We spent the first day at Pigeon Forge and the second day at Gatlinburg of this long weekend/Thanksgiving trip. The third day was also about exploring more parts of Gatlinburg, TN.
The day started really well with a belly full of delicious breakfast. Our hotel had given us coupons to have breakfast at the next restaurant, which I initially thought was weird. All my doubts completely vanished when I saw the rush inside and the delicious food that was being served to already sitting guests. The wait was at least 20 minutes long but it was worth every minute. The food was delicious and the lovely company couldn’t have been better. We made sure to fill up ourselves as we had a busy day before us.
After the breakfast, we headed towards a hiking spot. The parking and the hiking trail that we chose didn’t seem that popular as there was hardly anyone apart from us. I was scared because I had heard that the Smokey Mountains area had a lot of bears and being the paranoid person that I am, I was holding on to my dear life when we started that hike (& partyly because we had kids with us). I made sure that I don’t tell anyone 😀
Fortunately, the hike was pretty uneventful and everyone made it back in one piece. The next stop on our list was Gatliburg Downtown. The area came across as a buzzing place. Parking was easier to find than we expected and the moment we parked our cars, the large building of “Believe it or not” was staring us in our faces. The building lived up to its hype, but we refrained ourselves from going inside as we wanted to explore the local attraction. The first order of business was food. We were lucky and happy to find Indian snacks stall and devouvered on Indian snacks like Samosa, Panipuri, and Dosa.
It was a sweet surprise for us and after that, it was time to head to the “Gatlinburg Skylift”. It wasn’t something that I expected to find in the Smokey Mountains area. This little adventure turned out to be the best thing we did as a group. Monika sat with Arnav, Manju sat with Bhaskar and Aryan. I sat with Anupam ji. It was really fun to shout names at each other when we were in different carts, with people giving us the “looks”. When Anupam ji inadvertently shouted “I love you” at Monika, there was someone else from the other cart who shouted “I love you too”. It was a fun sight to witness.
The afternoon stop was at some picturesque place, which Monika told us reminded her of Switzerland. It was really beautiful and the pictures indeed came out really good.
The last stop for the day was again in the Gatliburg Downtown area as we explored different flavors of whiskeys at the world famous “Ole Smokey Moonshine”. I must say the place lived upto its expectations and I felt overjoyed after visiting this place. Bhaskar and I deciced to purchase 6 different bottles of the whiskeys and divided into equal parts. Before buying the liquor though, we paid for the whiskey tasting and thoroughly loved it. The bartender was both fun and cool, helping us choose the right flavors for our palette.
The last affair of the day was Manju and I recording a “Thank You” message to Monika as it was her idea of visiting Gatlinburg during the Thanksgiving holidays. It was fun, but the trip indeed turned out to be better than we thought.
And just like that, the trip was over and we headed home the next day, to start our usual grind. It was a fun way to spend Thanksgiving with the lovely people.
Next stop: Ford Team Holiday Lunch at Dearborn, MI, USA
stochasticity 