Hi friends!  It is November and  the “I’m Thankful For…” season has started.  You know those Facebook posts everyday until Thanksgiving where everyone posts what they are thankful for, and then friends, family, and frenemies all oooh and ahhh, and add little heart emojis.  I thought I would have a spin on that the next few weeks.   I am grateful for the memories I have made with my family and the ability to quickly overcome disaster.   

 Traveling is fun, but sometimes a huge wrench or speed bump gets thrown in your path.  Do you throw your hands in the air and declare defeat, or do you embrace the challenge and have the best imperfectly perfect adventure.  Our first stop down memory lane is Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

2004-ish

Let’s set the tone by saying that our kids were 2 and 3 at the time and we have no money.  We are young and dumb and have decided not to try to save money for the future, but to set off for a fabulous vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Not only are we taking two toddlers, but we are also bringing along my mother in-law as well.  We will be taking her van and splitting the cost for a condo in the mountains.

We packed our bags, the mother in-law, kids, inverter, and bungie strapped a small TV to a beer cooler and were on our way.  Remember, I did say we were poor, we have no money for those high falutin’ car T.V.s.

It is a short 8 hour drive to the Smoky Mountains.  We should have read the signs along the trip and turned back while we still had time. 

The first sign we had of the time to come involved a vicious assault on myself.  We were almost there, and I was taking in the beautiful scenery with the window down  letting the wind blow through my hair.  That’s when it hit me, literally. I heard a terrible buzz and slap across my face.  That’s when I looked down and saw it trying to recover from the collision with my cheek bone.

A CICADA!  If you have never seen a cicada, you are lucky.  These spawns of the devil revive from their tomb underground every 13-17 years.  If I could have jumped from the moving car out the window I would have.  I was curled into a ball of screaming sissy girl in the passenger seat.  Somehow my husband managed to kill the predator before it chewed my leg off, drove and tried not to laugh or slap me. He is a machine.

After I recovered from the cicada attack, we were on our way again.

When we finally arrived, our next step was to check into the condo.  We were staying 5 fabulous nights in a  2 bedroom condo in the mountains.  Sounds great right?  Our first roadblock was getting there.  We would follow the directions given and would always end up at a dead end, please remember, we were young and dumb.  After several attempts, and several bad words, we finally realized this was no dead end.

There, to the right, was a 90° turn leading straight to the heavens.  We should have got the memo when our condo was named The Summit.  I forgot to mention that I had a debilitating fear of heights at the time and spent the whole trip up the mountain shifting my weight frantically so the van did not plummet off the side of the mountain.  My family did not even thank me for being a hero, rude!

We decided to put the disaster of the previous day behind us and start fresh on our epic vacation.  Today we are going to venture to Sevierville, Tennessee and explore Forbidden Caverns. This is supposed to be “The Greatest Attraction Under the Smokies,” or at least that is what the website says now. Forbidden Caverns is a 55 minute guided tour of fun and education.  Each group is an average of 30 people and we will be escorted by a friendly and knowledgeable tour guide.

Well friends, our tour guide was neither friendly nor patient.  Remember, we are a group of 5 with two toddlers.  Well my 2 year old son for some reason still had not spoken coherently, so he spoke cave baby.  As soon as the tour started, I knew we were going to be in trouble.

Cave baby started babbling from the very start.  He was not crying, or throwing a fit, he was just speaking in his typical unusual speech.  Our non-friendly guide did not appreciate this.

“Excuse me, if he is going to do that and you cannot control it, we will have to ask you to leave.”

We were kinda in shock as this was not a tantrum throwing toddler incident.  The boy was just talking!  Needless to say, Cave Baby did not stop and he and my husband were banished from underground and had to do the walk of shame to the surface.  I am glad there was no applause as that would have drawn the line for me.  My daughter, mother in-law, and myself stayed with the group.  The biggest punch to the face was that we didn’t get offered a refund for the expulsion. 

So as you can see we are off to a great start. We had never been banished from a cave before.

We decided to head to town for some lunch after “The Incident.”  Here we would drown our sorrows in pancakes and decide our next stop.  On our way Korey starts having a look of concern on his face, then the van makes a jarring movement.  My husband said some bad words followed by, “The transmission is going out!”

