Well, I'm FINALLY writing about our fun trip to TN even though it's been 3 weeks since we went!
We left bright and early Wednesday, August 18th. We were on a nice big plane, so it was a good ride...but the plane from Minneapolis to Nashville was awful. It was a small little plane and I really didn't enjoy it too much. Too much turbulence for me!
Once we landed in Nashville, it was pouring down rain. We went and picked up our rental car and had a fun time with a snotty enterprise agent that wanted to make up charges to the heck of it. We decided to deal with the extra charges at the end of our trip instead of wasting time at the beginning. That first step outside the airport was a shock to me! Holy cow! Where did all the oxygen go?? This was my first experience with humidity, and let me tell you, it's NOT my favorite! I honestly felt like I couldn't take a deep breath at all. It was so strange! It got much better once we were settled in our little Nissa Versa and had the A/C going.
We wanted to take a look around Nashville before taking the 2 hour drive to David's parent's house in Jamestown, so our first stop was of course Opry Mills! Well, if you recall, there was a flood in Nashville that wiped out TONS and TONS of historic sites, businesses AND Opry Mills. It was still closed for clean-up. This is the closest we got to seeing anything
That's right...the Wax museum...closed! So we took a picture of us in front of the sign and pictures of some stars hand and foot prints. This is Phil Vassar's.
Picture in front of the closed sign.
Since everything was pretty much closed for clean-up, we decided to take a trip to the Nashville Temple, just to see the outsides, since it is open only during certain times of the day. If we would have planned things a little better, we would have been able to do a session there, but it was still good to see the grounds and take a picture anyway!
After we saw the Temple, we made our way to Jamestown. Once we got there, we said our hellos and went to dinner at a place called the Garden Grill. They were nearly out of everything, but that's ok, it was a good experience anyway. :)
The next day, we decided to go down the East Fork river by canoe. We packed everything up, made lunches for the float, and headed to a spot where we could put in our canoes. Here's a couple pictures of us before we went down the river.
We got all the stuff down to where we were putting the canoes in, and off we went. David's mom drove the truck back to their house while we ran the river so we could have someone to pick us up.
The beginning of the river run was nice. We were floating leisurely in our canoe, and Dr. dad had his own canoe. Little did we know that would not be the case for much longer. Dr. dad paddled ahead of us just to make sure things would be okay because there was a tree in the middle of the river that we had to go around. Well he was telling us how we needed to go through it and instead should have begun paddling to get himself through it... he got sucked into the current and his canoe started taking in water. We hurried and paddled to shore so David could go help him. We watched as the current and tree combo wreaked havoc on Dr. dad's canoe. It sucked it under the tree and was stuck forever. Luckily, Dr. dad was able to get out in time, otherwise he could have snapped his leg from the weight and pressure of the canoe.
Sadly, everything was in Dr. dad's canoe. The food, water, our camera, Dr. dad's phone, the towels...everything. There was only really one option, since the water was flowing so fast, and that was to all jump in our canoe and keep going down the river.
We hit a few medium rapids after that, but nothing major. We did however, have to duck under a tree that was across the river. That was kinda fun. ;) Once we made it to the take out spot, we all got out and headed up a path to hang out since we had a couple hours to kill before David's mom would be coming to pick us up! The reason we had so much time was because we didn't anticipate the trip to go so quickly! We had floated down the river much faster than we expected because the water was high and fast.
Luckily, there was a meter reader (?) guy at the top of this little path who had a cell phone!! However, there was no service where we were. David, being the hero, ran up the road to try to call his mom and ended up going to some drunken man's house to use his phone. David got a hold of his mom and she was on her way to pick us up.
After she came, we jumped in the truck and headed back to Jamestown to clean up. David and I went to Pizza Hut for lunch, since we were starving. It was a good choice. After that we went back to Jamestown to clean up and rest a little. We went out to dinner that night with D's parents then headed to Oneida, where he grew up. We stayed in the Oneida guest house. The next day we drove around Oneida so I could see where David grew up.
After that, we headed to Knoxville to pick up Alayna & Isaac for our camping trip with Diane, Aaron & family. After we picked her up, we headed to Panther Creek State Park, where we found our campsite all ready for us. We got settled in then just chillaxed and waited for Diane and Aaron to get there.
The first night, we decided to keep the fly off the tent so we could have some air flow and it wouldn't be so muggy. Well, in the middle of the night, we woke up to rain on our faces! We got the fly on and went back to sleep. Mind you, we were sharing a twin mattress. Not my favorite thing. We woke up, ate breakfast and got ready to play and go to the lake. Well, it started pouring...like REALLY pouring, so we headed down to the pavilion with games and played games until the rain let up. When it finally let up, we grabbed lunch and headed down to the lake. Almost everyone played a made up game of Canoe Soccer while I just kinda basked in the sun and swam around the lake. The water was almost too warm for me. It was like taking a bath! So insane! It was the warmest lake I've ever been in and MUCH different than lakes in UT.
After playing in the lake, we cleaned up (thank goodness for showers @ the campsite!) and I discovered that I had a major sunburn. Because the state park was basically right outside of town, we ran to WalMart to get some Aloe and a few other things we needed for dinner.
When we got back we had dinner, visited with family, sang songs and told stories around the campfire. After it got pretty late, we all headed off to bed. I was hoping for a better night's sleep than the previous night but I was dead wrong. I thought I had experienced a huge thunderstorm the night before, but I was wrong about that too! It rained even harder and longer than the night before, and I honestly didn't sleep more than a couple hours through it! Here's a group picture we got @ our little camp out.
Sunday morning, we packed up quickly, gassed up, and went out separate ways. We headed back to Knoxville, Diane & Arron & Fam headed back to NC, and Dr. dad & David's mom headed back to Jamestown. It was a good camping trip, but I'm almost positive I'm never going to go camping while I'm pregnant again. It was miserable. I didn't sleep, I was uncomfortable and it just wasn't my cup of tea. ha ha.
We had originally planned to go to church in Jamestown, but we knew we weren't going to make it in time, so after we dropped Alayna and Isaac off, we headed to a gas station to clean up and get dressed for church. We found the LDS chapel and went to Sacrament Meeting. David was able to see some people he knew from his earlier years, so that was good. After that, we headed to Jamestown, and went straight to church to catch Sunday School & Relief Society/Priesthood meetings. We met up with David's parents there, and then stuck around for their ward's after church lunch. It was pretty good.
After that, we headed back to David's parent's house so Dr. dad and David could complete a mission: operation rescue canoe. They had borrowed a chainsaw and took one canoe down the river. They cut the tree up and rescued the red canoe from the tree which held it captive, and I don't know all the details, because I wasn't there! (thank goodness!!)
After they returned, we just visited with David's parents and packed up, since we were leaving the next morning. I slept very very well that night, since we weren't sharing a twin bed in a wet and soggy tent.
The next morning, we packed up and headed out. We grabbed lunch at subway in a town I don't remember what it's called, and then made our way to Nashville. We had originally planned to see more of Nashville, but decided to just go to the airport in case lines were long. We talked to enterprise and guess what!? Stupid guy from the day we got there wasn't there, and we were charged almost $100 less than the stupid guy told us we were going to be charged (thank goodness!) The rest of the trip is like you can imagine...riding on a small plane, miserable, barely making our plane in Cincinnati, and finally getting back to normal, breathable air in UT.
It was a good trip and I'm glad we were able to go.
