82 degrees

Well, we finally found 82 degrees. I'm in capris and short sleeve shirt. Today we left Louisville and headed for Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We stopped in Lexington, Kentucky to see all the horse farms. It was beautiful there. The air smelled so good. The mares were frolicking with their colts in the fields. We saw some of the farms where the horses are trained for the Derby. You can tell which ones they are because they have locked gates with security booths. Some of them have huge training tracks like the Derby. We were a little shocked coming into the smokey mountains. I thought we were coming to a serene wooded mountain range that held our "nestled" hotel at the base of the mountains. Coming through Pigeon Falls was like driving through the Wisconsin Dells via Las Vegas. It took almost an hour to go 5 miles. OMG, there were more flashing lights, wedding chapels and water parks than Elvis has probably seen. We were shocked. Luckily, we thought, we weren't staying there, as we entered a lovely stretch of mountain road on the other side taking us to Gatlinburg. That lasted about 10 minutes before we were again thrust into another Dells/Vegas scenario. Our dog friendly hotel is a little bit reminescent of "Psycho." The girls are freaked out, they won't even bring their suitcases in. I had booked us 2 nights (before seeing it) thinking we would need the time to hike and explore. Sophie wants us to be out of here by 6 a.m.!

It's also true that there is no place for the dogs to go potty. Everything is cement. The only grass we could find was in front of a church and it was already littered with ..... apparently that's where all dog owners must take their dogs. A good thing God loves all living creatures!

Anyway, I think we may head for Asheville, North Carolina tomorrow. Stay tuned....


Love to all, especially my honey...