Korey is a mechanic and I trust his assessment.  Instead of indulging in pancakes we are now stopping along the route at all transmission shops.  The Smoky Mountains must claim many transmission victims as we were told there are no openings at the first several we went to.

We were defeated, and then we saw off in the distance another shop.  I swear we heard angels sing and the lights of Heaven beamed down.

After a discussion with the owner he said he could get the van in, however we would be staying 3 extra days that we did not budget for, and we needed a rental to get us through.  Again, we are young, dumb and poor, we have no credit cards to even reserve the car.  Never fear, the owner of the transmission shop rented us a car and tacked it onto our bill.  As if going up the mountain in a van was not scary enough, now we are doing it in a four door Dodge Ram.  It was the only thing available big enough for all of us.  I am grateful, but terrified.

The next few days had some normalcy.  We took the kids to The Island, a small area in Pigeon Forge filled with games, small rides and food. I even started to calm down a scooch on the ride up and down the mountain. We did some sightseeing in the park, and walked the strip in Gatlinburg. We did have to forgo our trip to Dollywood and The Dixie Stampede to try to save money for our extra days we did not plan to stay.

We could not afford to keep staying in the condo and they had no vacancy even if we could.  We had to find lodging for three extra nights, fast and cheap.  We ended up in Pigeon Forge looking at a Family Inn.  You know those 70’s orange motels that are in all the horror movies.  The sign said 3 nights for $99 so it had to be high class right?  We were broke and desperate so when we peeked in the windows to see if we might die there and noticed it was not too horror movie.  We went inside to bite the bullet.

We paid for the $99 deal and after receiving our keys they guy directed us to our room.  “So you want to turn left out of the parking lot and it is the second building on the right.”

Shit…..

I looked at him with concern, “Are not in this building?”  He informed us that these are the suites and ours was the basic rooms. Oh boy!  We might die here.

Upon arrival to our new abode.  We tried to hide our shock and awe of the 1970’s bare block walls and orange and brown décor.  There were two beds and a small dinette table that had a wadded up wash rag balancing out the weeble wobble.  The bathroom was less to be desired, but hey, it was either that or sleep in the truck.

Since we were going for broke at this point, we tried to save money by entertaining the kids around the pool.  Now at this point my husband has had it, and my mother in-law wishes she never agreed to come on this cursed trip.  So I was going to put on my happy face and salvage what was left of this trip from hell and get in the pool with the kids.  

The pool was ok, I didn’t think we were going to get a disease by entering, so CANNONBALL right!  The kids and I swam for a while until it was time for them to take naps.  I handed them off to my husband and grabbed the ladder to exit myself only to feel a give when I grabbed it.  The next thing I know I am floating in the pool with the ladder in my hands.  The damn thing fell off.

That night, I decided to soak my sorrows in a nice hot shower.  I took a deep breath trying to calm myself of the disaster that was plaguing us.  I then heard a ping and was assaulted with fire hose pressure and a beating of water as the shower head rocketed off and onto the bottom of the bathtub.  I AM DONE.

 We heard from the shop the next morning, the van was still not done.  Crap. Since we are broke, I do what needs to be done. I called my mom and stepdad crying begging for money and a decent room.  They wired us a hundred bucks and got us a room at the Holiday Inn.

At this time we are all in a 24hr bad mood.  This vacation has been awful, we stayed in the slums, we have no idea when we are getting to go home, and we are rationing our last hundred bucks.

At this point we are thinking we are going to have to get jobs.  We are fueled by peanut butter and spite, we will not falter!  We got a call from the transmission shop, it was going to be two more days.  This is when I think I lost all that was left of my mind.  I think the shop owner also knew, he booked and paid for us two nights at another motel AND bought us dinner.

It has been  almost 20 years and I wish I could remember the name of the shop. The kindness and generosity that this man showed us was phenomenal, and this trip could have actually been worse believe it or not if it was not for him.

All in all, our 5 day trip turned into almost 2 weeks.  This trip was plagued with one disaster after another, but do you know what, it was one of my favorites.  I am so thankful I have had these experiences with my family.  When I stroll down memory lane I always chuckle when thinking of floating around that pool with a ladder in my hand, the killer cicada, and the cave banishment.  Sometimes what we think are our worst memories turn out to be  the best and make for one hell of a story.