Sunday, July 16 in North Carolina, on our way to Gatlinburg

We are planning to stay in Sevierville, just north of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, the next two nights.

We drove to Little Switzerland to check out Emerald World. We bought a $35 bucket of mixed gems, and all had fun sifting through it looking for treasure! We did get some really neat stones, but no treasure.

On the way to Gatlinburg, we drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a beautiful drive on a gorgeous, sunny day! Surprisingly, Kevin and Eric wanted us to stop at every pull-off to take pictures! They BOTH really seemed to enjoy the views, and the curvy road. We honked our car horn in almost every tunnel!

After checking into our hotel (Clarion, Sevierville), we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. We decided to call it a night so we could all get extra rest, since Eric is still fighting his cold.

We plan on swimming after breakfast tomorrow morning, since that is one of the things that we haven't done on our vacation yet. The hotel has an outdoor lazy river. We stayed at this hotel several years ago, and really liked it.