy. I know, I know, I said I wouldn't bore you with banal details...this is IMPORTANT because it affected our return trip.

We stopped once for gas after that, and got into Lexington by 9:30 or so. We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott, a rather nice hotel. They had an indoor pool and hot tub, which we enjoyed, although there were some rather obnoxious people lounging around the hot tub drinking beer and smoking and talking rather loudly. We waited until most of them had left before we got in. After that we retired to our room, calling home to make sure Jonathan was okay before going to bed.

SATURDAY, September 30: We were up and ready by 9:00 or so, and went down for breakfast. Courtyard had a restaurant and lounge in the lobby, and served an excellent breakfast buffet. I was a little disappointed that we had to pay extra for it; we've stayed in less expensive hotels (such as Hampton Inn and even Econo Lodge) that served similar breakfasts for free! But it was good nonetheless.

After a quick stop at the Super Walmart in Lexington, we headed south again. It took us about three hours to get to Knoxville, Tennessee. There, we met one of my old college classmates and his wife for lunch. We had a bit of car trouble at their house when our car wouldn't start again after turning it off. We left it at their house and rode with them to lunch; we ate at Ruby Tuesday. We had a good time chatting with them, and after lunch they gave us a quick driving tour of Knoxville. We saw the old town, the fairgrounds where the World Fair took place once, and the theater where one of the scenes in the movie "October Sky" was shot. After we got back to their house, our car started up again, but to be on the safe side we took it to an auto parts store to get the battery tested. After a really really really long wait (they were busy that day) our battery tested out fine, so we decided to proceed on to Pigeon Forge.

I think we left Knoxville around 4:30 or so, and it took us about 40 minutes to get to our hotel in Pigeon Forge from there. We stayed at the Baymont Inn and Suites at the north end of Pigeon Forge. Our hotel was less than a mile from the Sevierville town line.

If you've been to the Gatlinburg area before, you know that it's smack in the middle of the Smoky Mountains, and very, well, mountainous. Most of the hotels and resorts in Pigeon Forge are right off the main strip and level with the road; not so with our hotel. The Baymont Inn is at the top of a very steep incline, and we had to put our car into third gear to make it up the hill. They had little "Burma Shave" style signs all the way up the hill that read "I think I can" all the way up and then "I knew I could!" at the top. Cute. If our car could talk, he would have been gasping by the time we got to the top.

By the time we got settled in our hotel room, we were pretty tired, so we decided not to try to go out and take in any attractions Saturday night. We walked down the hill to O'Charley's, which was right next door to the Baymont, for dinner. The rest of our evening consisted of resting, reading and watching TV.

SUNDAY, October 1: We got up at 8:00 for the complimentary breakfast. Mrs. Grishny started feeling sick, and went back to bed. We were going to meet our friends in Knoxville for church, but decided not to go when she wasn't feeling better by the time we had to leave. We also had plans that day to meet my Uncle and his family, who live in Asheville, North Carolina, for a late lunch. Fortunately, my wife was feeling better by noon, so we were able to go.

We had plans to meet them around 2:00 at the Applewoods Farmhouse Restaurant in Sevierville. We weren't sure how far it was, so we left early, but it turned out to be less than a mile away from our hotel. Good thing, because I forgot our camera (we wanted some family pictures) and had to go back for it. We made it back on time, but at 2:15, my aunt called the restaurant from their car phone. I-40 westbound was completely closed at the NC-TN border, and they were stuck in a tremendous traffic jam. We changed our plans to meet there at 4:00 instead.

Since we had two hours to kill, we decided to check out the place. The Applewoods Farm had more than just the restaurant. It is located in the middle of a large orchard, and they grow about 20 or 30 different kinds of apples there. They have a family-style restaurant (where we ate) and a grill, a gift shop, a winery, a creamery, a candy shop, and a "cider bar" where they serve hot and cold cider, hot apple pies, dumplings, etc. It's across the road from the Little Pigeon River, so we went down there and walked along the river and I skipped some rocks. After a while, we got bored, and ended up sitting in the rocking chairs they had out in front of the restaurant waiting for my family to arrive.

