Tennessee & The Pinson Mounds

Hey Lucy,

Yes, you're right.  I admit it - it is mildly disgraceful that we never finished blogging about our road trip.  It's high time we finished it.  So here it is...Tennessee.

September 20, 2011

We woke up in Asheville and had a decent little breakfast courtesy of the Country Inn and Suites.  After that we packed up our bags, checked out of the hotel and headed to the car.  We got all of our bags wedged into their designated places in the trunk - we got faster at reloading the trunk each day.  By the end we had it down to a science. 

It was gray and cloudy out that morning and it had obviously rained during the night so I decided we should recoat all of the windows with Rain-X before we headed out.  I LOVE Rain-X.  It is amazing.  I grew to love it even more after Jiffy Lube replaced my old windshielf wipers with the WORST wiper blades ever manufactured on earth.  Granted, Jiffy Lube HAD given me the option to buy the more expensive wiper blades...but I said no, thanks I will take the cheaper ones. I just didn't realize that "cheaper" meant "will not work at all."  Seriously, my five-year-old wiper blades that they replaced were better than the new ones that they gave me.  The new ones just sort of smeared the water around and made it even harder to see than it was before.  It would probably have been safer for me to roll down my window and stick my head outside to see, than it would have been for me to use those wiper blades.  However, in the interest of keeping my face and the interior of my car dry, I decided to keep the windows rolled up and just used Rain-X on my windows.  Then we didn't need to use the windshield wipers so much because the raindrops just leapt right off of the windshield.

We left Asheville and headed toward Tennessee.  We got to drive through the Great Smoky Mountains.  It's MUCH more pleasant to drive through the mountains during the day.  They really were beautiful.  They were foggy and smoky and misty just like I hoped they would be.  Very pretty.  Lucy, did any of your pictures from the mountains turn out?  If so, be sure and post a few.  If not, well, we'll always have google images to remind us of our trip.

Eventually we ended up on I-40 and started racing through the state of Tennessee.  I have to say, it was a really, really beautiful drive.  There were a lot of cool rock formations along the road and tons and tons of trees.  Growing up in California for the most part, it is still very exciting for me to see so many trees all at once, especially when they have leaves on them.

We passed several billboards that tried to lure us to Pigeon Forge, TN to see the Titanic Museum.  Tempting.  Very tempting.  But we resisted and drove on to Nashville.  Driving through Nashville was insane.  We had to go through like seven interchanges just to stay on I-40.  The GPS kept saying things like "Stay left in the right lane, stay left in the left lane, stay right in the left lane, keep right, merge left."  Sometimes I'd think "WHAT did that just say?!"  But there is no time to doubt the word of the GPS.  You just do what it says and hope that you don't end up driving off of an unfinished freeway ramp that is still under construction.  Fortunately, the GPS led us aright.  We made it through an excessive amount of interchanges, stayed an I-40 and continued our westward advance.

It poured rain on us most of the afternoon.  Really poured.  Thank goodness we had put Rain-X on the windows.  Worse than the rain though, were the semi-trucks.  The trucks threw more water on the windshield than the rain clouds did.  For the most part it was fine but there was this one five-minute segment of time that I have had nightmares about since.  A truck in the right lane pulled in front of us in order to pass two slower trucks that were in the right lane.  We slowed down substantially to accommodate the truck in front of us.  Then, another truck from the right lane pulled in right behind us.  Reeeeeeally close.  The reason I NEVER cut off a truck is because I know those things have a really hard time stopping and I don't want to end up crushed.  So why a semi-truck would ride anyone's bumper is beyond me. 

So there we were, with a huge truck in front of us and another huge truck on our rear bumper AND two trucks on the right side.  No trucks on the left side of us thankfully - just a huge gully.  But we were boxed in by trucks in the pouring rain.  I kept waiting for one of them to jack-knife or just drive over the top of us or something.  I told Lucy "I have nightmares like this!  This is what happens to bad people when they die!!!"  It seemed to drag on forever but at long last, the truck in front of us managed to pass the two trucks on the right and he merged back into the right lane.  We took off as fast (and responsibly) as we could. 

At about 4:30PM we reached the Pinson Mounds State Archaelogical Park in Tennessee.  The Pinson Mounds were built between 1-500 A.D. (or C.E. if you prefer).  It's the largest grouping of mounds in America from that time period and Saul's Mound, the mound at the center of the Pinson complex, is the second highest prehistoric mound in the United States.  Anyway, I was pretty excited to go there and to see all these structures and walls and mounds and stuff.  We were also rather relieved that the rain let up so we could walk around without getting soaked. 

