on the road again: alabama to tennessee

Tonight we're in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, home of some of the world's cheesiest tourist attractions, as well as some of the most beautiful mountains.

We took an aerial tram up one of the mountains, and admired the view down into town for a while. I posted a couple of cameraphone photos on Flickr, and will upload digital camera shots when we get home. After that, we hit the Ripley's 4D Moving Theatre (The movie you ride! 2 Thrilling shows!), much to the kids' delight.

Now we're back in our hotel, which has lovely views of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, where Alex got his National Park Passport stamped this afternoon. The stamp is the third one he's received--the first was at Mammoth Cave, and the second at Gulf Islands National Seashore. He's also collecting commemorative pins at each of our stops on this trip, and has quite a collection on his favorite baseball cap--which itself was a souvenir from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on his last trip with Grandma.

Tomorrow we'll work our way up to West Virginia, stopping briefly along the way at the New River Gorge National River for another passport stamp, and a look at some of the spectacular views.

Saturday will be the last leg of this very long trip. I adore my family, and am so glad to have had this time to spend with them. But 24×7 can be hard on everyone, as can long hours of highway driving, and I'll think we'll all be very glad to be back in our own home again.