Our Anniversary

Last weekend Robert and I had our 6 year Anniversary and we decided at the last minute we needed to get away. The last weekend we had had alone was our anniversary the year before so we were due. We had an awesome trip.


We decided to take off towards Gatlinburg, TN as soon as we got off work Friday. I couldn't get home fast enough! We left about 6 in the evening and wanted to take our time and explore along the way so we stayed over in Clayton, GA. My grandparents retired to Clayton from Florida sometime in the 70's, so I wanted to show my sweet hubby where my grandparents lived and some of the places us kids liked to go, plus this was a great opportunity for me to get pictures for my genealogy records.


Our first exploration early Sat. mourning revealed my grandparent's home had changed very little and the pond across the street from my grandparents house that has a gazebo right over the edge of the water is still there. As kids we would run over and feed the fish my grandmother's sugar free candies she would give us. The fish loved them!


We then rode up to Black Rock Mountain state park and watched the fog roll over the mountains, it was so beautiful. This was another location my grandfather would always take us when we would visit.





From there Robert and I rode up Hwy 441 into the Smokey Mountains and stopped along the road side and grabbed a few more pics at the Oconaluftee River, stopped for a little gold panning in Cherokee, NC, took a few shots of the Rockefeller Memorial where President Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smokey Mountains National park in 1940.




We rode into Gatlinburg about 1:00, found a room, and decided to walk to the Aquarium. We loved the Aquarium! I captured several nice shots there. My favorite was the sea dragon.




After the the Aquarium, we rode into Pigeon Forge and explored a little bit, came back to have dinner in town. We had a great meal at Lineberger's Seafood in Gatlinburg for our nice meal of the trip. We wandered around for a little while and decided to get some sleep, we were exhausted. We left about 10:30 the next morning and headed back down 441 south, and thought we would just have another long day of exploring on the way home.


We stopped at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center toured the farm site museum, left there and took a short walk down to Mingus Mill.





Our last adventure found us in Cherokee at Harrah's Casino. Neither of us had ever been in a casino and decided that we would check it out for fun. We each had a $20.oo spending limit and then we were quitting. Between the both of us, we lost $20.00, it was time to head home.


It took us only a few more hours to get home with another stop in Clayton. We tried to locate my grandmother's grave site but not planning this trip in advance I could not remember the name of the cemetery and after wandering through three cemeteries it was definitely time to get home. We got in just after dark and were wiped out but we had a blast. I can't wait to do that again, hopefully though, we won't have to wait another year to make it happen.