When we arrived at the park the museum had already closed but the park was open until sunset.  Since it was still cloudy we weren't really sure how much longer we had until sunset, but figured we had oh maybe another hour or so.  We parked, hopped out of the car and looked for a map of the different trails we could follow.  While we stood there reading the map we started thinking "Hmmm, it's sort of eerie here with no one else around, isn't it?  It feels a little isolated."  I mean, there were cars in the parking lot, but we didn't see anybody else.  And it was soooooooooo quiet.  We decided maybe we didn't want to go hiking to the farthest corners of the park, maybe we should stay on the trails nearest the car.  So we picked the trail to Saul's Mound, the mound at the center of the park.  Since it is the tallest mound in the park we thought, "Well hey, maybe if we hike to the top of Saul's Mound we will be able to see the rest of the park from there.  Then we won't have to go hiking around to see the other mounds."

We started on the trail to Saul's Mound.  It really wasn't very far at all.  You could see it from the parking lot.  On the way there, though, we ran into a deer.  Figuratively, of course.  I mean we didn't REALLY run into it.  We just saw it and stopped a moment while it stared us down.  Then it walked off and we walked on.  Lucy and I started getting more and more anxious about how dead quiet and isolated the park felt.  We started talking about all the Law and Order and Criminal Minds episodes where people get murdered in parks.  Seriously, in a park like that, what chance do you have?  There's no cell phone reception.  If you scream, no one will hear you and come to help because no one but you and the murderer are there.  I know what you're thinking - if Lucy and I were both there then it would be two against one in a fight.  But if you new Lucy and I, you would know that that probably isn't much of an advantage.  I'm not sure that either of us would be much help in a fight.  Unless, of course, it was a dance fight.  Then we would be very formidable opponents.  But neither of us are exactly known for our great physical strength.

We reached Saul's Mound and walked up like a million stairs to get to the top.  I think I walked through a few spider webs which meant I would start waving my hands around in the air and trying to pull invisible sticky threads off of my face.  I was happy that none of the spider webs seemed to have spiders attached.  We eventually made it to the top of Saul's Mound.  It was pretty cool.  Apparently the corners of the mound are oriented to the four "cardinal directions." In laymen's terms, the corners point North, East, South and West.  That's what I like to see: some real thought prior to construction.  Sadly, our plan to see the whole park from the top of Saul's Mound was foiled by the trees.  The trees were lovely of course but they blocked our view of everything else.

We walked back down the stairs and didn't have to worry about spider webs since I had already cleared them all on the way up.  At the foot of the stairs we started toying with the idea of hiking around a bit more to see a few more mounds.  But then we would hear a rustle in the trees and think "What was that?  Did you hear that?  Was that a squirrel?  Or was that a serial killer?"  So we decided maybe we wouldn't go hiking off into the far reaches of the park by ourselves at dusk.  Instead we headed back toward the parking lot.  Before we got back in the car though we decided to make the stop more worthwhile by playing on a nearby swingset for a little bit.  THEN we got back in the car and headed toward Memphis.

Part of me was very disappointed when we left Pinson.  I had had such high expectations and we really didn't get to see what I had wanted to see.  I felt like maybe it was a wasted stop.  I think I even told Lucy I was super disappointed in that stop and maybe we shouldn't have stopped at all.  About twenty minutes later I said "No, you know what?  I'm glad we stopped.  Every trip needs a disappointing stop."  But if there is one thing that we really learned from that stop, it's that Lucy and I really need to cut back on the Law and Order and Criminal Minds reruns.  We're getting far too paranoid.

 Lucy at the top of Saul's Mound.  Look at the glee on that face.

 The stairs up to Saul's Mound (now completely free of spider webs).

 The foot of Saul's Mound.  It doesn't look that tall in this picture, but it really is tall, I swear.  Maybe if Lucy didn't take pictures CROOKED you could see how tall it was.  :)

 Me on the swings.

Lucy on the monkey bars. 

Too Long Clanky...Too Long

Gigi,

It has been WAAAAY too long dear sister. And we never finished our trip! I think that after this post, I will try to remember what came next on the trip…but you know how my memory can be. Be prepared to correct my blips and mistakes.

