Scarecrows, Mountain Drive, and Fall Colors

I’ll begin with a few photos of our campground and a sampling of the MANY fall decorations that are scattered around Pigeon Forge and Sevierville.

This display is at our campground office.

Peggy and Gary's motorhome and our fifth wheel            

Our fifth wheel and the view that we have from our large rear window.

Taken at Dollywood when Natalie and Megan were here.        

This one used watering cans for the faces

Display at Dixie Stampede

I like the sunflower eyes!

And this guy has a broom face and dust pan feet

 

I worked on the 14^th, 15^th and 16^th, and Peggy worked on Monday so we waited until Tuesday to go to Best Buy in Knoxville to look at Home Theater Systems.  Peggy and Gary took their PC to the Geek Squad for repairs while we shopped.  We left empty handed, but made arranged for a home entertainment advisor to come out on Saturday to see what components would fit in our limited space and which system would work with our present speaker system.  After lunch at Panera, Peggy and I took advantage of being in Knoxville and did a little shopping at the mall.  Peggy had hoped to find something to wear for her daughter’s wedding next month, but didn’t find what she had in mind.  In the meantime, the guys occupied their time by looking at tools in Sears and taking a nap in the truck.  We rewarded them for their patience by going to Camping World on the way home, and then had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, which is one of their favorite places to eat.

We started the next day with breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  After breakfast, we talked the guys into taking us to the Beehive Wholesale Factory Store in Sevierville.  They dropped us off and went to the nearby Smoky Mountain Knife Works store, which is the world’s largest knife showplace.  Our sons loved this knife store when we came to the Smokies on family vacations!  We decided on a whim to stop at Belk’s on the way home, and it was well worth it!  I found a Nautica coat (that I LOVE) for 40% off, and then got an additional 20% off with a text coupon!   We spent the rest of the day at home and went to Peggy and Gary's for Reubens that night.

It was still raining on Thursday when Peggy and Gary went to Dollywood to turn in their resignation and then to the Cancer center for Gary’s injection.  The chemo causes a reduction in his white blood cell count, so he has to get periodic injections to increase the count.  I had an appointment for a haircut and then we met them for lunch at McAlester’s.  Peggy still needed to find something to wear to Michelle’s wedding, so the two of us took the jeep to the Tanger Outlet Mall and the guys went home in the truck.   This shopping excursion was successful, and Peg went home with the perfect outfit in hand!

Ron works Fridays and Sundays at the campground office and I work all weekend at Dollywood….so we were soon back at work again.  The Best Buy advisor had met with Ron on Saturday for the consultation visit, so Ron and I went back to Knoxville on Monday afternoon to buy our Home Theater System.  The plan was for me to make white chili for dinner that night so, when we saw that we were going to get home late, we gave Peggy and Gary a call.  Peggy suggested that I make the chili another night and we all go to ‘No Way Jose’s’ for margaritas and dinner instead.  Good idea!

On Tuesday we were off to have some fun.  Peggy and Gary went with us for a drive on the Tail Of The Dragon, a stretch of U.S. 129 that runs between North Carolina and Tennessee.  It is considered to be among the finest roads for sport car and motorcycle enthusiasts in the world and is also a road with many casualties.  It snakes its way through 318 hairpin turns within 11 miles!  We stopped at Deal’s Gap to see the "Tree of Shame", a makeshift shrine that was started sometime in the 80's by a group of Harley riders. The tree is covered with parts of motorcycles and cars that didn’t make it through the dragon   We ate our picnic lunch in the pavillion and then continued on to drive on the Cherohala Skyway.   After 34 years of construction, it was finally completed in 1996 with a price tag of $100,000,000, making it North Carolina’s most expensive highway.  The road took us up and over 5,400 foot mountains for 15 miles in North Carolina.  It was a beautiful drive with a magnificent display of autumn color.  We stopped at every opportunity to view the scenery and to take pictures.  When we reached the highest elevation, we found the trees bare…a sad sight after the brilliant display of color we had been seeing.   The color returned soon after we began our descent and drove another 21 miles into the deeply forested back country of Tennessee.

Guard rail on Tail of the Dragon with stickers added by motorcyclists

Tree of Shame

Looking down at Peggy and Gary below the viewing platform

Ron spent Wednesday morning untangling wires and removing our old unit so he could make room for the new home theater system.  He and Gary worked all afternoon fitting the new system into the cabinet and hooking up wires and cables.  Peggy and I had picked up some fabrics at JoAnn's earlier in the day and were trying each one on the windows to see which one I should use for new window treatments.  Before we knew it, it was almost 8:00 and we hadn't had dinner yet!  The guys picked up a pizza and we soon called it a day.

Thursday was rainy and dreary...a perfect day for me to make the white chili, so Peg and I went to Walmart to get the ingredients.  We also went to the Corelle outlet, hoping she could get a few more dishes to match her pattern.  Unfortunately, they no longer carry it.  When we got home we found that the guys had successfully connected all of the wires and cables, so we had background music when Peggy and Gary came over for dinner that night. Of course, we spent the evenings watching the Cardinals and Texas Rangers play in the World Series.  What a great ending for our week!  The Cardinals are the 2011 World Champions!!!

