Vacation

Okay, I know several of you (Nicole) are rather mad at me that I call this vacation and kind of just treat Vegas as a non-vacation and you all wonder when I work. I do work...i just happen to get about 20 vacation days a year and I happen to spend them. :)

Anyway, this year we went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee (I will explain where the heck that is in a second) and Charleston, SC. 

Beth's parents have a timeshare through BlueGreen and we asked if we could use their places for our trip. For all but one night, the rooms were available so we were in good shape! 

Gatlinburg, TN is right next to Pigeon Forge (home of Dollywood) and also next to the Smoky Mountains National Park. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are basically like Branson and Wisconsin Dells...lots of gimmicky stuff and Ripley's Believe it or Not stuff. 

The Smoky Mountains were amazing and the park is just so great and incredibly huge. I had no idea how huge it actually was. 

The other big highlight was that we went whitewater rafting. There are 6 stages of difficulty...6 being the most difficult and dangerous. We had level 4's so it was still very good. I don't think i want to do the 6's. 

When I have a little more time I will put a link to a slide show on here. Until then, I will just post a few pics from Tennessee.

After a few days in Tennessee we went to Charleston, SC. Neither of us had been there (or Gatlinburg for that matter) so we were both excited. 

Charleston is a quaint city that is just really southern. It's hard to describe. Everyone dresses up all the time. You have the beach but they aren't known much for their seafood. They have a lot of southern dishes like grits and stuff like that. So that was a little odd. We took a tour on a mule-drawn carriage that gave us a little history and a ride around the downtown area. 

The first night we didn't have a hotel room. We went out to Folly Beach (which was beautiful) and then we went looking for some free wi-fi to find a hotel on hotwire.com. I remembered that chick-fil-a has free wi-fi and we saw one on our drive. We pulled in, and voila. Free internet on Beth's laptop. Hotwire is awesome by the way. We got a place for $88 per night and THIS is it. I think normally it goes for $150 a night. They had wine and cheese from 5-6pm, free breakfast delivered to your room, and I think there was a time for milk and cookies?? crazy.

We also got the use of free bikes while we were at the Elliot House Inn. It was nice to look around the city w/o having to drive or walk. 

Our second night in Charleston we went to Isle of Palms which is another area of Charleston kind of like Folly Beach. Awesome beach. We found this really great beach bar called Coconut Joe's that had food on one floor and a bar on the roof. A great reggae band was playing and it was just great to hear music on a roof overlooking the ocean.

Finally, we were able to see a plantation on our way out of town. There were several in the area each offering something a little different. We had a great time there...they had some restored slave cabins (which is always depressing to realize existed), we saw some alligators, took a tour of the house there and pet a deer that was in their little petting zoo. I think Beth felt bad for the deer in the "zoo" but at the same time, they were taken care of and didn't have the threat of being killed by a hunter...so who knows. Again, I have posted some pics below. Hopefully I will get a slide show on here soon!