So its been over 15 years since I’d been to Gatlinburg, TN; but what a nice getaway place to finally get back to for some relaxation. For those who have never been, Gatlinburg used to be a quaint little mountain town in the middle of Smoky Mountain National Park… and for all intent and purpose the town of Gatlinburg still is. It was roughly a 7 hour drive for us but an easy drive, maybe 3-4 turns in all. The city of Gatlinburg itself frankly hasn’t changed a ton since 15 years ago, just has a lot more tourist trap type stuff in it: airbrushed t-shirts, r/c helicopters, and maybe 900 pancake places since the original pancake house got popular.

We got ourselves a nice little cabin in actual Gatlinburg and that was a perfect getaway, no hustle and bustle of a tourist trap, a few small restaurants nearby, and most importantly its where all the awesome arts and crafts people have been forced to go anyhow. We did however venture out to the now infamous Pigeon Forge, TN, which is only a short few miles away. I wanted to go out there because we learned that New Zealand’s crazy-awesome Zorbing had made its way to the U.S. in Pigeon Forge, and I just had to do that again, and also get some family to try it as well.

15 years ago Pigeon Forge was maybe one “The Track” go-kart place, and Dollywood and maybe 1-2 other fun mini-golf places and some restaurants. Today Pigeon Forge might just be the largest tourist trap in the united states outside of Destin/Pensecola, FL. I counted upwards of 11-12 go kart places, over 20 dinner show places, over 30 mini golf places, literally over 50 pancake places, and also like 30+ zipline places.

Not that those things aren’t fun, but none of those things (save maybe ziplining) have anything to do with why Gatlinburg/PF were originally popular. Its supposed to be about going up in the mountains, doing at least activities you can only do because you are in the mountains, like skiing, alpine slide, camping, rafting, fly fishing, or even some hiking trails (we saw the Cataract Falls, maybe the easiest trail we’ve ever done), or even local-touristy stuff but ones that are unique like going to see glass blowers, jewelry makers, candle makers and wood crafters; but I guess now its about doing whatever activity will placate the standard bored American family who must have things handed to them.

I’m not saying that those things aren’t fun and aren’t even awesome to do, just look at us doing zorbing as an example, but sadly I feel for the people who travel to the new giant hotels in Pigeon Forge or the downtown Gatlinburg Parkway and never venture out any further from the touristy stuff. There are plenty homemade fudge to find and eat, many trails and kayaking, and yes ziplining, to do after you’ve eaten at your choice of pancake place. the Ripley’s additions to Gatlinburg are actually real nice, especially the aquarium. We’ll be back eventually but the more we go the less we’ll probably spend downtown.

Adding pins to the map is always fun, but what is more fun that adding them to a map? How about adding them to a cake!

Many thanks to our friend Valerie who made this awesome cake for a baby shower. Also love that Italy is represented by spaghetti and meatballs I will let China know that The Great Wall was very tasty.

There are times when Kelly and I are pretty certain we’re on a hidden camera show. Tonight we went to our favorite hibachi place; it’s just this local run joint hidden off main streets at the end of a strip mall in our home town. We’re pretty sure its mostly family run, but its definitely authentic and they definitely make the best fried rice anywhere. It’s not like you can just run into this place though, you have to know its there; but they are all so friendly and the food is always great.

Of course being a hibachi, you get seated at community tables for 9, so the nights can always end up interesting depending on who we end up with. Tonight we ended up at a table with two older ladies and a guy, roughly 50 or so year olds. For the sake of storytelling, let’s call them guy, Grumpy lady and Pissed lady (literal descriptions of their attitudes all night from the very moment we sat down at the table). All of the following proceeded to actually happen:

- Pissed lady had a bluetooth thing in her ear the whole time so we’re already off to a good start

- They took more than 10 minutes just to figure out their drink selections

- Both ladies ordered pina coladas but Pissed lady wanted it virgin. They got switched and rather than just realizing that and swapping, Grumpy called the waiter over complaining hers didn’t have alcohol while Pissed lady, who wanted hers virgin, apparently just kept drinking hers