This week has been quite exciting. Okay, so not really until tonight. Mostly the week was me doing homework and studying as all college students should. Mother said that you once took 21 credits, and I applaud you. I am only taking 17 credits and I am struggling keeping up. That may also have something to do with the fact that none of them are fun classes and are all for my major, but still. On Monday, I FINALLY got a job…and guess what it is…yep you guessed it. I am a janitor at the school. Early Morning Janitor, which I have to say, is the best kind. 3 am to 7 am in the morning I am vacuuming, sweeping and scrubbing rooms and toilets. They are so clean. SO clean, in fact, that you can even eat off of them. Although I would never recommend it. I think I am the only one in the building that takes pride in their work, but I actually like doing a good job. I worked in a different building last Spring and we cleaned everything VERY thorough. In my current building, the Snow, people hardly clean at all. It’s kind of sad.

This reminds me of a story. Do you remember when I was in 3^rd grade and everyone in my class was going around and saying what they wanted to be when they grew up? I think some of the responses were fireman, policeman, a mother, a surgeon. Then it was my turn. I piped up nice and loud “A MAID” and everyone looked at me and then laughed. Even the teacher. So humiliating. But I do believe that is the reason I like cleaning so much.

And that pretty much was my week, which brings us to today. I was asked to volunteer for a sleigh ride trip at 4:30pm. I agreed and showed up at 4 for instruction. The leader shows up, hands me the liability forms which everyone has to sign and tells me to read it to everyone when they arrive. The forms basically say that you can’t sue BYU-Idaho and you could twist your ankle or simply die on this trip and that is expected. Then the leader, Lex, said he had to go pick up the van and the food, and he would be back shortly. I said alrighty, how hard can it be to keep people busy for 5 minutes…

4:30 rolls around and I decide to start the reading of the liability form.  As the participants were reading it out loud (I wasn’t going to read it all…it’s an entire page of legal jargon, so I made them do it!) I started laughing as it said everything that could possibly happen to the participants. I couldn’t help it. I will have to find it and type it up for you some time. It really is funny. Everyone finishes and then it gets quiet…I ask everyone where they are from, everyone answers, and then again quiet. Thankfully they were all coupled up so they started talking to themselves. Bullet dodged.

4:40 rolls around…4:45…4:50, and FINALLY he shows up with the van. He starts checking people in on the computer and they start piling into the van. It turns out we have 12 people…we have a five passenger van. Strike 2. I run over to Lex and asked what to do and he says, well I guess you get to drive. Two problems. For starter I did not have my license on me…and second, I don’t have permission from the school to drive. I haven’t passed the exam yet. But He said he would take responsibility, and apparently I haven’t learned yet to make sure I get it in writing, but I accepted the risk. We arrive…at 5:15 after getting lost twice (I learned to bring my own map from now on) and pull in. I learn shortly after this that I will be on the sleigh ride. With my thin jacket and little tennis shoes, I hop on and begin to freeze.

So this “sleigh” is not really a sleigh at all. It was more of a plank of wood on wheels with hay bales pulled by two horses.  It was…interesting. And cold. And cold. Did I mention it was cold? While we are on the sleigh ride, the driver wants us to get up and cut the rope on the bales of hay and shove them off the sleigh to feed all the animals. Somewhere in this long process I lost my hat. My favorite hat. Well, one of my favorites. The grey one I got for Christmas. I suppose I could just go down to target to replace it-oh wait, there is no target here. J Gotta Love Rexburg, Idaho! But all in all a great trip around on the sleigh. I don’t think anyone in that crew will do it again though.

We start to drive back and I turn around this corner and a CAT runs out right in front of my car! Ugh stupid cats! It was the cutest little thing I have ever seen too. So fluffy because it is so cold here in the winter. It is so lucky I was going like 3 miles an hour and was able to stop quickly. Because that would have ruined my day for sure.

I will be leading trips like this all the time, so I am sure that there will be amazing stories coming. 

Church is going to start soon…well okay, I don’t have church till 1:50…but I am thinking about taking a nap before then.

Love you dearest sister

Little Lucy

The Biltmore

We're home!  We had a GREAT time driving across the country.  It was awesome and wonderful and amazing and thrilling and magical and exhausting and we are so glad it's over!  We've actually been home for three weeks now, but I think we have just now fully recovered from our trip.  :)

So where were we...ah yes, Natural Bridge, VA.  After a very awesome day in Natural Bridge, we headed for Asheville, North Carolina.  It was about a four hour drive and after four hours driving that morning and a long day in Natural Bridge...we were already pretty tired.  So it felt like a VERY long drive to Asheville.  We got excited when we got near the Virginia state line.  Lucy got her camera out to take a picture of the state sign.  As we passed it we read "Welcome to Tennessee!" Wait, what?  I thought we were entering North Carolina...so that was a little bit of a surprise.  Turns out our GPS, which we decided to name Gabriella Priscilla Smithington (Gabby for short), just decided to send us through a corner of Tennessee on our way into North Carolina. 

