The Journey Begins: Day 1-3

Bright and early on Friday, August 5, Jake, the dogs, and I left Enterprise, AL without a backward glance. Jake would have liked to leave at 4 a.m. but we ended up leaving at a much more reasonable time. 6:30 a.m. Still plenty early to make it to Atlanta to drop off my Volvo for shipping and drive up to Gatlinburg, TN.

As most of you know, our good friend Derrek is currently deployed to Iraq. He happened to join us on our cross-country trip! He's been complaining about the lack of space in the backseat...

Instead of meeting Jake's parents in Durham, NC we met them for a weekend away at a cabin in the woods. The cabin we picked was perfect (no picture!) except for the fact that it was up a windy mountain road... Joe had to drive extra careful so I wouldn't be sick all over the new Highlander!

Here's a collage of pictures taken during our stay at Gatlinburg, TN. This is "Find Waldo" kind of picture. See if you can spot Derrek!

By now I think most of you have heard the story about the black bear. For those of you who haven't: On our first (Jake swears it was the second) morning in Gatlinburg, we were (all of us!) startled awake by loud banging. Jake, still half asleep, thought his dad had gone out to the car for some reason and was slamming doors. I thought Joe and DeLane were getting up and had stumbled over something. It was 5 a.m. I decided to check on the car, which was right outside our window, and opened the blinds. I got the biggest shock in my 30 years. There was a black bear right outside our window! He was trying to get into the (locked!) garbage container, which happened to be next to our window. Can you imagine how fast my heart started beating? After about 10 minutes of trying his hardest to get at our garbage, he walked off in the direction of our neighbors. Jake and I noticed earlier that day that their garbage was NOT locked but assumed they'd lock it up before bed. Nope! The bear got his prize. He chowed down on their garbage and while he was doing that Jake decided to go out on the deck and shine a flashlight in his direction. Just to see a little better. Apparently, the bear saw him. You should have seen Jake race back inside! Haha! That should teach him not to shine a flashlight on a bear!

So that was the bear story. I didn't think I'd be seeing any bears quite so soon. This doesn't bode well for Alaska...