A Balmy Holiday, Part 2

The next day, the guys and kids hit the strip in Gatlinburg while the ladies hit the artisan's craft trail. That evening, we all went back over to Pigeon Forge to enjoy some picking and grinning at the Dixie Stampede.

Our first experience at the Stampede was in Branson many moons ago when the college junior was in middle school. I remember our experience at the Stampede because you're given a ton of food and no silverware. Not even the plastic sort. It was a neat-nick OCD nightmare come to life. So this time I smuggled in some plastic silverware in my purse and passed it along to others in the group that preferred to cut the food rather than use their hands. It's all pretty portable to the mouth - rotisserie chicken, boiled potato, corn on the cob, biscuit - but I still preferred using utensils instead of getting my hands all icky sticky and greasy.

The rest of our trip included a visit to Ober Gatlinburg to ride the mountain coaster and tube. Plus a few more trips to the strip for dining, window shopping, and moonshine sampling. It's a redneck mountain thang.

We absolutely enjoyed the lodge we found on VRBO. It was very spacious, made with real logs and had lots of great details like the mountain critters carved into columns in the living room.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas, we had a store-bought meal from Cracker Barrel. Then we lowered the AC so we could turn on the fireplace without breaking into a sweat, just long enough to snap some family pics.

A special treat during this trip was dinner at Paula Deen's restaurant in Pigeon Forge with an old family friend that lives in the area. She and my sister became best friends in elementary school. Such a sweet gal - loved getting the chance to visit with her and stroll down memory lane a bit. And Paula's restaurant was pretty good. Skip the cobbler and go for an extra helping of the meatloaf covered in homemade cheese sauce. With a side of homemade mac 'n cheese. It was carbalicious, artery-clogging good!

Almost as soon as we flew home to Texas the day after Christmas, a cool front hit and we were back to sweater wearing, fireplace burning weather, dontcha know. All in all, it was a great trip with family. The final pic, below, is one of my favourites and such an accurate representation of their generation. My husband's parents gave all of the kids a selfie-stick, so I captured our girls putting one of theirs to use out on the second story deck. Say cheesy, y'all!