Shortly after entering Tennessee, it got dark.  Really dark.  I started saying "Why aren't there any lights out here?!"  And then the road suddenly veered up at a 45 degree angle.  Apparently we were driving through a mountain range, but it was hard to tell since I couldn't see ANYTHING around me.  I suspect we were driving through the Great Smokey Mountains, but again, hard to tell when everything is pitch black.  Don't get me wrong, I have great headlights, but it is SERIOUSLY dark out there.  And I couldn't use my brights because of all the cars coming the other way.  Of course there were very few people on our side of the road...don't know why we were the only ones who wanted to go that way.  Another car did show up near us after a while though.  And then it almost smashed into us.  I mean seriously, there are almost no other cars in the road and the guy manages to nearly hit us when he changes lanes.  What a bozo.  I don't know if he was drunk or texting or drunk-texting or just falling asleep.  But I was mad.

So FINALLY we re-entered civilization.  We were so happy to see lights again.  We pulled into the parking lot of our hotel and I turned off the car.  We were SO relieved to be alive and to be DONE driving for the day.  I started laughing.  Lucy started crying.  We were just very relieved. 

The next day was a great day.  We went to visit the Biltmore!  It was built by George Washington Vanderbilt when he was 33 years old.  He was single at the time and apparently, some people speculated that with an estate the size of the Biltmore, George would become a recluse and never marry.  But eventually he did marry a woman named Edith.  I can only hope that there is a 33-year-old bachelor with a large estate who wants to marry me. 

 The Biltmore!

 Lucy and her Biltmore ticket.  Just after this picture, we headed down the stairs and into the front garden.  On our way down the long shallow steps that were only an inch or two high each, I said, "Oh Lucy, when I was in Rome someone told me that steps like these are for-" and Lucy said "Strollers."  I said, "No...horses."  And then we just laughed.  Strollers?  Really?  Where did that come from?  :)

 Lucy and the lion guarding the entrance.  Totally checking her out.

A very stately porch light.

The Biltmore was amazing.  It's HUGE of course, and so lavishly decorated.  I was sad we weren't permitted to take pictures indoors, but I guess the pictures wouldn't have done it justice anyway.  And now, here are a few random/interesting facts that Lucy and I learned on our audio tour of the Biltmore:

1) The dining hall was seriously enormous.  George had flags for all of the 13 original colonies AND a replica of the flag flown by Christopher Columbus on his voyage to America all displayed in the dining room.  And there was an organ in the dining room.  A full on organ with pipes and everything.  Apparently Mr. Vanderbilt was very fond of the opera.

2)  In the breakfast room, Mr. Vanderbilt displayed some Renoir paintings.  Renoir wasn't even famous at the time Vanderbilt bought the paintings...he mostly just bought them to support new artists.  Good call.

3)  There was one room just off to the left of the entrance hall that was left incomplete, it was never furnished or decorated when George Vanderbilt was alive.  It is now the music room.  However, when America entered WWII, the National Gallery in Washington DC approached the Vanderbilts and asked if they would be willing to store the Gallery's artwork at the Biltmore.  So throughout the war, a large portion of the national gallery's collection was stored in the unfinished music room at the Biltmore!

4)  The library was AWESOME.  George Vanderbilt had something like 23,000 books.  Apparently he spoke several foreign languages and was able to read 4 foreign languages.  And he loved reading.  I think only 12,000 or so of his books or on display in the library.  Many of the others are in "the archives" or displayed in other portions of the house.  But seriously, the library was wall to wall books.  Also in the library, Napoleon Bonaparte's chess set.  The ACTUAL set that Napoleon played while exiled in St. Helena.  So crazy.

There were loads and loads of other rooms.  The bedrooms were gorgeous and the servants rooms and kitchens were super interesting.  We loved the gymnasium and pool areas.  Although...I have to say, William Randolph Hearst had way prettier pools at Hearst Castle...cool mosaics and porticoes and stuff.  The one at the Biltmore was a more practical pool swimming pool.  But in its defense, it had lights UNDER the water back when electricity was kind of a new-fangled thing.  I'm glad no one was electrocuted.

