Home Safe and Sound

After a miserable drive home yesterday due to horrendous traffic, we are happily back to the daily grind.  Pigeon Forge traffic put us about an hour behind schedule while I-40 construction in the mountains set us back an additional hour.  What would normally be a 6 1/2 hour drive turned into - well, you can do the math.  The torrential rain through the NC mountains certainly didn't help my already elevated anxieties either.  I was more than relieved to finally make it home last night - with my sanity still intact.

We spent the greater part of Saturday at the Knoxville Zoo with Grandma Bopp.  We picked the perfect day to go considering the overcast weather and the small crowd of people.  We were able to stroll freely through the park and avoid having to soak ourselves in the misters to prevent a heat stroke.  It was an extremely pleasant day.  Evan was pretty much ready for a nap as soon as we got there, but he managed to enjoy himself nonetheless.  The first attraction to grab his attention?  Ah, yes, camels - again!  And Robert seemed to enjoy them just as much...if not more.

The petting zoo proved to be a big hit too.  While the other children sprinted through the stall screaming at the top of their lungs, Evan was very gentle with the animals and actually preferred to just be near them and chat with them a bit.  It was interesting to watch how he interacted with each one.

And of course trucks, slides and rides are always winners in Evan's book.

After the zoo we headed back to Pigeon Forge with the intention of making it to Gatlinburg.  But as our luck seemed to have it all week, we got stuck in horrible traffic and a 45 minute drive turned into a two hour drive.  We decided rather than sit in more traffic we would meet up with Grandpa and Grandma Stinnett in Pigeon Forge and enjoy a nice dinner.  I'm not sure if any of us really had enough reserve energy to do much more anyway.

I decided Evan and I will accompany Robert back to the Smokies in a few weeks.  We want to escape the tourist trap this time and head up into the mountains and enjoy a bit of nature.