We arrived in Gatlinburg, TN around 6pm on the Monday of our fall break. After getting all settled into our condo, we made our way to downtown Gatlinburg to explore and get some dinner. Our condo was located right in the downtown so we could easily walk to everything. That was a big bonus because this is the peak season for the area and the city traffic was bumper to bumper. We ate dinner at a restaurant called Landshark and it was the official kick-off to our family vacation.
The next morning, we walked to SkyLift Park. There, we took a lift up the mountain.
At the top of the mountain was the SkyBridge. This 700 foot bridge is the longest pedestrian cable bridge in North America. In the middle of the bridge is several feet of glass so pedestrians can see below (and how high up we are!)
The Sky Deck gave us some pretty great views of the city and mountains. 
What goes up must come down.
I ended up purchasing the photo package they offered. These first two were unique enough to make it worth it for me. I love family photos. Just about every attraction we went to offered photo packages, but I only got these.
We ate some chinese food for lunch and followed it up with some ice cream.
And then we went mini-golfing! Andy was the big winner, but we were all within 1-2 strokes of each other.
All five of our golf balls together. :)
After golfing, the boys went back to the condo to rest up while Bella and I did some shopping. This cute phone booth was in the Village shopping area.
That whole space was really cute. I bought some homemade soap in one of the shops. That is my weakness and also one of my favorite simple ways of pampering myself.
Bella and I also went on a scenic drive through the Smokies. As we drove, cars ahead of us were stopped. We saw that people were looking up in a tree and pointing. As we got closer, we saw what caused the standstill - there was a black bear up in a very tall tree! It had to be up about 50 feet! I never realized that bears were such climbers. It was too far away to get a good photo, but Bella and I will always remember that we saw a bear.
Later that evening, we went to Five Guys for dinner. That's technically a restaurant we can eat at any time, but we never do; so we decided to make it a vacation treat. When we finished up, we did some more exploring before a magic show that we had tickets for.
Waiting for the show to start!
This guy put on a pretty great show. He did some "mind reading" and guessed that Graydon wanted to learn to juggle nine balls and learn all the instruments in the world. Graydon was pretty impressed.
After a busy day, it felt good to head back to the condo to relax.
Bella and Curtis took advantage of the jacuzzi tub.
I enjoyed the fireplace.
Since it's Halloween season, we watched a sort-of scary movie called 'A Quiet Place.' It was on TV and we missed the beginning, but it was just the right amount of scary for us (I don't like super scary).
Bella got this photo of Graydon the following morning. Each morning was pretty laidback. We took our time eating breakfast, drinking coffee, and watching morning news programs. It was nice not having to rush.
Our plan for this day was to enjoy the national park.
Graydon's favorite part of the whole thing was skipping rocks. It was easy for him to find a lot of flat ones, so he had some pretty great skips.
We spent several hours in the park and then made our way to Pigeon Forge. We had tickets for Sky Fly Soar America. Such a cool ride.
Pigeon Forge had so much fun stuff to do.
Graydon found a puzzle store and solved the 5x5 Rubik's cube for them.
That evening, we went to a dinner show called "Pirate's Voyage."
Pirates served us a meal of fried chicken, ham, biscuit, baked potato, corn, cream of vegetable soup, and peach cobbler for dessert. I was SO full!
This show even had a juggler, which made Graydon very happy.
The next morning, it was time to check out and head home. That is always the least favorite time of any vacation. For me, those sad feelings of vacation being over were compounded by how itchy I had become. Each morning of our stay, I had woken up with some tiny little bites. They were barely noticeable at first, but as the days went on, they swelled and became incredibly itchy. Andy also had a few, but not nearly as many as me and his body didn't react like mine did. The kids did not have any bites. I initially suspected bed bugs, but I pulled back the sheet and looked through the crease in the mattress and I couldn't find anything. But after waking up with new bites each morning, I inspected the bed again on that final day. I did not ever find a bug, but I did find the shell of a bug. Once I saw that shell, my heart sank. I knew that we definitely had come in contact with bed bugs. Andy and I went to the front desk area and showed them my arm as well as the bug shell. All in all, I had about 35-40 bites with about 20 of those being on this arm.
We were in a hurry to get going because Andy had to get back for a church meeting that evening; so we didn't stick around or make a big deal of it at the time. As we loaded all of our stuff into the van, Andy got a call from a church member that the meeting would be postponed due to several people not being able to attend. That worked out great because it gave us a little more time in Gatlinburg and meant that we didn't have to rush home. We ended up back in The Village shopping area where we got some donuts and coffee.
Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to enjoy these last couple hours of our trip. I was incredibly itchy and the weather was hot. I kept my coat on because my arms were so bit up I felt self-conscious, but that just made me hotter. I was also already thinking ahead to all of the precautions we'd need to take when we got back home to ensure that we didn't bring any bugs into our home.
A couple hours into our drive back, we received a call from the condo. They had pest control come to our room after we left; and indeed, it had bed bugs. They offered us a 50% refund. The drive home was really uncomfortable and itchy. When we finally made it home, we couldn't just unload and unpack like we typically do after a trip. Instead, Bella quickly ran into the house and grabbed my bath robe. I changed out of my clothes in the garage and put them into a plastic bag. Then I went and retrieved robes or pajamas for everyone else and we all took turns changing in the garage and bagging up our clothes. Everything was unloaded into the garage and left there for the night. The next day, I took everything out of suitcases and bags and put it all into plastic bags. Pillows were put in the dryer for at least 30 minutes. All of our blankets and clothes were washed on hot and then dried. Things that couldn't be washed were put in the freezer for six days. I steamed the suitcases and they are still in the garage. I'm afraid to bring them into the house. It was quite an ordeal. And then there was the mental load of it all. I never actually saw a bed bug, but I became anxious every time I saw a fuzz or speck that was about the same color or size. I also felt really emotional about it. I was really excited for this vacation and I felt like this experience put a dark cloud over it and that just made me so sad. Because of this impact, we reached out to the condo company again asking for a full refund. They readily gave it to us. Thankfully, they have been really great to work with.
We've been home for a little over a week and I'm definitely starting to feel better. I'm not as itchy (although I'm surprised that some of them STILL itch a little) and I'm not feeling as sad. The extra $850 from the refund probably helps a little too.
So, this Gatlinburg vacation was wonderful and terrible. We visited a beautiful location, enjoyed several fun activities, and made some great family memories. The bedbugs were a pretty big bummer, but that's life sometimes - a mixture of good and bad. I'm still thankful for our time in Gatlinburg.
