audie's travel journal

first off - i will never travel anywhere with my niece again until she is at least 5 years old. i have never in my life heard a baby scream so loud - mr audie says her wails are still echoing over the hills of cherokee right now. 😱

we had a nice vacation, arrived on sunday the house was awesome that we had rented for the week, had a great indoor pool attached - it got lots of use.

monday we drove the blue ridge parkway over to asheville - it was some gorgeous scenery. sis and her family arrived monday evening. oh gee, the baby was screaming (it goes way beyond crying) because her dad was holding her. no one can hold her except my sis. my nephew on the other hand was so excited to see us. he was practically levitating he was so full of energy.

tuesday we went up to clingman's dome and the boys walked to the top. the girls stayed at the bottom and listenend to the baby scream. again.
we ate a picnic lunch, then we went back to the house. they played in the pool, mr audie and i went on a drive back to cades cove, which has an 11 mile loop to drive around. we got almost to the end, and suddenly traffic was at a complete stop. someone saw a bear off in the field, and people were abandoning their vehicles on the road and running off thru the field to see the bear. we were able to weave our way around the stopped vehicles and get out, thank god for the little car !

wednesday we went to dollywood. it is one of the prettiest amusement parks i know of. all the workers are sooo nice. it was hot and humid, but we had a good day except for the baby screaming. again. if she couldn't see my sister she wailed. then we had the incident. screaming mimi was asleep - she wore herself out wailing. so my sis wanted to ride a water ride with her hubby and son. i told her i would keep and eye on the baby knowing full well what was gonna happen. yep - mimi woke up and my god did she scream bloody murder. you would have thought i was skinning her alive :shock: i have never in my life heard anything so loud. she was trying to get out of the stroller so i picked her up. bad idea - it just made her madder. i had dollywood workers coming over asking if they could do something for me - i was like yeah, shut her up ! mr audie said "maybe they think we are abducting her" hell, if i was gonna kidnap someone it wouldn't be that screaming monster ! so my sis finally comes back, picks the baby up, and instantly she was quiet, and she turned her little round head to me and smiled :pissed: :pissed:

thursday - the pump went out at the house, so we had no water. we all scattered for the day, and we did some more driving, etc. my sis left that evening. she had endured all the screaming she could. they drove home at night so the kids would sleep and said they did pretty good.

friday we lollygagged around and packed and did some more driving.

saturday we left for home about 8 am. sat in traffic for 1 1/2 hours on I-75 for some unknown reason.