They didn't get there until almost 5:30! They had been rerouted through Cherokee, NC and through the back mountain roads to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. What should have been a 2 hour trip for them turned out to be a 5 hour trip! Yeeaaugh! But they finally got there, and I got to see my aunt and uncle and cousins who I hadn't seen since 1995. Their two youngest, twins, were only five the last time I saw them and didn't remember me. My uncle generously paid for our meal, and we had a great time with them. They had never met my wife; and though they were a little disappointed that we didn't have Jonathan with us, we inundated them with pictures and tried to make up for not bringing him along.

By the time we finished dinner, it was 7:00. We wanted to go out and do something else with them, but it was Sunday night and everything was starting to close, so we said our goodbyes. We stopped in downtown Sevierville on our way back to our hotel to see the courthouse and the statue of Dolly Parton that Howard recommended we see. I took a picture of it, which I will scan and post eventually for everyone's viewing enjoyment. (Neither of us thought it really looked like her!)

MONDAY, October 2: We both stayed up pretty late on Sunday night, so we slept in until about 9:30 or 10:00 on Monday morning. We left the hotel around 11:00 and went to IHOP for breakfast. I had originally planned on spending most of Monday at Dollywood, but because of our car trouble Saturday and my uncle's traffic fiasco on Sunday, we only had Monday to really go and do anything. We decided to go see several less expensive attractions rather than spend the majority of the day at one place that would cost us over $70 and leave no time to do anything else.

After breakfast, we went to the Forbidden Caverns under English Mountain, which is about 13 miles east of Sevierville. They have an approximately 45-minute tour of the caves, which we went on. It was Mrs. Grishny's first time in a cave, and for me it brought back memories of the Ohio Caverns, which I saw on a field trip when I was in eighth grade. We saw all kinds of natural wonders, including an underground spring and some cave onyx. We also saw some very tiny hibernating bats and some cave crickets (which look more like spiders than crickets). I took almost a whole roll of film down there, so I will have some pictures of that to show ya'll eventually. (Whoa! Looks like I picked up some of that Southern dialect while I was down there!) Afterwards we looked around the inevitable gift shop that you always find in such places, and saw some interesting items for sale, including a "hillbilly briefcase" which consisted of a rather large pair of Hanes briefs stapled to two pieces of wood with a twine handle attached. LOL! Now THAT would make a good RinkWorks Contest prize!

After we finished seeing the Forbidden Caverns, it was around 1:00. We were still full from breakfast, so we decided to skip lunch. Our next stop was the Smoky Mountains National Park. I should say, our next SEVERAL stops. The park is huge! We took the park bypass around Gatlinburg, and stopped first at the Sugarland Visitor Center, where we got a map to the park and also purchased a few items from the ever-present gift shop. There were several places in the park that I wanted to see, all which were recommended by our in absentia tour guide Howard! Unfortunately, they were so far apart that we didn't have time to see them all. We chose to go south to Newfound Gap and from there to Clingman's Dome. It was uphill all the way...our poor car. But, Howie made it! (Howie is my wife's name for our car, and I've gotten into the habit of calling him that too.)

