Way too long.........

It's been way too long since I last posted.  I mean honestly, you'd think I have a busy life or something...LOL

It just seems like yesterday it was the beginning of summer.  We woke up to this on October 30th:

Way too soon for snow.  Mind you, it had more or less all melted by the late afternoon.  Summer went by in a flash.  Was busy with the gardening, visitors and we went away to Tennessee at the beginning of November.  I know I said we were booked to go to Charleston, but we changed our minds and ended up at Pigeon Forge.  Had a super time but it was way too hot for me.

My mother has joined a book club in the UK; so I have decided to unofficially join it as well!  The first book we are reading is this one:

"Room," by Emma Donoghue.  If you click on the prior sentence it will take you to Amazon, and you can read a preview there.  I am going to start on it this week.  I have just posted a book review on the latest book I have read, "The Trail," here, that was a good book.

My health could be better, I'll explain in another post.  The grandkids are all growing like weeds.  I have to share a photo of N & P all dressed up for Halloween.

Chucky and a Zombie Bride I think they were?  Dd did a super job on the makeup.

Anyhow, that's it for the moment.  I will prepare some more posts and lets see how long I manage to keep posting this time round!!

I climbed a mountain...honest, I did..........

Well I climbed the last 1/2 mile and I have photos to prove it!!  On the last day of our trip in Tennessee we decided to drive up to Clingman's Dome.  The weather wasn't that great but it was okay.

Now thankfully there are six benches on the climb to the top.  How do I know this; well I had to stop and sit on five of them to catch my breath.  My excuse is that the air is very thin up there and I couldn't breathe.  That sounds good doesn't it?

This is looking at the observation tower at the top.

You couldn't see a thing for the mist and it was quite cold.  Here dh is looking at one of the information boards.

Even made dh take a photo of me to prove I was there.  Even I had a jacket on as it was bloody cold.

This is looking from the top of the walkway down the path, very, very misty.

Another view from the top.  It was such a shame as the view no doubt on a clear day would have been spectacular.

 There was a lot of moss and lichen on the plants/trees.

 One of the information boards: 

 Another information board:

 Another information board:

 Another information board:

  I would have loved to walk on the Appalachian Trail, but as I nearly "died" climbing up the bloody mountain, we decided it wasn't a good thing me doing any further mountain climbing in my crocs!! 

 We did get the odd glimpse of blue sky, but when we talked to the park ranger, she said that the mist could move off in ten minutes or it could last all day.

 Another info board at the start of the walkway. 

I am so glad we did this, but it did prove a couple of things, I am very unfit and hiking is not my thing!!!

Museum of Appalachia (photo heavy!).......

Thanks to Rose for mentioning this last week, on Saturday we went to the Museum of Appalachia. It was a good hour's drive from Pigeon Forge and we had a super time.  Also on that day there was a big Antiques Show, so we paid $20 to get in rather than $18 each.  The Antiques part of the place was a bust; not our kind of thing, we "didn't get" the type of stuff they were selling.  However the museum part of the day was great and really interesting.  

As I have a lot of photos I will split them up over a couple of days.

The Overhang or Cantilever Barn, seen an example of this up at Cades Cove as well, you can read more about them here.

Saw Mill 

We watched these guys for ages. 

 This guy was a delight to watch, he was the "Boss," look at the cigar hanging out of his mouth.

An "Out House," I wasn't going to inspect it further! 

 One of the many peacocks to be found in the park

 Big Tater Valley School House; there is a Youtube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90x3POi4jZ8

Irwin's Chapel Church 

 A  Bee Tree, there is more info about them here.

 Turkey and chickens

 Mark Twain's Parents House, you can read more about that here.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to name all the houses, but I went and threw out the directory from the place.  All in all lots of great things to see.

Some days you wonder what you're going to see next!!

Saw this the other day while driving to Gatlinburg!!  It's a motorized version of a red wagon, very neat.  I took the photos as we were passing in the car.  Had hoped they would stop at Sugarlands, but they went on through.

What a neat thing to travel in on a lovely day.  Not good for your hair though.

When we went to Gatlinburg the other day for the Arts and Crafts Trail we stopped at a restaurant.  There was a cart outside and the roof was really interesting with all the moss on top of it.  Shame it had artificial flowers in the middle of the cart.  Also won't mention the name of the restaurant (though look closely at the cart!!) as we did not enjoy the meal we had here.

Looked up and saw this hornets nest in the tree beside us.

I have to say we have had a mixed bunch of meals while away, more bad than good I am afraid.  But will say when they were good, they were really good!!!

It could only happen to us!

I don't know why but some days I think we just attract the strangest type of people.  On our way down we stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Tennessee to have a bite to eat.  We were minding our own business and eating our lunch when one of the servers came up to dh and asked what was on his t-shirt.  Dh said it was from the World Cup.  After seeing the blank expression on her face I said Soccer.

This is the t-shirt:

She went on to say "she thought it was maybe something to do with the theory of evolution and how we are all descended from people in Africa and thought he was brave wearing that around here?"  At our blank expressions she moved on.  Honestly it is a t-shirt from the 2010 World Cup Soccer, nothing more, nothing less!!!

Today we planned our day so we would have lunch at the Old Mill Restaurant in Pigeon Forge.  It is a very popular place and serves great corn chowder and corn fritters.  I love them and was really looking forward to them.  We are seated and across the way are a group of four people.  The one guy facing me tells me I am wearing an unusual t-shirt.  This is it:

What pray tell is unusual about this t-shirt?  So I say a couple of words back to him and he continues the conversation about my bloody t-shirt.  In the end I jokingly said stop looking at my chest, but no he carried on.  He was with his wife and two other guys and were older than us.  One of the other guys managed to change the conversation, thank goodness, but they continued to chat away, even when we got our soup.  They finally shut up when their meal came. 

Just after that our meal came and we had both ordered meatloaf with mashed potatoes and those bloody awful green beans.  What is it with everyone down here that they have to have green beans with everything?  Anyhow, we had just started eating our meal when the guy started to choke.  Then he vomited and coughed and coughed and coughed and vomited and vomited into his cloth napkin.  

Now despite not looking you could hear what was going on.  Suffice to say not only did I not eat my green beans, but barely touched the rest of my meal.  I was so disappointed, as I was looking forward to this meal; but I just couldn't stomach it. It turns out the guy had a Hiatus Hernia.  Oh well what can you do?

We finally got some rain, so fingers crossed it will cool down some.  Here is a view from our cabin looking towards Pigeon Forge.

Managed to pick up a someone's internet access!!!!

So thought I'd prepare a blog post.

Had a super day on Tuesday and part of it was spent at Bush Beans Visitor Centre and Museum.  It's at Chestnut Hill, Tennessee and is well worth going to.  There is no cost to go into the shop & museum and you can watch and listen to a presentation about the Bush Beans company and you see how the beans processed, all very interesting.  The plant itself is huge and across the road from the visitor centre.

 There is also a cafe at the place.

If you do go to the  visit.or centre make sure you eat at the cafe there, as the food is yummy and very reasonably priced.  This chicken tender meal was on special at $7.99.  A note to family members, no I did NOT eat my green beans they were icky!!

Now despite the fact I didn't eat my veggies I did get to share a banana split with dh!!! 

I did buy a couple of things in the store, but can't say what.  I did not buy any baked beans, as we prefer Heinz. However we don't mind the vegetarian ones, but they only had the small cans there.  We were there well over two hours visiting the centre and having lunch.

Answers to questions:

1. 8
2. Fibre
3. Can't remember and don't have a can of beans
6. Chestnut Hill, Tennessee