After we completed our audio tour of the house, Lucy and I had lunch at the Stables Cafe.  They had just renovated the former stables and made it a restaurant.  So that was kind of cool.  We had warm pimiento cheese which was SO good and I had the Carolina BBQ.  Lucy had....the BBQ hamburger, right Lucy?  I can't remember now.  Anyway, it was all quite delicious.  When we finished lunch we had way too much fun shopping.

Next we headed to the Biltmore Gardens.  Fortunately we were permitted to take pictures in the gardens.  And so we did.  And here they are.

 Inside the greenhouse.

 Lucy, inside the greenhouse.

 Me on a bench that may have been meant for children.

 A butterfly!

 A striped hibiscus - I'd never seen one before.  It was gorgeous.

 Me in a lattice frame - there was some other..."poses"  but I have chosen not to post those.  :)

 Pretty roses.

 Close up of the pretty roses.

 You can't really tell from this picture at all, but the flowers were in the shape of a dragonfly.  maybe you can only tell from the sky.

 Lucy and a...zinnia...or something. I'm actually really not sure what that flower is.

 Lucy and the greenhouse exterior.

 Me and the greenhouse exterior.

 Lucy in the greenhouse.

 Me in the greenhouse.  And that is how I got a big green moss smudge on my jeans.

And that concludes our wonderful trip to the Biltmore.  We had a grand time.  At the end of the day we went back to our hotel and relaxed.  We were very relieved that we didn't have a long drive ahead of us that night.  

Robin & Bluejay: Dad Would Be So Proud

After touring the Biltmore, we had to hit the gift shop. After browsing through some amazing toys and ornaments, we were mesmerized by some little jewelry boxes. Now these were no normal jewelry boxes that you find on the shelves in JC Penny's; These were the cutest sparkliest things you have ever seen. Not only were they sparkly, but they were in the shapes of little animals. Georgia became partial to a little Blue Jay! and I fell in love with a little Robin. Inside these little jewelry boxes were tiny little necklaces that matched. Needless to say, we think Dad will be proud that we are now owners of a Blue Jay and Robin, the sidekicks of BatThumb and Batman.

 

Tiger!

And here is the coolest, craziest thing we did yesterday.  I was intending to just flip a U in the parking lot of the Natural Bridge Zoo.  While I was turning around, Lucy saw a sign that said you could get your picture with a tiger cub.  I said wow, there is no way that is possible...how in the world could this little teeny-tiny zoo out in rural Virginia have real tiger cubs?  And why would they let you pet them?  I said maybe the animals are fake...I mean we ARE right next to a wax museum.  Lucy was kind of curious though.  I said well, I'll park and you go ahead and run inside and ask them if their animals are real.  :) 

So Lucy ran inside and came back out practically giddy.  Turns out their animals ARE real.  You CAN pet a tiger cub!  So we did.  We pet a tiger cub.  I'm not even kidding.  It was awesome.  We got our picture petting a five-month-old white tiger cub named Zeus.  Of course they charge 20 bucks a person for the privilege...but it goes toward feeding the tiger.  And sadly we weren't allowed to take pictures with our own cameras.  So the below is a picture of a picture.  But it captures the general awesomeness of petting a tiger cub.

The Pink Cadillac Diner

So we were looking for the Pink Cadillac Diner in Natural Bridge Virginia because we knew it was near by.  We were driving down the road and suddenly there is this neon pink building on the side of the road.  I said, well...I think that is probably the PINK Cadillac Diner.  Lucy said no...I think that is the Budget Inn.  I said...really?  You really think the Budget Inn would be bright pepto bismol pink?  And that made us both laugh.  By then we rounded the corner and saw the sign - it was indeed the Pink Cadillac Diner.  Not only was it bright pink - which was AWESOME - it was also FILLED with Elvis paraphanelia.  Double awesome!

Natural Bridge, Virginia

This is the Natural Bridge.  It was GORGEOUS.  We walked under the bridge and then followed the trail back to the waterfall at the end.

And here we are waiting for our tour into the Natural bridge Caverns.

 I love shiney rocks.

 This is column.  It's where a stalagtite and a stalgmite join.

The guide pointed out that this particular formation looks like a sea shell.  And it DOES.  You could also see a "willow tree" and a "T-Rex" but sadly the photos of those didn't turn out.