Gatlinburg area in the Fall

We enjoyed a few days in the Gatlinburg area to see the great colors.  There's something about the mountains - maybe it's my heritage - as soon as I get there I feel the stresses ease away and a smile come to my face.  We took off Thursday morning and came back Saturday.  We enjoyed the beautiful colors in the Cades Cove area and ran into some high school classmates, Lynn Merritt Huggins & Susan Ray Chaffin, taking photographs the same time and place as Jeff.  There were lots of deer and turkeys.  I saw some one else posting photos of bears this weekend so we may have just missed those this trip.  Some years we have seen bears each time we go to the mountains but that wasn't this year!

We ate at some of our favorite area restaurants, including the Best Italian and the Park Grill.  At this time of the year lodging can be hard to find on short notice, so we ended up in Pigeon Forge at the Comfort Inn.  The Comfort Inn was ok - clean, nice breakfast, good size rooms and a nice gas fireplace.  They had some power issues, but it was not a big issue for us.  The Best was a good family restaurant-type experience as always.  The Park Grill is always a good stop with its unmatched salad bar (well, matched only at their sister restaurant, The Peddler) and dishes.  Jeff enjoyed the NYStrip & Trout combo while I had a prime rib which I mistakenly ordered well done - I don't know why I did that but I'll blame my order error for making it a little too dry.  

As always, I am thankful for our little getaway to the mountains.  It reminds me of our conversation about where we wanted to retire.  For me, it was always the mountains or the seaside.  For Jeff, it was the Southwest.  uh oh.  incompatible places... so we decided we would just travel to all of these.  So far... so good.