Trip to Gatlinburg

My niece Brittany asked me if I would go to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg with her today to the outlet mall. Well Sage from Sagewood Farms had told us about an Amish store up there so I said sure. When we started up there, I told her of the store and she helped me find it. She did her shopping and then I did mine. Oh my gosh, I have never seen so many primitive items in one store. I was in hog heaven. I bought this really neat Rooster plaque to put on the front of my house and a sweet flag for my front porch.

Then we drove to Gatlinburg in 20mph traffic. Took about 1 1/2 hours to get there and I was running short of time because I had to be back in time to watch my grandson play baseball so I let Brittany run in the two stores that we needed to go to and drove up, turned around and picked her back up. Well, here's where the adventure started. I decided to take the back road back to Knoxville so that we could miss all the traffic in Gatlinburg (only there isn't a back road) LOL. So we drove and drove and drove and then realized we were lost, and our phones were out of network. So we stopped at this little store and she told us to go about 2 miles down the road and we would hit the interstate back to Knox. She forgot to tell us we were headed to Cocke Co. So when I see the sign Cocke Co, I panicked and Brittany thought I knew where we were. WRONG! I finally got service and called hubby and he was so mad, he wouldn't tell us how to get home. So then we get to Newport and I tell Brittany we don't want to be here because this place is dangerous. People go there and never come back. Well, she didn't believe me until we came upon this rest stop and she says, "OH MY GAWD GRAM, that's where that entire family except for the little boy was killed." Well both our bladders were about to rupture because we had not been to the bathroom since we left the house, but we didn't stop at that rest stop! Then we hit Jefferson Co. and I told her that I could get home from there because that was where I ended up when I tried to go to East Town the first time. She failed to see the humor in this. LOL So we finally got back to Knox., and I remembered that the interstate is shut down for road work and the detours take you through the meanest part of Knox. So we had to go down Strawberry Plains and hit John Sevier to get home. We stopped at Shoney's and ate because it was 4:00 p.m. and we hadn't eaten all day. But my first pitstop was the bathroom! So now you know why I don't go anywhere by myself (and Brittany said she wasn't listenng to me anymor.) It took 1/4 tank of gas to get there and 1/2 tank gas to get home. What a trip, but I made it to Daniel's game. They lost. Well got to get ready for bed. Hope everyone has a great week.