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The family and I rented a cabin in Gatlinburg last weekend.  I remember when vacations were relaxing, fun-filled, and I never wanted them to end.  Then we had two kids.  Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, but let’s just say by the time I got home, I had my fill of family togetherness.

The 3 ½ hour car ride started out with us getting stuck in road construction.  A short while into the drive, the fuse in the A/C adapter on the kid’s DVD player blew.  With no DVD to watch, Olivia started going through the bag that she packed on her own.  The first thing that she found was her harmonica… which she played for the next two hours.  It was cute for about the first 5 or 10 minutes.  The next 110 minutes… not so cute.  Then Amelia chimed in by crying for the last hour through the mountains.

We got to our cabin and unloaded.  The backseat of our car looked like the floor of a recycling center.  Apparently, Olivia had packed her emergency food reserve as well.  There were Reese’s wrappers, juice boxes, loose change, and various components of toys everywhere.  I don’t know how we missed this during the drive, but Olivia managed to eat a Halloween’s worth of candy during the drive.

Loaded up on sugar, we took the girls to a restaurant.  Olivia was like a squirrel after five cups of coffee.  So much for a relaxing dinner.

The next day, we went out to Cade’s Cove.  If you’ve never been there, it is about a 35 mile drive from Gatlinburg (through slow, winding mountain roads) and once you get there, it is an 11-mile one-lane loop.  People drive slower than a tranquilized sloth on this road.  I guess I’ve been in Atlanta too long, but I couldn’t resist tailgating the minivan in front of me that refused to use the turn-outs to let me by.  Twice they stopped in the middle of the road for about 10 minutes to take pictures of deer.  Deer!  Not bears or mountain scenery, deer – the same animals that you see all the time at home.

The next day, we went to Pigeon Forge where we decided to try the Jurassic Boat Ride.  I paid my 40 bucks and we climbed in the “boat” where we were taken on a ride that will induce nightmares for a 4 year old and had enough noise, special effects, and pitch-black darkness to cause a one year old to cry uncontrollably.  When the ride ended (10 minutes later) the parents all looked at each other as if to say, “Well, there’s $40 I’ll never get back.”

After we got home, Olivia kept talking about how much fun she had and how she couldn’t wait for our next vacation.  With all my frustration and impatience, it took a four year old to help me realize that it was all worth it.