#53 - CHECK

Number 53 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to go to Gatlinburg again.  Justin and I went last weekend for a little “mom and dad minus baby” time.  We needed this pretty bad.  Justin’s been out of town for about 2 weeks of every month and I just found out last week that he’ll be gone every week in May and the beginning of June, so we really needed to have this vacation for ourselves.  It wasn’t a long trip, we left Friday morning and came back Sunday evening.  We’ve been to Gatlinburg tons of times, it’s one of our favorite places to travel to given how much we love the outdoors. 

We didn’t do any hikes because there just wasn’t enough time and the weather was also not very cooperative.  When we got there, we drove around Cades Cove (our favorite spot) and saw a couple of bears and lots of deer and turkeys.

After we did a couple of laps around the Cades Cove loop, we headed to our hotel to have dinner.  This was also our first trip to Gatlinburg where we didn’t camp or stay in a cabin.  We had two free night stay coupons for a Hilton property and they expired on April 27th, which is another reason why we took this trip.

The next morning we were fully expecting it to be storming, but shockingly it wasn’t, so we headed into the park to the stables to go horseback riding.

It was a two hour ride.  MISTAKE.  I think we would have been fine on the one hour or hour and a half.  We were SO sore after two hours of riding.  I could barely sit down without my tailbone hurting!! 

After we got done riding, we walked around the strip in Gatlinburg for a while, going in and out of shops.  We went back to the hotel early and went to bed.  The next morning, Justin woke up super early and did an 8 mile run while I slept in.  We did one more lap around Cades Cove and then headed home.  I will say this about traveling.  It’s not the same anymore.  I still love it, but it’s totally different when you have a baby being cared for by someone else.  You keep wondering if he’s ok, if he’s happy with Nana, if he’s driving Nana crazy.  I missed Carter so much in the two days we were gone.  It’s going to be a while before I’m able to take a trip longer than a weekend, I can tell you that much!