Also felt worth mentioning ... we got coffee this morning on our way to zip lining at Towns End Coffee (see what they did there?? It's in Townsend). I was very impressed. I'm usually pretty picky about my coffee and rarely find these kinds of places very good (just me, I know they're usually popular, but I'm picky), but the coffee was really good. I got the Lumber Ridge Latte, and it was very good.

Huge shout out to my wife, who planned out this whole mini vacation, putting everything together at the last minute. We wouldn't have done any of this stuff or had all of this fun without her. Love you babe!! Thanks so much for all you do for our family!

We finished up our little mini vacation today with some zip lining. This was a great way to wrap things up, it was so much fun. I was SUPER proud of how Charis did. I went into this genuinely expecting that she would get scared and not want to do it, but I was totally wrong. She may have been the most excited of all of us. It was so much fun watching how much she enjoyed this!

Fun fact. I've lived in the state of Tennessee for nearly 20 years now, and I had not seen a bear here until this past October, I saw two of them up near Gatlinburg. Now, I’ve seen four in the past two days, and have heard of three others in our campground that I didn’t get to see. I didn’t believe it for the longest time, but apparently they really are all over the place here. 🐻

Today was forecasted to be our hottest day here, and the humidity has been almost oppressive. Because of that, today we decided to go tubing down the river!! Great way to cool off.

Have to say, for the most part, Little Arrow is pretty nice as campgrounds go. The bathrooms in particular are the best I've ever used at a campground before, they're really nice. However, I will say this ... if you ever decide to visit and rent one of their tents, check the camp layout/map, and make sure you do NOT rent one that is right next to one of the dumpsters. We're in C loop #23, and the dumpster is literally right behind our tent, and it sucks. Damn thing sounds like a shotgun going off right outside our tent whenever anyone let's the lid slam on that cursed thing, and nobody seems to care at all what time of day or night they do it.

Fellow campers ... a little common courtesy goes a long way. Would it hurt ya to throw your trash away before 10pm, or after 9am. Just sayin'.

gets off his soapbox

And now some Farkle to wrap up the evening.

We went and checked out the river this afternoon. It's unfortunately much too high and swift to safely wade, and much too chocolate muddy brown for me to believe fishing will be any good, so we'll most likely come back maybe next week and try lower down the river.

Then after getting an early dinner, Crys and Charis had some fun playing bingo, and Charis won, twice!! Then we had a nice walk along the river by camp this evening. Been a fun day.

The Little River, as a result of all of the rain we've had over the past several days, looks like the river that runs through Willie Wonka's chocolate factory. This put a bit of a damper on the idea of fishing today. So instead, we went to Cade's Cove. That was fun.

Aahhh nighttime ... I'm reminded why I don't like camping in campgrounds.

just take a deep breath ... it'll be fine ...

Little rain never hurt nobody.

Home sweet home for the next few days.