vituperation

April 11, 2005

Because we hadn’t been since last summer, it was decided that this past weekend was Mecca time. For your enjoyment, pictures.

Upon entering our rental house (isn’t "chalet" just a little pretentious-sounding?),
we were greeted with a warning about feeding the bears we never saw.

Looking at the back of the house from the deck.
It was overcast when we got there,
but it didn’t rain until late the next afternoon.

The spud’s room.

Our room. Yeah, we slept in the same bed.

There was a big-ass whirlpool in the den. There was also a hot tub on the
deck, but it was WAY hot and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it down.
Our bedroom had another whirlpool (a smaller one), and the house had a
sauna, which I utilized.

The best part of the house, however, was the view…

…which kicked ass.

The single obligatory down-the-strip shot.

The taffy man, making taffy. Oddly, every single time I’ve seen the taffy man,
he’s making pink taffy with blue stripes.

Sun-dappled mountains.
I was pretty obsessed with the view, and took about 100 pictures of it.

My evil wife took a picture of me enjoying the whirlpool.
Fortunately, it doesn’t really show me in my almost-naked glory.

We could watch the Ober Gatlinburg tram go by from the deck.

A late afternoon storm crosses the mountains.
Being able to watch the rainline as the storm moved was pretty slick.

Sunrise.

Pockets of low-lying mist looked like lakes in the distance as the sun rose.

As Forrest says, "when the sun comes up, I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped
and the earth began. It’s so beautiful."
The mountains furthest away aren’t mountains at all.

See why they’re called the Smoky Mountains?

Saturday, we drove along a 5-mile nature trail. Streams abounded.

I really wanted to go wading, for my name is dork, but since I didn’t
have a good way to dry off after, I refrained.

We saw fishermen a’plenty.
Never saw one catch a fish, though.

The woods in spring are just gorgeous, so much green.

There were a couple of nice cascades near the end of the trail…

Including this really big one right at the end.

Every time I sat in the easy chair to watch TV, a ceramic devilbunny stared
at me with evil eyes. Creepy, no?

A picture of the spud sleeping, because I’m evil (the devilbunny made me do it).

One last evening picture from the deck, as the westering sun lit up the face
of the mountain.