Shut the Front Door! (Because We Can Now!)

Now that Friday's blog is fixed, you can go view pictures from the rest of our trip!  We're all unpacked and laundry is done so now I'll be back to posting about the house again until our next trip in May.

We stopped by the house yesterday after dropping off the RV, but we both left our phones in the car and being exhausted from vacation, we weren't about to walk back up our big driveway to go get them.  We stopped by again today, this time making sure I had my phone with me to grab some pictures.  :-)

A lot of things happened while we were gone, but they aren't very exciting things in my opinion (mostly because they aren't pretty things to look at).  To me, the doors are the most exciting thing that happened!  In addition to the doors, we also have our furnace installed and our water heater has been delivered and is sitting in our garage along with other PVC pipes.  Two of our bathtubs were delivered and are in the garage also.  The electrician went through the house and started marking where lights go and where all the electrical outlets are.  That's pretty much all that happened while we were gone.  We found out today that we'll have a walk-through with Victor later this week after electric is done.  What is sort of crazy to think about is once electric and plumbing are done (and probably some inspections), it's time to drywall!!

Front door is in - not sure when it will be painted though.

PVC hanging out in the garage.

Water heater hanging out in the garage.

Door in the garage leading to the mudroom.

Bathtubs

Mudroom door out to the garage

HVAC installed

Fireplace insert installed!

Door leading out to the deck when we decide to build one.

Front door - hoping this gets painted white.  We took measurements today for the window above the door so my dad can make us a stained glass piece.  :-)

Marking where the kitchen cabinets go.

Dryer vent

Duct work in the attic

Furnace

Water tank hooked up to nothing so far.  This is either the holding tank from our well or it's the holding tank for the sprinkler system (MD code requires a sprinkler system in homes now). 

Circuit box with nothing inside of it right now.

On Top of Old Smoky

This is going to be a big blog since I'm two days behind and I need to let you know what we did today too.  Let's start with Wednesday.  Rain was in the forecast every day while we were in the Smokies.  We were trying to hold off for a clear day to go to Clingman's Dome, which is the highest point in the park, but it just wasn't going to happen.  On Wednesday, we thought we'd take our chances to drive up there and hope we can see the view.  On our way into the park, we saw a bear cross the main road in Gatlinburg, which is a four-lane road!  We were happy to see a bear and I was thankful it was not on a trail.  On our way to Clingman's Dome, as we got higher and higher up, there were more and more clouds and it started raining.  At one point, I suggested we just turn around and go back to the lower elevation to do the Grotto Falls hike that we had planned for that day.  I was overruled by the boys.  My mood wasn't getting much better when we got to the parking lot.  It was raining, foggy, a very chilly 39 degrees, and windy.  On top of that, we had a half mile uphill hike to get to the dome.  I'll let the pictures show you what we saw at the top and that is the most fake smile I have ever put on when getting a picture taken.  Jamie and I didn't let the boys live this one down the rest of the trip.  I'm sure on a nice day it's a beautiful view and I'd love to do it again in better weather.

Barry

Clingman's Dome

Our spectacular view

I'm not as happy as I look here

Mingo Falls - a super quick hike we did on the way to the North Carolina side.

At Clingman's Dome, we were already halfway to the North Carolina side of the park that has elk.  Instead of hiking to Grotto Falls in the rain, we thought we would have a more pleasant time doing a drive in the rain.  We scrapped Grotto and then drove to Catalochee Valley.  This is also on the other side of the mountain, so we finally saw sun and blue sky for the rest of the afternoon!  The elk did not disappoint either.

The drive to Catalochee actually put us closer to our campground, and on the way to the campground was the hike for Henwallow Falls, which we were planning to do at some point on the trip.  We decided to scrap Grotto altogether on Wednesday and do this hike instead.  Holy crap, this hike was crazy!  Keep in mind, we have not had a sunny, clear day the entire time we've been here, so days of rain has made this trail incredibly wet and muddy.  The trail also has a ton of exposed tree roots that are very slippery because of all the rain.  The trail gains about 900 feet of elevation over 2.2 miles.  Thankfully it's a gradual uphill so it isn't too strenuous; until you get to the last tenth of a mile.  This was the steepest, narrow, most slippery downhill I've ever seen!  I never thought I'd say this, but it was slower going downhill to the waterfall than uphill on the way back for that tenth of a mile!  Despite the crazy trail conditions though, the 80-foot tall waterfall was pretty cool!  I didn't blog on Wednesday night because we didn't start this hike until 4:30 pm.  By the time we finished we only had enough energy to shower, eat, play one game of cards, and go to bed.

Henwallow Falls

On Thursday, we spent the entire day in Asheville and we had a blast!  We started with the Biltmore (the Vanderbilt mansion).  Again, rain was in the forecast, so we took advantage of the sunny morning and hit the gardens first.  I just love gardens.  I could stare at them all day because for some reason it's so peaceful to me to watch things grow.  I must have taken a picture of every single flower that is in the conservatory and I was super jealous of the orchid collection they have.