Guests in the Smokies!

The last two weeks have been busy ones.  Ron was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, the 27^th, and when we got home we found this sign on our door!

Peggy made this sign to welcome Ron home!

 Willis and Dixie (Ron’s brother and sister-in-law) arrived the next day.  It was my birthday on Thursday and I had a nice surprise when a car pulled in and delivered a flower arrangement!  I expected it to be for Ron, but it was a beautiful fall arrangement sent by our son and his wife (Jeremy and Kelly) for my birthday! Dixie made a yummy dinner of fried chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, field peas, and sliced tomatoes and Peggy made birthday cupcakes for dessert. We all sat outside and talked until the cool evening temperatures sent us inside.

My beautiful fall arrangement from Jeremy and Kelly

Willis, Ron, Dixie, Gary, and Peggy

Gary, Willis, Dixie, Me, and Ron

We had planned to go to a close friend’s wedding in Illinois that weekend but, obviously, Ron couldn’t make a long trip.  Since we were going to be in town after all, I told my team leader that I could work that weekend.  We teased Ron and said that Willis and Dixie were babysitting him while I was gone.  The doctor had said that he wanted Ron to get up and walk every 4 hours, so they made sure he kept to that schedule.  I was grateful that they were here to walk with him while I worked, because he was still unsteady and weak from spending 15 days in a hospital bed.  He started out walking to the end of our lane and back and gradually increased his distance.  The more he walked, the stronger he got!  We saw a big improvement after he was home a week.

By the next week, Ron was ready to get out a little.  On our first outing we went to Dollywood and rented a motorized cart for him to get around on.  We saw a couple of the Dollywood shows, ate, and then came back home.  The next day was a perfect day for a drive around the Cade's Cove loop.  Willis drove his truck and Peggy and Gary followed us in their  jeep.  We stopped midway at a pullover, set up our lawn chairs, and enjoyed the beautiful view while we ate our picnic lunch. 

Gary, Peggy, Willis, Dixie, and Ron

The leaves were just beginning to turn at the higher elevations

As we drove further around the loop, we saw a mother bear and 3 cubs!  Unfortunately, they ran back into the woods before we could get a good picture, but I did manage to get one photo of one of them.

Can you see the bear hidden behind the branches?

I had put the ingredients for French Dip sandwiches in the crock pot before we left, so dinner was waiting for us when we got back to the campground.  Dixie, Peggy, and I alternated nights that we cooked and we all ate together every evening.

Peggy, Gary, and I used our Dollywood ID’s to take Ron, Willis, and Dixie to a few shows as our guests.  Over the next few weeks, we went to the Sweet Fanny Adams theater in Gatlinburg, saw the impersonator show at Memories Theater, and went to Cirque du Chine, which is always impressive!  

  

One afternoon we drove to a nearby town to check out an Allen Family cemetery.  The Allens are ancestors of Ron and Willis’ mother, so I took pictures of some of the graves for future research.

Erin and her girls came for a visit this week, too.  Erin hadn’t been to the Smokies since she camped at Cade’s Cove with us as a family.  They got here on Sunday and stayed until Thursday morning.   We took them to Dollywood for awhile on Monday and then to Dixie Stampede that evening.   It had been several years since Erin had been to Cade’s Cove, so we did that on Tuesday.  This time we picked up sandwiches at Subway and ate in the Cade’s Cove picnic area. 

Erin, Natalie, and Megan at the John Oliver cabin, built c 1822

             

Natalie and Megan

                                      

Megan found a little room under the stairs and called it her 'time out' room.

We saw several wild turkeys on the loop, but I only took a picture of this one.

   

Natalie and Megan posing at the barn near Cable Mill

                     

Erin, Natalie, Megan, me, and Ron

                                   

Erin and the girls walking to Becky Cable house at Cade's Cove

             

Meg, Dixie, Willis, Ron, Natalie, and Erin at Cade's Cove Visitor Center

Natalie and Megan wanted to go back to Dollywood for awhile on Wednesday and Peggy and Gary went with us.  To our surprise, eight year old Megan wanted to ride the Mystery Mine roller coaster while we were there!  Erin rode it with her and Megan was all smiles when they got off.  She wanted to ride it again, but we all wanted to go home and rest awhile before going to Cirque du Chine that night.

Willis and Dixie and Erin and the girls all had to go home on Thursday morning.  Gary and Peggy had an appointment at the cancer center for Gary’s day surgery.  He was having a port put in so it could be used for the rest of his chemo treatments.  Ron and I stayed home and he relaxed while I did a little cleaning and laundry.

When Peg and Gary got home, Peggy called out the window to let us know they were back.  We went over to see how Gary was doing and visited a little while.  Later, Gary took a nap and Peggy and I left to do a little shopping.  Peggy cooked dinner that evening and we all sat around and talked for awhile before deciding that it was time to call it a night. Gary had to go in for chemo in the morning, Ron was going to spend his first full day working at the campground office, and I was going to be working all weekend at Dollywood.  Life was back to normal.