gatlinburg trip.

last weekend, austin and i had the chance to get away from chattanooga for the weekend and head up to gatlinburg. his parents and brother go up there every year around this time for the rod run and they invited us up, too.

after finding someone willing to deal with dog-sit juliet, we left out early saturday morning and once we got there we headed to ripley's aquarium where we saw lots of critters.

this little guys was one of my favorites.

and the smile on this puffer fish kills me.

teeth. yuck.

oh and lots of sharks.

we did a lot of wandering through the main part of gatlinburg, despite the bouts of pouring down rain. then we came upon this little alley.

and this little sign. yes, please.

the ole smoky moonshine place had a bunch of flavors of moonshine to try. most of them taste like burning. or cough syrup. or cough syrup that burns.

but i guess they must sell plenty of it. they sure have a lot in stock.

they also have a pretty cool little place where you can walk through the process and history of moonshine making. that was neat but it stunk like whoa.

next door the same company had walls and walls of pickled products. so you know austin was all about that. pickles, okra, sauces, dips... you name it they had it. and it all had moonshine in it.

and just a little further over was bootlegger's homemade wine, also offering free samples. not one to turn a free sample down, we headed on in. even though i tried some that made my face squish up in disgust, they had one that i really did like and austin bought it for me. although my choice must have been fueled by the moonshine, because i wouldn't normally be willing to pay that much for one bottle of wine. that's their plan, though, i'm sure. fortunately, the wine i picked actually does taste good. so there's that.

unrelated face in hole picture.

also, this one time, like 6 years ago when we were on a trip to gatlinburg, austin promised me he would take me to get those cheesy old-timey pictures taken. but he never did. so this time, he came through for me. if i get real inspired i might scan the pictures so i can share on here. but don't count on it. just know that they are cheesy. and they are awesome.

so that was our gatlinburg weekend. we had a pretty good time. and bought a bunch of candy. peanut butter fudge. yum.