Dave and I went to Tennessee this past weekend to get away and celebrate our 2nd Anniversary (which was actually in June). It was a super fun 4 days with my handsome love! Dave mentioned today that it's cool that we spent like 5 whole days together and we still want to be with each other all the time and love each other so much. It must so way be true love. :o)
We slept in a bit on Wednesday, packed, loaded up the car, and began our 4-hour-ish journey to the Great Smokey Mountain area of Tennessee (Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge area).
We were a little nervous because about 10 minutes into our drive, we came to a stop. Just like this:
Agh! What a way to start a vacation.... However, we were blessed because the hold-up didn't last long and we were on our way in hardly any time at all. Thank goodness!
Our GPS took us through Georgia, North Carolina, and then into Tennessee. It was an absolutely beautiful scenic drive. Thank goodness I took Dramamine, though, because the roads were super windy through the mountains. lol
We checked in to our hotel in Pigeon Forge between 4 and 5 and decided we still had time in the evening to do some sight-seeing. We chose to start with the Titanic museum. As we entered, they gave us each a "boarding pass" that had the name and story of an actual Titanic passenger. That was pretty cool. We were told that at the end of the tour, we would find out if we survived or not.
There were tons of models and sketches and artifacts and facts and stories. We learned that they had to spread soap all over the dock to reduce friction as the massive Titanic pushed away from the dock. There were 10 dogs on board. We walked up a $1 million exact replica of the Grand Staircase.
There was a huge timeline on the wall of one of the rooms. I had not realized that an entire hour passed from the time the initial iceberg warning was yelled until they began loading people into the lifeboats. What the?!? That seemed so ridiculous to me until Dave reminded me that most of the people were not worried because the ship had been deemed "unsinkable" and so they didn't think they had anything to worry about. If only they had been right...
One of the most humbling parts of the tour for me was entering a room where they had a huge "iceberg" that you could touch and some troughs of water they keep at 28 degrees, which is how cold the water was on that fateful night 100 years ago. When I put my hand in the water, it was almost unbearable to think that people spent hours in this freezing cold water, some who actually survived the ordeal. Crazy! I was grateful for my jacket and that I only had to dip my hand and then quickly dry it off and get warm again. Wow! Makes me remember that my sometimes seemingly horrible trials might not be so horrible after all...
Oh! I almost forgot! They had an exhibit that replicated the deck at different slopes so you could feel what it was like as it was sinking. I couldn't even stand on the most sloping one they had. How scary that would have been in real life....
There was a huge room dedicated to the movie: props, costumes worn by Kate Winslet, trivia facts, replicas of all the awards the movie won, etc. It was pretty cool to see. :o)
In the last room, one huge wall was covered with names. At the top were the names of the survivors, divided into classes: 1st class, 2nd class, and 3rd class. For example, in the movie Rose (Kate Winslet) was a 1st class passenger. Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) was a 3rd class passenger. Most of the 1st class passengers survived because they were the the first people offered life jackets and spots in the life boats. Over half of the 3rd class passengers, however, lost their lives as a result of the crash into the iceberg.
Both Dave and I survived. :o)
On our way out, we bought a Titanic ship charm that Dave can put on my charm bracelet!
After Titanic, we were ready for dinner and realized we had just enough time to get to the Lumberjack Feud. What is that, you ask? It's like Medieval Times, only instead of knights jousting on horses, it's cute, muscly lumberjacks doing lumberjack things.
Ok, so that's a pretty lame description, but you can learn more about it here:
www.lumberjackfeud.com.
They took our picture as we went in, and Dave actually ended up buying it (to replace the picture of he and another girl he took on a date to Medieval Times). ;o)
For dinner, they served BBQ ribs and chicken, yummy macaroni and cheese, BBQ beans, amazing dinner rolls, and strawberry shortcake.
Overall, it was a fun night! Overpriced, but more enjoyable than Medieval Times. Lots of audience interaction and participation, so that was fun! Here are some pictures from the evening...
Sorry that this next one is on it's side... He's climbing UP, not to the side lol
Our first day in Tennessee was a fun day :o) Stay tuned for more blog posts about some of the other things we did while enjoying a much-needed vacation from work!
