39th Anniversary...The Party's Over

Well, Friday we must have been soooooo worn out from our Thursday escapades that we didn't get out of our hotel room until NOON!! That's right folks, old age has caught up to us and one full day of partying is all we can take. We missed the breakfast opportunities on Friday but since we ate dinner at the Old Mill Thursday night and spent a good share of Thursday nights rest with our friend, Tums, we really were not disappointed in missing breakfast. The hour of the day though meant it was time for lunch. We had already chosen the place to dine for lunch and headed to Gatlinburg, found parking, and walked down the street to Bubba Gumps for the best meal of the trip. This was a truly fun restaurant. I commented to Claude that you could just feel the energy in the place. It didn't hurt that they were playing an Eagles song as we entered. Our table came with 2 license plates on a stand. One said "Run Forest, Run!!" and the other said "Stop Forest, Stop!!" If you needed something from your waiter you just flipped to the license plate that said "stop" and someone would come to your rescue and get you whatever you needed. Otherwise, the license plate with "run" stayed up so they just passed you by. The beverage & dessert menu was on a ping-pong paddle. Our server was Lance and he asked several trivia questions to get us started. Claude knew every answer. I was very impressed and so was Lance. Claude was a little surprised. He said he just doesn't know why all that stuff stays in his head. I'm thinking I may have married the next Ken Jennings. We ordered shrimp. Mine came in the form of a shrimp po-boy sandwich. Yum!! Claude's came in the form of a weird holder with 4 large cone-shaped cups in it. Each cup had shrimp made a different way. Claude was very, very disappointed when he emptied the first one. We also each ordered a lemonade. I had strawberry lemonade and Claude had blueberry lemonade. They came in a glass (like a tall beer glass) and the base of it had flashing lights. The deal was, if you purchased this type of drink, you got to take the glass home with you. So we now have in our kitchen 2 glasses that say Bubba Gump on them with little flashing lights in the bottom. We are betting our grandmonsters will get a kick out of drinking in them when they visit. After our meal and visit to the gift shop, we headed out to walk the street of Gatlinburg. But first we had to have a photo out with Colonel Gump!!

Now, I had read about these Mirror Maze places and I really wanted to see one. So we walked many blocks until we came to the Ripley's Mirror Maze. Yes, I had coupons. Claude paid the rest and we donned plastic gloves so as not to finger print the mirrors and not to spread germs. Then we entered the door and began our journey with Claude in front. Somewhere along the line I ended up in front. And in a few short minutes we were back at the beginning. There were 3 kids (probably siblings) coming back in for another trip through. Your ticket lets you go through as many times in one day as you would like. These kids were telling us we needed to go through again only we should walk backwards. Apparently this was a great deal more fun for them than walking through forwards. In addition to the joy of walking backwards they had purchased, for another nominal fee, 3-D glasses. Doesn't this just sound like sooooo much fun - backwards with 3-D glasses. Claude and I both agreed we enjoyed the kids excitement as they let us try on their 3-D glasses and encouraged us to try walking through backwards more that we enjoyed the over-priced mirror maze. As we left I said to Claude, "I think this was the Joshua Tree of Gatlinburg!" He smiled and agreed. (Years ago when we only had Nissa as an infant, my parents came to visit us in California. Papa had heard of Joshua Tree National Monument and really wanted to see it. A Joshua tree is something like a cactus like thing. We loaded up their car and headed south of Sunnymead where we lived and entered at some point Joshua Tree National Forest. We only knew we finished it because we saw a sign that thanked up for visiting. From that point forward, any event we tried that really didn't meet our expectation has been called a Joshua Tree. Hence, the mirror maze is the Joshua Tree of Gatlinburg.) We walked thru a few shops and ended up in a 2nd story ice cream/lemonade store. We purchased 2 tall fresh squeezed lemonade and sat on the rocking chairs of the porch and watched the tourist go by. This type of activity is always good for us because Claude has a real knack for telling me the story of each tourist. I enjoyed the ladies walking around in their high heeled shoes. We would see this in tourists in DC and always thought these ladies must be very vain and very stupid. Sneakers were made for a reason and should be used when you are going to do miles of walking. After our lemonades we did a little more store browsing. We found a cute little store name after Jake. The didn't carry his size in a t-shirt or one would have been purchased.

Then we popped into Ben & Jerry's for a scoop of ice cream. Now it was time to head for dinner. This was our actual anniversary day and we felt compelled to have that anniversary dinner. We were both feeling another night with our friend Tums was on the way but we were just sure we must have that anniversary dinner. Bennett's BBQ was our choice (I had coupons) and we went to the one on the way back to our hotel. Our server was very cheerful and tried extremely hard to get Claude and I to respond to her cheerfulness. We made it thru most of our dinner and then waddled out to the car. The Lil Dolly's store was very close and Claude let me peek in there. They had quilts on sale and we purchased 2 of them for our anniversary. They can be used for bedspreads. Very pretty. Then we headed to the hotel.

Saturday we felt we could play in the morning before heading back to Sadieville. This building had intrigued us for our entire visit. We had a pancake breakfast and headed to Wonder Works. The outside of the building and the 1st room inside are all built like they were turned upside down. As you approach the building they have speakers playing groaning and creaking sounds like the building is going to collapse. It is really a museum for your mind. It was great fun and we spent a couple of hours enjoying the things they had to experience. Some were great fun and others were just fun. This was a much better use of our time and means than the mirror maze. Claude loves the simulator rides and they had one he enjoyed for a time. Then we got a picture of him as Colonel Astronaut.

The silliest thing we did was a mind relaxation game. They have you sit at opposite ends of a table that is about 6 feet long. There is a clear tube running down the middle of the table with a little ball about the size of a ping-pong ball inside. Each of us velcroed a strip around our foreheads with 3 metal circles that rested on your forehead. The object was to stay as relaxed as you could. The one who was least relaxed would have that little ball roll their way. Can you guess who had the ball come right at them and who was the most relaxed and could send it away from them???? I'll tell you if you can't guess. I'm am the least relaxed of the two of us. Now, I didn't have to play a game to know that. However, I am also the one who has not had 2 bleeding ulcers, thank you!! We had a wonderful few days just enjoying each other and experiencing some new things and seeing wonderful sites. Let me tell you...39 years is not that bad.