Our Tennessee/ Carolinas Vacation Chronicles --part 1 (Saturday) WE HAVE GAS ISSUES:)

Smoky Mountain National Park

The Smokies

Our Campsite at Smoky Bear Campground

A pretty cabin at the Apple Orchard where we ate breakfast.

Piper at our Smoky Bear Campsite

Pretty flowers at our Smoky Bear campsite

The Smokies, Gatlinburg, TN

I've decided the blog would be a fun way to document our vacation, including daily wildlife occurrences and funny moments. I'm going to try to do a posting for each day of our trip. Here is day one--travel day. We got up at 3:30 am and left the house an hour later. This was pretty much a travel day. I was very excited to put my new Mother's Day gift to work--my Garmin GPS. It worked for and against us (we didn't take the time to get to know it before we left ). I now understand that when you choose alternate routes, it will continue to strive to get you to the most direct/ fastest route--which isn't always going to be your choice. I need to learn how to program in an alternate route--I think it may require some software to do that.

So, I was driving in the morning, and thankfully J woke up just in time to tell me I missed the exit for I 57, ooops:) So we backtracked and were right back on track. Then, the family (not me the driver:) was sleeping away again, and I was enjoying the peace and beauty of southern Illinois (I'm not kidding, Illinois actually does have some pretty parts, not many:)--when all of a sudden I looked at the odometer and realized I had 9 MILES left of gas! (note, that means almost nothing when you're towing a camper!)--I panicked and woke J, put the good old GPS to use to find the nearest town and station. Thankfully, Centralia, IL was one mile up. I got off the exit and the gas station was CLOSED! So then I saw the sign that the town was 7 miles away--we JUST MADE IT! We literally pulled in the gas station with the computer on our jeep telling us we had 0 miles left! phewwwwwwwwwwwww! We used to have a warning beep on the jeep that told us when we had 40 miles worth of gas left--well, all of a sudden it doesn't beep until 13 miles left. Oooops.

The tank was happily filled, and off we went. I was driving again when all of a sudden we came upon a little old lady driving around 40 mph--I had to slam on the brakes (with a camper attached to us)--I did fine and threw on my hazards for the people driving behind me (so we wouldn't get hit)--and then got the heck away from her. I'm sorry, but people who can't drive the speed limit on the interstate, should NOT BE DRIVING ON THE INTERSTATE! To me, that's a lot more dangerous than speeding!.

We then had a nice picnic at a beautiful rest area with a park in Metropolis, IL (yes, the home of Superman, and there is a big statue of him, somewhere, we didn't look for it). The girls met a new friend named Olivia, and played with her for awhile--and then off we went again.

Our gas issues continue. J was driving, and the same darned thing happened again--we forgot to watch it, and the computer isn't working to tell us we're running low. We got down to 9 miles of gas left, and thankfully were only one mile from a gas station near Nashville.

Do I dare mention this happened to us on the 3rd filling that day! J forgot again (and so did I)--thankfully we still had 33 miles left when we discovered it!

Thankfully we had a nice day of driving, and made it into Gatlinburg safe and sound, without running out of gas:) We first stayed at a campground right at the entry of the Smoky Mountain National Park, called Smoky Bear Campground. The owners were so nice. Even though we arrived pretty late, they were wonderful, and even helped us with getting the camper backed in.

Funny Moment: and my little five y/o Angel said: "Mama--a tick bit Makayla (our neighbor girl) in the head trying to make a hole in her brain!"

Today's Wildlife Encounters: in the middle of the night, right outside of our camper (right out of the window of the side where J and I slept)--we heard this growling--purring--like some sort of wildlife feline animal---it was at our fire pit, just 5 feet from us---we actually believe it was a cougar---as soon as I turned my flashlight on it took off--I know it was at least the size of a big dog. It's probably good it didn't stick around, eh:)