Pretty view of the Smokies on our way to Asheville

Conservatory

After walking through the gardens, we did the self-guided tour of the house.  They have audio tours available, but we didn't do that for some reason.  I'm sure it's a great tour though.  The Biltmore has employees stationed outside of many of the rooms, probably more for security reasons, but occasionally they'll throw out some facts about the house or the Vanderbilts.  One fact that sticks out is that Mr. Vanderbilt's room was lined with 24 karat gold on the walls.  I guess when you have that much money you can be a little tacky.  I got a kick out of the fact that one of the rooms was called the Tapestry Room.  Because where else do you display all your tapestries?  ;-)  While we visited the house, they had a special exhibit going on where the different rooms would display mannequins wearing costumes from the movie Titanic, so you'll see some of those sprinkled into the pictures below.

Rose's outfit when they get on the boat

Mr. Vanderbilt's room - the walls were lined with 24k gold!

Mrs. Vanderbilt's room - the gold on her walls was silk and not 24 karat gold.

Rose's dress when she and Jack are at the front of the boat (Jack's "King of the World" pose).

Rose's outfit when the ship goes down

Draw me like one of your French girls.

The Vanderbilts had their own bowling alley

The Vanderbilts had an indoor pool

The huge dining room.  On the other side of the room is a pipe organ!

Included with a ticket to the Biltmore is a free wine tasting at Antler Hill Winery on the property.  Guess what happened as soon as we parked there to have lunch and wine?  It started to rain!  Thankfully the rest of our adventures that afternoon were inside.  We enjoyed lunch at Cedric's Tavern where we tried a sampler of beer.  Then we went over to the winery and had wine in small glasses.  We were surprised that the Biltmore's winery was actually pretty good!  After the Biltmore, we headed to downtown Asheville to hit three breweries.  We went to Burial, Green Man, and Wicked Weed.  All were pretty good, except we all agreed Burial was our least favorite, with Wicked Weed being our favorite.  We got home from Asheville around 9:45 pm, so that's why I was behind another day on the blog.

On our last day in the Smokies, we woke up to the sun.  Our last freaking day in the park, and it's a beautiful day with no rain in the forecast.  We only had time for a hike to Grotto Falls this morning and we couldn't have picked a more perfect morning to do it.  If you start Grotto Falls at the Grotto Falls trailhead, it's about a 1.4 mile hike one-way with about 500 feet of elevation gain.  Our tour guide Steve, from the llama trek, almost scared me out of doing this hike because he said it goes straight up and gains about 1500 feet of elevation.  I'm guessing he may have done that hike starting from the Rainbow Falls trailhead which does start significantly lower.  I'm just fine with the way we did it!  Grotto Falls isn't the largest waterfall (it's only 25 feet tall), but it might be one of the coolest because you can walk behind it!

Looking out from behind the waterfall

Trillium

The reason we didn't have a lot of time in the park this morning is because we had to start working our way back home today.  The RV has to be back by noon tomorrow and from Gatlinburg, it would be about a 6 hour drive.  On the way home though is Andrew Johnson National Historic Site in Greenville, TN.  We had to get there to catch a tour before they closed for the day.  If you go to Andrew Johnson's house, make sure you take time to drive up to the cemetery to see where he is buried.  The Johnson family plot has a stunning view.

Andrew Johnson's house

Baby ducks we saw at our last campground

All-in-all this was a great trip and despite all the rain, we really ended up lucking out quite a bit by being able to do our hikes before or after the rain (other than Clingman's Dome).  This was probably the perfect time of year to get to the Smokies, which is the #1 most visited park in the National Park Service.  We had mild temperatures which were nice for hiking, no bugs, and it wasn't very crowded at all.  Even though the weather was stupid, we still did everything we wanted to on this trip.

Learning how to RV was so much fun!  Steve and I are definitely on board with RV life and after our finances settle down with building a house, it's time to start saving for one of our own and doing this some more!  We learned a few things that we've made mental notes for future reference to be easier the next time, but otherwise our first time RVing was a success!  We just need to make sure I'm not the one in charge of closing and locking the side door.  ;-)

We were so happy to have Craig & Jamie join us on this trip.  They are always so much fun to hang out with and travel with!  When we weren't hiking in the woods or on our many adventures, we were chilling in the RV watching movies or playing cards and drinking beer.

Tonight's the second night we were able to have a fire and make s'mores due to all the stupid rain, so I'm going to go enjoy that.  Thanks for following along on our vacation!  I might blog tomorrow about the house since we'll be stopping by after dropping off the RV.  I do know HVAC supplies were dropped off there last Saturday, so there should have been some progress on the house.

LLAMAS!!!

