Ripley's in Gatlinburg

Day one in the SMOKY MOUNTAINS. The scenery here is such a refreshing change from the flatlands of Illinois. I love mountains anywhere, but still each time I visit them, I realize how creative our Lord truly was when he molded them. We’ll go see the heart of the Smokies tomorrow; today was all about Gatlinburg & Pigeon Forge.

We took our sweet time waking up today. The only thing about that is that when you’re on that first day, your body is still on its normal time. Couple that with the anticipation of getting out there to explore, and you find yourself out of bed before 9am anyway. I figured if that was our biggest issue today, we were off on the right foot.

Not having a rigid agenda is what we’re all about on vacation. We took advantage of our tactic and took off driving towards Gatlinburg. We decided to check out the Ripley’s aquarium after hearing positive feedback from nearly everyone we surveyed. It turned out we were in for a much bigger surprise than we’d bargained.

Apparently, military discounts are nothing taken lightly anywhere in Gatlinburg. Ripley’s has a whole chain of attractions in the area, and to visit them all should have realistically cost us right around $90/each [ummm…]. We’ve learned that it never hurts to at least ask about military discounts, and in this case, its pay-off translated into us handing over $55 total, for both of us. You do the math there.

The aquarium had one of the best tunnel tanks I’ve seen. We spent the majority of our time standing under there watching sharks and rays swim over and beside us. I even shook the fin[?] of a giant sea turtle today. I’m such a tourist. We got our share of jellyfish to weird fish, sea horses to a giant octopus, stings and mantas to crabs and lobsters.

After the aquarium, we set off on foot a few blocks down to some other Ripley’s gigs. The mirror house, the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum, and the Guiness Book of World Records museum were the next three attractions we hit along the main strip in Gatlinburg. Going on a Monday helped with minimal wait times, so we cycled through at a pretty good speed.

The clouds started forming overhead, and we noticed hints of rain, so, like the rational couple that we are, we hit one of the Ripley’s mini golf courses. Yes, this would’ve made more sense during sunny weather, but hey, we’re all about random.

Lastly, we made a run to Kroger [awesome] to do some grocery shopping for the week.

Now we’re here, enjoying the solitude of our little cabin and the re-introduction of cable t.v. into our evening. Ha.

Tomorrow is our Smoky Mountains tour J

G’Nite!

xo | cmd