Newfound Gap is impressive, with scenic views of the Smokies all around and a large monument that you can walk up on for an even better vantage point. It's also the starting point of several hiking trails, one of which either connects to or is part of the Appalachian Trail that goes all the way from Georgia to Maine. It's also right at the Tennessee -- North Carolina state border. Clingman's Dome is even more impressive. We took Howard's advice and hiked the half-mile up to the tower at the top of the dome. We found out what bad shape we are in! We had to stop and rest at least five times on the way up, and once coming back down. That's the hardest half-mile I've ever walked in my life! But it was worth it. At the top of the mountain is a tower that looks like two flat disks stuck on top of a tall pole. A winding ramp climbs up to the top of the tower. At the top of the tower, you can walk 360 degrees around and see the mountains for miles and miles. They have photographs of the mountains mounted off the sides with various points of interest listed so you can get an idea of where you are and what you are looking at. It's very quiet at the top of the dome, or at least it would have been minus the hundreds of other tourists who were there. Even so, it seemed very peaceful at the top of the mountain. There isn't as much wildlife up there as in the foothills; there aren't as many species that can survive the harsher conditions. A lot of the trees were dead, and it had the effect of looking like a giant had pushed hundreds of toothpicks into the top of the mountain, especially from a distance.

We were incredibly tired and hungry by the time we got back to our car. Our lungs got a workout on the way up the mountain, and our knees were put to the test on the way back down. We gave Howie a break, putting him in neutral and letting him pretty much coast all the way back down to Gatlinburg. We drove through Gatlinburg this time, and stopped to eat there. After dinner, we went to the Ripley's Believe it Or Not Musuem.

The Ripley's Museum in Gatlinburg is supposed to be the largest one in North America. The museum is relatively new; the old one burned down in 1992. It's an interesting place. It costs $10.95 to get in. You can see a few of the exhibits from the street, including a huge, heavy ball of polished granite that floats spinning on an eighth-of-an-inch column of water. You can easily stop it and spin it in another direction. From the street you can also see a "family" of humanoid figures made entirely out of old junk, and a large terminator-like robot made out of old car parts. There's so much to see inside the museum that I couldn't possibly describe it all. One thing that might interest a certain Forum Regular: they have a full-scale wooden model of a Vespa motorscooter in the museum, hand-crafted by an Italian artist. You know who the first person I thought of when I saw that was!

TUESDAY, October 3: Today was our wedding anniversary. (Did I mention yet that the reason for going on this trip was to celebrate our second wedding anniversary?) We got up at 8:00, had breakfast, got ready, loaded our car and checked out of the hotel by 10:00. Of course, we simply couldn't (so said Mrs. Grishny) leave for home until we had paid a visit to the Pigeon Forge outlet malls. We spent about two and a half hours there. I got a couple new pairs of pants; the wife got a new wallet, and we bought a little toy squeaky train for Jonathan. We also picked up some Christmas and birthday gifts for the family. I wanted to get started for home by noon. We finished at the mall by 12:15, but then Mrs. Grishny realized she didn't have a souvenir yet, so she made me stop at one of the Pigeon Forge gift shops and buy her a bracelet of Tennessee pearls. Then, we were off.

Our return trip was pretty uneventful. We didn't get stuck in any major traffic snarls, and made good time. Once we got close to Cincinnati, I remembered the huge traffic jam I saw on the way down and decided to take the I-275 bypass around Cincy. But first, we stopped at the Pizza Hut in Florence, Kentucky for supper. Let me give you some advice: don't eat there. Sure, their pizza is good, but they don't have a very good attitude about service. When we got there, Mrs. Grishny had to use the facilities, but they were out of TP. She made mention of this to the restaurant personnel, and they said they'd take care of it. They didn't. As we were leaving, she mentioned it again, and they said, "Oh, we'll take care of that when we have time." Perhaps I should have said, "Oh, well, then we'll pay for our meal when we have time." She had to go next door to McDonalds to use the restroom. I wonder if Pizza Hut has one of those corporate complaint lines?

The rest of the trip home went quickly, and we made it back to my parent's house by 8:05. Jonathan was very happy to see us! Yay! And we got there in plenty of time to watch the Presidential debate. Hooray...I guess. That whole debate was kind of annoying, but, oh well. That's for another forum post entirely.

Gri"Aren't you glad Robert Ripley isn't a regular here? Imagine how long his 'Adventures with...' posts would be!"shny