Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Hi again! Today I'm posting photos Doug and I took in Gatlinburg, Tennessee! After exploring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we spent some time in Gatlinburg visiting the attractions. We ate lunch at the Smoky Mountain Brewery, and then walked around until dark. Most of the attractions stay open until 9pm. We had a great time! There are several "Ripley" museums, such as Ripley's Believe it or Not! Museum, Ripley's Aquarium, etc. We also went to a cool 4-d moving theater, which had 2 ~6-minute shows in sequence - it really tossed you around! Then we went to "Earthquake: The Ride" which was freaking hilarious in its total stupidity. You get into this train car ride, thinking it's actually going to be a sort of roller coaster but it just shakes you around, and puffs nasty chemically smoke in your face, and then you see a gorilla peer through the "train" window. Then it's over. The train doesn't move more than about 15 feet forward, then back! But Doug is now enthralled with saying (in the same way the advertisement that blared out onto the street did) "Earthquake: The Ride!" (The real thing! Earthquake, the ride!) LOL.

Most of the photos were from the Ripley's Aquarium which was an amazing aquarium!! We took these photos with Doug's point and shoot and my phone so the quality isn't stellar but I wanted to share. Tomorrow or the next day I'll share pics from the Northshore of Louisiana and all the cool stuff we did there. And then snow in Houston!! My kids made a very cool snowdude named Frostbite.

This is from earlier in the day when we were still exploring the park, but I forgot to post it yesterday!
This is a shot of our beautiful room in Gatlinburg's new Hilton Garden Inn (they've applied for LEED certification and should hear back any day now). Notice it even has a fireplace!
A cool bear made of nails at the front of the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum.
At the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum they had a thing where you could capture your shadow. This is Doug jumping! He thought it kinda looked like a skateboarding jump.

This - fuzzily - shows the lights (LED!) that illuminated the main street in Gatlinburg.
Doug standing next to a replica of the tallest man that ever lived, who was an outrageous 9 foot and some change!
The rest of these are taken at the Ripley's Aquarium. This is a shot of a shark in the cool tube-like maze aquarium. I like its abstractness.
Another shark photo.

Another shark pic.

These seahorses were so cool!

I loved the jellyfish too.
Another shot of jellies.
Me with a crab on my head (after all, I am a Cancerian!)