Gatlinburg Day 1

Alrighty, so we made it to Gatlinburg. Nice long roadtrip but it was fun! I am so glad we choose this week to come up here. The weather is perfect, not too cold but definitely not Florida hot. I bought a ton of cold weather clothes before we left so we will get to use them. 

Here we are, in Downtown Gatlinburg. We are staying at the Brookside Resort, which was just on Hotel Impossible. We got checked in late last night and today we took the time to get acquainted with the Downtown Gatlinburg area. 

I will admit I missed the Florida sunshine and the clouds made it seem a little off than what I am used to but I did not let that determine the day at all. Being from Florida we dont have (too many) coldish days where the sun is not still shining fully, so it was just different for me. The kids didn't notice at all. 

Out front of the hotel there is a stop for the Gatlinburg Trolley but we wanted to walk. We were less than a mile from Downtown. We started off by walking over to the Ripleys Aquarium. I had to stop there to get the tickets for all of the Ripleys Attactions. That was the main reason we chose Gatlingburg for this trip. 

      

The Ripleys Aquarium Christmas Tree 

 Feeding the ducks outside of the Aquarium. 

 Bridge connecting the Ripleys Aquarium to the other side of Downtown Gatlinburg 

 Ripleys Aquarium 

Sampling some hot sauces. 

The first real stop after we got into the Downtown area was the Mountaintop Mall. It is really an over-sized flea market, or at least similar to a flea market feel to me. I was kinda hoping they would have offered more local stuff. It is 4 floors of some leather goods, some handmade, a few jewelry stores, and other misc stores. We weren't in there too long - long enough to check out all the floors and head back out. 

 

Ripleys Mirror Maze 

She had so much fun!  

The mirrors in here are so misleading. Guess that is the point. 

Right after we walked out of the Mirror Maze there was a little bit of snow. Like little flakes, barely noticeable. We were all hoping it was going to snow more, the kids have never seen snow and I was 8 the last time I was in it.  

 There are wine and moonshine tastings throughout the Downtown area.

Chinese food was the pick for lunch. There are other restaurants but Chinese sounded nice and warm. After lunch we headed back out to walk around a little more.   

About a handful of the shops offer huge windows so we were able to watch candy and goodies being made. 

 The Gatlinburg Space Needle

A "minion fire hydrant"

Free Jerky samples  

We waited outside while everyone else sampled Jerky 

Hollywood Star Cars 

We were on our way to Ripleys Believe It or Not, which was on the way back to the room, when we noticed there was snow up on the top of the mountains. We took  a quick vote and decided to head back to the room, change, jump in the car, and drive till we found snow.