September 2011

We stayed at an amazing resort full of fabulous cabins in the mountains outside of Gatlinburg. We stayed in them on our way out to the east coast for our vacation…we liked them so much, that we stayed two more nights at them on the way home.

Our cabin on the first night was wonderful. Look at this fabulous view of the Smoky Mountains! It had a fabulous wrap around porch with one side of it screened in with a hot tub.

Yes, a view of the mountains right from the hot tub. :heart:

Oh, and let me not forget to tell you about the jetted tub in the master bedroom. I mean, this was just a fabulous place to stay. The people at the front desk were friendly and helpful. The place was clean, clean, clean.

Oh, and this cabin had a game room downstairs where SuperGuy proceeded to beat me at pool. Again and again. But I had fun letting him win 😉

Okay, if that cabin wasn’t fabulous enough…enter the cabin we stayed at for two nights on our return home…Tara in the Smokies…

Really, this cabin was fabulous and the owner did not miss a trick in the decorating to the Gone with the Wind theme!

From the posters on the wall…

Oh, and the hand carved Gone with the Wind checker board in one on the guest rooms.

But the detail that made me laugh at loud in delight?

The green velvet valances over the windows–just like the green velvet curtains that Scarlett made her dress out of when she went to see Rhett!

We went and saw Gatlinburg for an afternoon because I’d never been there. Okay, been there, done that now. We also poked around the Arts & Crafts area and saw some of the local made art. That was fun. Then we came back to just sit and stare at the mountains.

We’ll some of us stared at the mountains and some of us….

decided it was time for a little nap… 😉

The last morning we woke up to the fabulous sunrise!

So, if you’re looking for a great, reasonable, very clean place to stay near Gatlinburg or Pidgeon Forge…look into Oak Haven Resort. But I’m warning you…bring your camera!

(I took off one of the sidebars on my blog, so in the future I can upload bigger photos. Let me know if the site looks wonky to you. Hope I got it all adjusted correctly!)

So much to tell, so little time. We had a fabulous vacation, just fabulous. A couple weeks of rest and relaxation and not much more. I have stories to tell and lots of photos to share, but I’ll leave you with just a few for now.

We started the first day by driving to Gatlinburg, TN. Stayed at a wonderful cabin resort called Oak Haven. (much more on that later!) We managed to find us some…

Yuengling Beer. Which we thoroughly enjoyed :beer: The first of many on the trip. We then drove on to Litchfield Beach for two nights…must find some photos from there. Drove through Myrtle Beach…OMGOSH so busy and crowed…and onto Holden Beach where we stayed for a week.

SuperGuy immediately started fishing. Notice the dolphins playing out in the ocean behind him? Well, they look like specs this small…

We also did a lot of…well…nothing at all. It was wonderful.

Holden Beach was turned weird…it runs east/west instead of the normal north/south even though it’s on the East coast. So we didn’t get any remarkable sunrise pictures over the ocean. Did grab this sunset down the beach the last night though.

We were going to go to Hilton Head for a couple of days, but it was cold and rainy by then, so we decided to go back to the Smokies, to the same resort we stayed at the first night. We got a different cabin, called Tara in the Smokies…which will be a blog post in and of itself soon.

We did a lot of nothing those two days too, but we did make a running stab at Gatlinburg proper for a few hours. Crazy traffic and crowds, but I’d never seen it so I was glad we went. Then went to the Arts & Crafts area right out of Gatlinburg and browsed there a bit. Came back to the cabin…and did a lot of nothing again.

Woke up to the most spectacular sunrise ever. ™.

More stories to come after I get my feet back under me and adjust to the real world… :help: