We've been on a few trips, the first of which was to The Smokey Mountains in Tennessee! I went in college with some girls and we camped in November and came as close to freezing as I'd ever like to again, but the natural beauty is incredible. So, when we found out that Thanksgiving was going to be in North Carolina with Mark's sister's family, The Burton's, we decided to make a road trip of it and stop in the Smokies. It was such a great trip, our first road trip as newlyweds and we really enjoyed both the time in the car together as well as the fun places we stopped.
The first stop on the road trip was to a wedding in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Mark's good from from college, Joel, married Christina, and you may not be able to see it in the picture, but there is a sign congratulating them outside the movie theater. The town was so small and cute and we loved sharing their wedding day with them!
We made our way to Tennessee the next day, stopping that night in Gatlinburg. On the way, we had a little bit of a run in with some nature... It was really dark and we were on these curvy mountain roads, and all of a sudden this huge Black Bear came running out in front of us. Mark slammed on the brakes and swerved, and thankfully we missed him. Needless to say, we drove the rest of the way quietly leaning forward to see if any other creatures threatened to jump out at us.
We finally made it to Gatlinburg which turned out to be a really fun little tourist town and we had a great time. It was all decorated for the holidays and there were tons of cute little shops to walk around. Mark wanted to play miniature golf, which I'll admit wasn't on the top of my list of things to do, but it turned out to be an awesome course that went up the mountainside and was a lot of fun.
The next morning, we spent some time in the mountains and walked a few trails. Our first encounter of the day was with an elk named Jerry. We were super excited to have stumbled upon him in a clearing, and spent a good 10 minutes watching him eat grass. Then, we drove about 5 minutes further and saw another clearing with about 50 elk and had to laugh at ourselves a little bit. When we pulled up to the huge field full of elk, there were a few other people already there taking pictures and whispering about how neat it was, and Mark and I started to get out of the car and he accidentally pressed the panic button on his car alarm. It was honking so loud and we were both freaking out trying to turn it off. Finally, he stopped it and luckily, we realized the elk couldn't have cared less about the noise! It was hilarious and embarrassing at the same time.
At one of the trailheads, we saw this old school house. I wonder what it was like to go to school a hundred years ago in the Smokey Mountains. It is amazing to think about how much things have changed, now almost every classroom has a computer and countless other resources. Compare that to the simplicity of the one-room school with nothing but the students and their books. I will say, their recess had to be pretty cool everyday.
We left the mountains and drove the rest of the way to Raleigh to see Mark's family. The Burton's just welcomed their newest family member, Bryce! It was so fun to meet him for the first time, and to see the rest of the nieces too. It is amazing how fast kids grow and change. We had a wonderful week in Raleigh and a great Thanksgiving with the Lopez's!
I love how pretty North Carolina is. Even though Raleigh is a big city, its so different from Dallas. I like living in Dallas, but we are a little lacking in the nature department. This picture is from a park near the Burton's that is pretty well incorporated into the surrounding woods. It was nice watching the little ones play on the playground, and we had a little fun too! I appreciate whoever decided to put an adult-sized sea-saw in the mix.
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