Today was a very fun day and I can't wait to tell you all about it!  We started the day with a llama trek at Foxfire Mountain Adventure Park.  The hike you go on here is about a 2 mile hike around the park, and at about the halfway point you see a waterfall.  To get back you end up crossing a pretty long suspension bridge which owns the statistic for something - either longest or highest on the east coast or something like that.  I'll look it up at some point, but not tonight.  Sorry.  I'm trying to blog quickly since Steve is cooking dinner right now.

Anyway, Jamie and I are pretty much obsessed with farm animals (if you couldn't tell from the goats a few days ago).  We were both so excited about this llama trek and it did not disappoint.  Craig walked with Blackjack who is the only stud they have there.  All the other males (they only have two females that don't do the hikes) were gelded.  One day, no one picked Blackjack to hike with, so they dropped him off with the lady llamas and he apparently had a great time, resulting in Kuzco, who Jamie walked with today.  Kuzco is the youngest llama they have and it shows - he was so silly and as I put it all day - he walks to the beat of his own drum.  :-)  Steve walked with Tayley and I walked with Curly.  Both of those guys were pretty chill and enjoyed the walk with us.  Before leaving for this trip, Jamie noticed on the llama trek website that you could bring snacks for the llamas and one of their favorite snacks is oatmeal cookies (no raisins though).  So we brought a lot of oatmeal cookies for our new friends and that warmed them up to us real fast.  Jamie and Craig were even brave enough to let the llamas take the cookies out of their mouths!

The hike was fun, but started off pretty scary.  Foxfire rescued a Watusi Bull a few years ago that had been malnourished.  They decided to adopt it and have had it since.  His name is Bam Bam.  Apparently Bam Bam was neglected by the petting zoo he used to be a part of.  Steve, our tour guide, told us before the hike that he is the sweetest and will let us pet him.  Bam Bam is in the same field as the two female llamas and the three of them have become fast friends.  There were five of us on the hike today walking 5 male llamas into the female llama pen with a giant bull with giant horns.  I wouldn't say it was a disaster, but I was legitimately terrified for about 10 minutes of my life today.  When we got in the pen, Blackjack (the only stud remember), immediately started having a good time, if you know what I'm saying.  Steve (the guide) had to help Craig get Blackjack off the female.  While all this is happening, Bam Bam starts approaching us.  He stops and just watches for a minute.  In that time, Steve starts talking about Bam Bam and how we can go up to him and pet him.  I was about to walk up to him when he all of sudden started acting strange.  Knowing what I know about what animals do in National Parks when they are uncomfortable around humans (their behavior noticeably changes), I decided to back off.  In the mean time, Steve the guide and Craig are trying to keep Blackjack off the females.  Steve finally tells us to start walking towards the corner gate.  As we walk up there, Bam Bam kept circling us trying to square off with the male llamas.  Steve (again, the tour guide, not my Steve) had to keep standing in front of Bam Bam and look big so he would leave us and the llamas alone!  At one point he did try to chase me and Curly, but Steve thankfully intervened.  Craig and the other guy on the tour had to quickly learn how the lock on the gate worked to let us out so Bam Bam would be happy again.  It made for a great memory because the four of us couldn't stop talking about it today, but I will fully admit it was pretty scary given how big this bull was and how big his horns were!

Jamie & Kuzco

Curly!!!  I had just given him a cookie.  :-)

Jamie feeding Kuzco

Craig feeding Blackjack.  I didn't get the exact moment because...(see below)

...I was photo-bombed by Kuzco!

Bam Bam

The adventure begins...

The waterfall

The bridge

Tayley on the left and Curly on the right.  I love Curly's face here!

From left to right:  Blackjack, Craig, Kuzco, Jamie, Curly, me, Steve & Tayley

Other than that incident, we had a great hike!  We were so fortunate during our hike today because they called for rain all day again.  It stopped right when we started the hike and started up again just as we finished the hike!  We quickly ran inside the gift shop that you must exit through (convenient).  Foxfire also makes their own hard cider and offers free samples in the gift shop, so we had a good time there and bought a few ciders.

We decided that since the rain was so iffy we were going to use today to do some of the cliche things to do in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge.  This included the Bush's Baked Beans museum where they have the secret recipe locked up behind lasers.  ;-)  We grabbed snacks at the cafe there so we could have some beans and dessert.  Note to my readers:  if you go here and get a brownie sundae, share it with at least three other people.  Between the four of us, we came nowhere close to finishing it!

I don't even remember the guy's name, but who cares about him when Duke the dog is in the picture!!

The secret family recipe

After Bush's we tried some moonshine and whiskey at Thunder Road and bought a little bit of moonshine.  Then we went to Smoky Mountain Knife Works which is a store that has the world's largest knife showroom.  If you've ever been to South Dakota, you know that there are billboards all over the place for Wall Drug.  Well Smoky Mountain Knife Works is the "Wall Drug" of the East.  Only, they aren't as silly and goofy - they really are serious about their knives and it is indeed a really large showroom.