The Husband had to go to a seminar in Gatlinburg at the end of this week. It is nearly 400 miles from our house to there, and I did not want him to make the drive by himself, so I went along for the ride. I don't like Gatlinburg. Too many people. Too many cars. Nothing but touristy junk in the shops. But I went.
We left Wednesday morning, planning a leisurely drive down the backroads, an overnight stay on the way, and the rest of the drive the next day. We drove farther than we had intended - stopped in some little town called Harriman, just east of the "time change" line. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant up the street from the hotel. They were having a margarita drink special; we had two apiece. Mistake. I had heartburn all night long.
We drove on to Gatlinburg the next morning, arrived around noon. Our hotel room wasn't ready, so we had to kill 2 hours before we could stash our luggage. I don't even remember what we did for those 2 hours - hung out around the lobby, I reckon. Registration for the seminar was that evening, with dinner and entertainment following.
Friday was the first day of the seminar. They fed us a breakfast of rubbery scrambled eggs, sausage, and grits. Yum. There was a Craftsmen's Fair at the Convention Center. I strolled through that after breakfast (didn't buy a thing), then went back to the hotel for the rest of the day. Did some digitizing while I waited for the seminar to be over.
Several of The Husband's board members were on the trip, having gone in their separate cars. One of them is pushing 90 years old, and will probably retire when his term is up. He likes to eat at a steakhouse that's less than 1/2 mile from the hotel. Having been there before, I knew we were in for a long wait, so I started trying to make reservations. Well, they don't take reservations. But they do take "call-ahead seating." What is the difference? It didn't matter, because they weren't answering the phone, anyway. I pulled up the web site, which acknowledged that they didn't answer the phone, but they said to "come see us" and they'd put us on a list. So I got in the truck and started toward the restaurant. Bumper-to-bumper traffic. Aggressive pedestrians. Took me 20 minutes to go less than 1/2 mile.
We needed a table for at least 8. There were 2 more board members on the trip, but they were not sure whether they would be joining us for dinner. I tried to reserve a table to 10, but they said it would be between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. before one was available. Since seating was limited, I reserved 2 tables for 4, and wouldn't you know, about 10 minutes before we were seated, the other 2 people called and said they were joining us. Another scramble, but we managed to find them a seat.
Today's seminar was very short. We were out of there by 11. Intended to do another back-roads trip, but I had turned off the "avoid highways" setting, and about an hour into the trip, it sent us to the interstate. We said, "What the hell," and tore out down I-40. Drove all the way home, instead of making it a 2-day trip as planned.
I'm glad we did.
It's good to be home.
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