October 22, 2007
Cabin Fever
Knoxville is a very unique city due to its geographic location. Not only does Knoxville have a great downtown area and beautiful parks like World's Fair, but UT is also located right on the river, and the Smoky Mountains are only about forty five minutes away. I've lived on campus all four years and have loved it, but from time to time, it's fun to get away and experience what Knoxville has to offer.After class on Friday, some friends and I rented a cabin for the night in Gatlinburg. Surprisingly, the cabin was fairly cheap and pretty nice. I have to admit that the task of choosing the cabin and booking it was on my shoulders, and for some reason, I booked the cabin without looking at the pictures. Probably not a good idea, but the cabin was in our price range and the outside picture of the cabin looked nice so I didn't worry about it too much. I say all that just to make the point that we did not really know what to expect.
The best or most unusual feature of the cabin was what we saw when we first walked in. Picture this: we enter into this snazzy living room equipped with a big TV, couches, a remote-controlled fireplace, a large kitchen, and a dining table. Nothing special, right? Not exactly. Behind the dining table was a red heart-shaped jacuzzi surrounded by stone, tile, and stained glass windows; classy, I know.
This jacuzzi looked like it had been taken out of the scene from Dumb and Dumber where Harry and Lloyd were floating in the bubble bath jacuzzi discussing Harry's x-girlfriend (Harry: "She wrote me a john-dear letter...something about me not listening enough, I don't know...I wasn't really paying attention."). You have to love Dumb and Dumber, it's a classic! Sorry, I know that was a bit off topic, but I felt like I would be doing you an injustice by not mentioning it. Needless to say, we were a little skeptical of the condition of everything else in the cabin after our discovery of the dinner jacuzzi, but we had a great time grilling burgers and hanging out anyways.
Saturday morning we woke up in time to check-out by 10 and headed back to Knoxville. Tennessee was playing Alabama at 12:30 so it was very important that we were sitting at a TV with food in hand before kick-off. Unfortunately, the game was not everything we expected it to be, and I'll just leave it at that, but the food was great!
Apparently the night in the cabin was not enough "outdoors-time" and so three of us drove back to Gatlinburg that afternoon in search of a place to do some real camping.This was a thrown-together, last-minute, grab your pillow and comforter, type of camping trip, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
We had a few ideas of where we wanted to go, but we had no idea that it was National Gatlinburg Camping Saturday (joke). Literally, every place we went was completely booked! Fortunately, we stumbled upon an open spot in Elkmont and set-up camp. It was a really cheap night because we still had a lot of leftover meat from the cabin and so we grilled it and enjoyed a good warm fire.
The best part about the night was probably the fact that none of our phones worked. Since we were so deep in the mountains and far from civilization, none of us had any service. You may think that's not a good thing, but it's kind of nice to be secluded from all of the worries of life. Naturally, as soon as we entered an area where we had service the following morning, our phones lit up with text messages and voice mails from friends wanting to know why we ignoring their calls.
Overall, it was a really fast paced weekend but a lot of fun, and I'm glad that I was able to enjoy a few of the activities that Knoxville offers. The amount of sleep I got this weekend was pretty limited so I'll probably be feeling it pretty heavily throughout this week, but hey, that's why we have naps. Until next time, stay classy readers.
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2 Comments:
WOW sounds like quite a weekend. I am thinking about transfering to UT next year, so when I was browsing through the website I came across your blog. Sounds like there's alot to do over there, huh?
Elizabeth
It was a great weekend and you should definitely transfer. UT is a great place, and I am sure you will love it! There really is a lot to not on campus as well as throughout Knoxville. Let me know if you have any other questions.
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