- The waiter tried 3-4 times to tell them he thinks he just switched them up, they finally switched and the one wanting virgin said “yeah I guess it tasted funny”

- Then they debated if they needed new straws, or if they could just switch their straws

- When ordering food, Pissed lady said she didn’t want broccoli or mushrooms in, or touching, her vegetables (remember this is a 50+ year old, not a 5 year old)

*side note, Kelly and I usually hate when people do this cause they end up removing the item for the whole table to make things easier for the chef, happily they didn’t this time

- When asked if she wanted fried rice or steamed rice, Grumpy responded “I just want rice,” so the waiter tried to get her to clarify, which she wanted and she said again “I want JUST rice” which he said “ok so just white steamed rice?” and Grumpy responded “I guess…”

- At this place they include a free appetizer (mushrooms, shrimp or chicken liver); Grumpy didn’t like that they kept asking her questions, and finally said “I don’t want anything” but the guy jumped in and said “Can I have hers?”

*note 2: by this point we felt so bad for the waiter, and knew we were in for a fun night; he was being so nice to us so we were trying to be extra courteous back to make up for Grumpy and Pissed

- After ordering food, Pissed lady in the middle said “I don’t like the smell when they cook in here”

- When they brought out miso soup (which come with everything) both ladies just let it sit in front of them and said they didn’t want any

- When they brought out salad, Pissed lady folded her arms all disgruntled and mad and didn’t want any while Grumpy told the waiter she didn’t want any dressing (keep in mind these people are known for their special ginger dressing)

- When the waiter brought Grumpy a dressing-less salad she just looked away all grumpy and didn’t eat any anyway

-When the chef came out and started asking the people who ordered meat how they wanted it cooked, I said “medium” the other guy said “medium well” then both Pissed and Grumpy said in their pissed and grumpy tones: “VERY well done.”

- So the chef does his show-off routine, they were not impressed, and I have to say it was some of the best cooking we’ve had there; so we probably missed even more stuff happening here. When it came time to dish out vegetables though, he accidentally gave full vegetables to Pissed; who let him know she was getting the “no mushrooms or broccoli.” But she gave the vegetables to the guy, and the chef was like, no give those to Grumpy (cause there were no more vegetables to give out). Grumpy then explained she didn’t want any, though she never told anyone until now.

- Pissed proceeded to not even want her non-mushroom/broccoli touched vegetables now, because some had previously been on her plate

- The chef (as often happens at a hibachi) had extra fried rice and vegetables; so he asked Grumpy if she at least wanted to try his fried rice “just small try, I promise very good” but Grumpy would have none of it sternly “NO! I don’t want any”

*note 3: for those keeping track, at this point fried rice, salad, soup and vegetables have been served and Grumpy’s plate is still empty.

- They bring out the white steamed rice for Grumpy in a bowl, which she then promptly sets to the side.

- So now it’s the main events. We’re all being served our main course, and Grumpy finally has something, Filet Mignon, on her plate; kid you not she promptly says: “I can’t eat that it’ll be too salty.” She didn’t try any of it and say it was salty, she just looked at it and said it would be salty and never tried any. So now she finally starts picking at her steamed rice. Keep in mind the chef is standing not but 2 feet away.

- Pissed has like 2 pieces of shrimp and then quits and folds her arms, so at this point the guy just starts taking food from their plates.

- While the chef is still finishing up cooking chicken for Kelly, the guy and Pissed ask Grumpy if she wants anything on their plates and she says loudly back to them “we can just stop at McDonald’s on the way back home”

…

(Yes this is the same person who just said the Filet Mignon would be too salty)

…

So in short, we’re pretty sure Grumpy had a $20+ bowl of white rice, Pissed had $20+ fried rice and 2 shrimp while letting the guy go to town taking the rest of the shrimp and meat off her plate.

