January 3, 2008 – Trip Wrap-up

Well I haven’t been posting too much on LJ, but I still try to stay up to date. LJ, Digg, Google Reader and Gmail are my default apps I run multiple times a day — with the exception of this past week when we were away. Away where? Well a short strip up to North Carolina/Tennessee for New Years. I’d never taken a road trip without parents (or what I’d consider a real road trip), and Marilyn none at all, so it was an adventure. We ended up spending 3 nights just south of Asheville, NC before hading out to Gatlinburg, TN for 2 nights — leaving on New Years. Lots of driving, but since it was pretty much all on one day to get there, and another to get down it didn’t bleed into other days. While we were up there we saw some great sights though! Climbed Chimney Rock, took a full tour of the Biltmore Estate (including winery and some of the grounds), toured downtown Asheville, some of the Blue Ridge Parkway, Cherokee, Smokies, wild turkeys, white tail deer, waterfalls, ice, some of the Appalachian Trail, rain, Gatlinburg — and lots more. We ended up having dinner New Years Eve downtown there and walking back only to be caught up in a crowd of 40,000 people watching the ball drop (they have a Seattle-like space needle which lowers a ball at New Years). It was a fun way of bringing in the new year, and certainly a new experience! We ended up eating a lot of great food, and have started often ordering one main course and an appetizer and sharing those — rather than 2 entrees. Cuts down the total cost of the meal, and we usually don’t have left overs or feel as full. Definitely something I’d recommend for couples eating out who have similar tastes. So trip was a lot of fun. Should have the pictures from it up soon enough!