Tennessee Weekend - Part V
09-26-2002, 1:20 p.m.

Tennessee Weekend - Part V...

September 26, 2002

When we got to the dixie stampede, we walked around looking at all of the beautiful horses. They have them all in their stalls, and you can walk past them. We were both really excited about the show, and I had a surprise for Tonya. When I had called to make the reservations, they had asked me if we wanted to cheer on the North side or the South side. Well being from the North myself, it didn't matter to me that Tonya would have picked the South, giggle.. I of course chose the North. I couldn't wait for her to find that one out, giggle. She moaned and groaned a little bit (okay, a lot) but she was a good sport about it, and she even cheered them on in good spirits. The North won that night, which of course they would, I was there, giggle.. and so she got to be on the winning side, lol. It was so much fun.

It was such a fun and beautiful show. They had some really neat things, and there was this one point where both Tonny and I were in tears when they were doing an old Southern dance. I really love that time in history, with the big poufy dresses and the charm of it all. It was just so sweet. The food was okay, not as good as the food I've had at some of those type of things, but it was pretty good. The whole atmosphere was really cool though, and we just had such a wonderful time. They even did a patriotic thing at the end, which was pretty spectacular. I tell you though, after having been horseback riding earlier in the day and trying to stay on our horses, watching them do all these tricks so effortlessly was just so amazing. It was a perfect way to spend the evening. I am so glad that Stephen sent us to it. Thank you honey, we appreciate it sooo much.

After the show we went back to the room, and thought about going swimming for a while. After all the rain we had in that short period earlier, it ended up being a really beautiful evening.. the stars were out, and it was perfect weather. Instead, we decided to go for a walk, and check out some of the stuff going on around Pigeon Forge. After the big dinner we had, we both needed the walk anyway, hehe. We walked down the street, and came to this area that has rides and other fun stuff like bungy jumping and things like that, and we sat for a while and watched all these guys that were riding the mechanical bull. Oh my goodness..the guy who was running the bull, was hysterical, and we were just cracking up watching this and listening to him make fun of all the guys who were trying to ride this thing. I tell you, we probably could have sat there for hours watching this, it was just so comical, but eventually we got up and started walking back. We were taking pictures at all these goofy things we came across, and about died when we came across this huge chicken in a cowboy hat. It was really big and of course we had to get some pictures by that. We were cracking up.

We spent as much time as we could walking. I don't think either of us wanted the evening to come to an end because we knew we had to get up early the next morning to get me to the airport. But all good things must come to an end, and we ended up back in the room, and watched the reruns of trading spaces until we couldn't keep our eyes opened any longer.

Sunday morning, we had to get up early and get ready to leave. It is 3 hours to the airport, and then Tonya had a long trip back, because they were going back to Virginia that day as well. We were really quiet for the first part of the ride, both lost in thought. It is always so hard to say goodbye.. the hello part is much more fun. We were really chatty for the 2nd part of the ride though, trying to say everything we could thing of while we still could... hehe. We got to the airport in good time, and although it was still 2 hours or so before my flight, I didn't let Tonya come in with me. She wanted to, but I knew that she had 3 hours back to get Mike and the kids and then 9-10 hours home to Virginia, and it wouldn't have been very fair of me to expect her to sit around for an hour or so. Watching her pull away was hard though, and it gets harder each time, knowing that she will be leaving for Hawaii soon and we won't have the chance do see each other as often. I am just grateful for all the time we have now, and it will give us lots of memories until she moves back closer again.

The whole weekend was wonderful. We missed having Cory and Jen around so much, and we talked about them so often, wondering what they were doing. We wished they were with us, but they weren't and we made the most of it. I loved spending the time in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, and I look forward to going back and doing so again sometime. It was a fun fun weekend, and I can't believe how many things we did in such a short time. Seriously, we did enough to last a week, and it's amazing that we packed it all in. I wouldn't have changed a thing, it was so enjoyable. So that was my trip... it was great.