So at the end of it all, Grumpy turned to her side and said “well, happy birthday…”

She had to be talking to the guy right? He got everything he wanted and was as happy as could be…

So of course we got our finale… Pissed turned to Grumpy said “oh thank you.”

So I haven’t had a chance to post much for the recent trip’s pictures yet, though I did get the videos up. But I have a good reason. This took a lot of work up in a sweltering hot attic, but it’s totally worth it:

Its not quite the amazing night sky from Fox Glacier, New Zealand, but its way cooler than sticky glow in the dark stars.

So in year 3 of this PPIAM adventure my awesome Chevy S-10 had an unfortunate miss-shift on the interstate (it was an automatic), and ended in a torn up transmission that left me without a proper 1st gear unless I switched into overdrive mode and then switched over to normal once I hit the 2nd gear. It was an awesome truck that got me though many travels, trips and adventures; but I finally retired it in lieu of an experiment.

A Toyota Prius

It wasn’t chosen because it was “green” or because we’re environmentalists or because I was trying to make a statement, or take advantage of carpool lanes (Louisiana has none); it was simple for me to decide. We were beginning to do a lot of travel, racking up tons of miles and the S-10′s 17 mpg wasn’t cutting it on my thin wallet. So the experiment took the knob as far in the other direction as I could to the best mpg in the market. Many people would say that the Prius gas savings don’t make up the cost difference, to which I’d say sure, if you only buy the Prius for the mpg, otherwise they can’t do math. Sure if we didn’t put miles on this thing it wouldn’t pay off, but most of all folks need to remember that the lowest level Prius wasn’t comparable to a stripped out Honda Civic at $13,000. The bottom level Prius had powe windows, locks, touch screen, 6 5 speaker system etc. so it was more appropriate to a decent Ford Taurus or a Camry or Impala. On that basis it tore up the competition back then.

At 6’3″ I needed leg room and the Prius had them beat, it also had fold-able seats as a hatchback so I could still use it like a truck. But it was comfortable and fit a lot of people AND it got great mileage (I avg. 50mpg.), so with road trips in mind we went all in to try out this hybrid experiment and along the way showed all our family/friends that cars can be nice AND get good mileage.

If I had to do it again now, I wouldn’t get a Prius today, but that’s not out of complaint; the market has simply caught up in terms of cost effectiveness. Many other makers finally got a brick to the head when the economy dropped out and people were forced to buy more efficient cars and hence we got the reborn Honda Insight, the Chevy Volts but MOST Importantly, Mazda released a whole new serious of cars with double digit increases in mpg; ford finally starting utilizing their brethren developers in Germany and reinvented the fiesta and in turn the focus which also got double digit mpg increases (all without sacrificing comfort or safety. In fact last year when we needed to replace Kelly’s old Saturn we went with without a hybrid to a Fiesta, sporty and 40mpg at almost $8k less than the modern Prius.

But all that said, I don’t have a major complaint about this car. Its been all paid for for almost 4 years now so since then all its done is help my wallet from getting skinny and we really didn’t sacrifice anything, in getting to 88,888 we’ve been able to:

• Move everything we own and drive 1,100 miles across the country
• Drive through Amish country into the middle of nowhere Ohio for some IndyCar and LeMans racing
• Drive the winding steep roads of Skyline Drive in the Appalachian Mountains
• Cruise down I-1- do Hwy 98 for a beach trip in Florida
• Out to the Indy 500 and back
• Driving the frozen tundra of Snowmageddon in 2010 while white women in their SUVs crashed into everything
• Lay back with the hatch up for drive in movies in Stephens City, Va
• Road trips to and back for Nashville, Cleveland, New York City, Davidson N.C., Cincinnati, New Brunswick, Luray Caverns, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond and many more.

If we can make it 88,888 more, I’ll take it; its been a great car, and its only 11112 away from its century mark (something I never got to with the truck).