This past October, Lance and I celebrated ten years of marriage. Yep, seems a lot longer to me too. Ha. Since Lance was smart enough to let us get married during cotton picking season, so we would never have time to celebrate, we have never gone anywhere except out to eat. We honeymooned in the Smokies. It's our favorite place to go. I've always told Lance that when we got to ten years of marriage, I wanted to go back and stay in the same cabin again.
I knew we wouldn't be able to go on our actual anniversary, so I planned on a January trip. Because we also have chicken houses, we have to wait till the last minute to plan anything. Before I got to book our cabin, it burned up in the huge fire in Gatlinburg and the National Park in late November. Talk about upsetting. You can't plan something like that for ten years and not be upset.
After that, I wasn't sure where or when we would go.
So many cabins had been burned, we decided to go a different route. I found a place called "Bearskin Lodge on the River" in Gatlinburg that looked pretty neat and told Lance about it. I always drop hints, nag, and flat out beg for stuff like this, but he usually ignores me and tells me to quit planning. This time he surprised me by booking a room! (Won't happen for another ten years).
And it wasn't just any room...it was a suite! And he surprised me with roses and chocolate! Who is this guy?!
The room had a great view of the creek, and you could even see the Gatlinburg strip around the corner.
We could also see the Ober Gatlinburg tram go by every so often.
We found our new favorite breakfast place. "Crocketts Breakfast Camp." Lance's food was served in an iron skillet, and I had the biggest cinnamon roll pancakes I have ever seen.
We rode around looking a fire damage for a while. This is all that's left of our cabin. It was called, "Journey's End." Fitting.
We went to one of our favorite places, "The Island," in Pigeon Forge and shopped till we dropped.
Or at least shopped till we found the ice cream store.
And what's a trip to the Smokies without visiting the park?
Before we had kids, we camped for a week in Cades Cove each summer. We hope to start back this year!
We walked the Gatlinburg strip. Bubba Gump's is one of our favorite places. For our first Valentine's together, I bought Lance a "Life is like a box of chocolate" box of chocolates from Bubba Gumps. Haha.
We also found a new place we like to eat at. The Cherokee Grill. We were looking for somewhere to get all fancied up and have a "date" at. We don't ever have dates. We ate a lot on this trip. Can you tell?
This was our first time going in the Hollywood Star Cars Museum in Gatlinburg. We were looking for something we hadn't done before and picked this. Me being a huge race fan, and Lance just being a man, it was great. In case you can't tell, I'm standing by Barney Fife, lol.
Oh, and Lance's outfit (and my outfit in the above picture, including the boots that are hard to see) are from Stages West in Pigeon Forge. We are obsessed with that place. I'm pretty sure we could spend an entire day there.
These shooting galleries get Lance every time. He can't pass one up!
One of my plans for our ten year anniversary trip was to recreate the picture at the top of the sky lift they always take. Well thanks to the wildfire, the only swing still standing was the one at the bottom. So, here we are, ten years later. :)
P.S. This was our first trip without kids that wasn't a farming conference!
