AHHHH Vacation

We started our vacation with a ride on the Smokey Mountain Parkway, the weather was perfect, sunny and cool but not cold thank goodness. I do have a nice pair of leather chaps I picked up a year or so ago on a 50% off sale that would work on a cold day. However they were not selling replacement rumps for ladies that day, chaps just are NOT cute if you are above a size 3!!!

Here are the boys waiting patiently (sorta) for me to take another photo. Hubby is on the left front, can you tell he could care less about the cute scrapbook pages I will be making for him!

Cades Cove is a MUST see if you are ever in the smokey mountains

Sometimes my camera amazes me by the great shots I get. I took pictures of the barns on the back of the bike while in motion, why can't I get good shots of the little girls in motion?
Along with normal farm animals we saw deer, wild turkey's and our FIRST ever black bear cub.

Boys will be boys, we had to make a stop at the knife works place. I decided to hang back and rest my back and rump on a park bench. Hubby did a little Christmas shopping for the grand baby boys, totally inappropriate I might add. The "Grandson's first knifes" will be put up until they are 21 (what the h.. was he thinking) but the trucks they can have!

We miss the mountains already and have only been home a few hours! There is nothing like sitting on the porch wrapped up in a quilt with carmel apple cider watching the fog come in, or sleeping with the windows open to cold mountain air in a bed I needed a step ladder to get into!

After a big country breakfast each morning we headed out with coolers filled for a day of riding the mountains until dinner time when we returned to pre cooked homemade meals with plenty of snacks and of course cold adult beverages for the fella's.

Of all the vacations and pretty cool places we get to travel our yearly Anniversary mountain trip is our favorite of all. Even if we are stuck in the cabin for 4 days it still ranks tops! We started inviting some of our riding buddies a few years back to join in the fun, each year gets better and better the more friends who join us to ride.

Our last evening we hit a few of the shops the boys wanted to go in along with "The Christmas Place" to do a little Christmas shopping for the big girls. We started a Christmas village for each of our big girls when they married that we add to each Christmas, can't wait to see their faces on Christmas morning when they open their new houses. Hubby also has a village "The Christmas Story" based on the movie, one of his favorites, of course we had to add to his collection! Our family village has grown to such an enormous size that unless something knocks my socks off I DON"T need a single new thing, thank goodness I didn't run into anything that struck my fancy, the bill was high enough.

We even got to chat with some real Mountain men, picture 20-30 very hairy fella's dressed in overalls and camo all wearing orange vests on a back country road, and I do mean back road. Hubby thought they were maybe a road crew, no way honey they are hunters. Sure enough when we stopped to talk to them they were hunting "BAAAAR" (bear). You couldn't meet a friendlier bunch of men but I don't think I would want to have them to dinner.

We did really well on our spending plan other than Krispy Kreme "hot donuts now", a few Christmas gifts for the family and some books about the history of the area I can't wait to have the time to devour our spending was right on track!

Tips on a furgal vacation coming up next.....time to finish the laundry :(