Mom and I decided to take a trip. I haven't used very many of my vacation days this year and Mom just can't stay home during the summer. We decided to take a few days and head east to the Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. On our list of things to do included ziplining, light hiking and shopping...little did we know there is an 8 mile Arts and Crafts Trail on the outskirts of Gatlinburg. So we packed enough clothes for 2 weeks for our 2 1/2 day trip and made our way to the cabin we rented. Our cabin was complete with a jacuzzi...in the corner of the living room with two wall length mirrors surrounding it that we weren't quite sure about. It was a cute little cabin, nonetheless, and it was fun not to stay in a hotel (which is my second permanent home since I'm on the road so much these days for work).
On the morning of the first day we decided to go ziplining. Ziplining - also know as flying fox, foefie slide, zip wire, aerial runway, aerial ropeslide, death slide (eeek! that makes it sound awful) or tyrolean crossing - as defined by Wikipedia 'consists of a pulley suspended on a cable mounted on an incline. It is designed to enable a user propelled by gravity to traverse from the top to the bottom of the inclined cable, usually made of stainless steel, by holding on or attaching to the freely moving pulley'. Essentially, you fly through the air between the tops of trees while you're strapped to a cable of some sort. We couldn't get pictures while Mom and I were in the air and their photographer took pictures but couldn't get them to print, so here's a picture of a zipliner.
Keep in mind this is a professional zipliner and Mom and I weren't quite as high off the ground. Here is a picture of us getting prepared in our gear. And, yes, I think helmets are very necessary for this sport.
There is a story associated with the ziplining adventure. When you are in the air, there are times when you have to use your hand to 'brake' on the line. On our third zipline we had to run and jump and fly into the air. The instructors told us we had some time to do something fancy in the air before we had to brake, so do whatever you like. Keep in mind there is an instructor at one end and two at the other to aid you if need be. I was the first in our group to go on each line and I reached the end of this particular line successfully and was on my way to the next one. Mom's turn was after mine. As I'm flying across the next line I hear two instructors yelling 'BRAKE, BRAKE, BRRAAAKKKKE!!!!!' to none other than my mother. It seems she got caught up in 'free-flying' and trying to do something fancy and forgot how to brake. CRASH, BANG, CRACKED RIBS... Mom crashed into one of the instructors who then crashed into the (padded) tree trunk behind him. No one fell off the platform, luckily and everyone SEEMED to be alright. We finished the rest of our ziplines and made it back to our starting point in one piece...except moments later the words 'I think I cracked a rib' came from Mom's mouth. I told her to get over it and she wasn't ruining my vacation...no, I didn't really say that, I was a little more compassionate between laughs. She survived the rest of the trip and decided to see a doctor when she got home. Luckily, nothing was broken or cracked, just some bruised tendons. Besides the bruised ribs the ziplining was very fun and we'd go again and recommend you all try it sometime.
We also did a little hiking, although the road we wanted to travel on was closed so we hiked around an old cabin, barn and mill. I don't quite remember how old they were but they were built when some of the first settlers moved into the Smokies. Here's a picture of the cabin...notice how short and narrow they made the doorway. I don't think anyone tall or remotely overweight was around in those days.
We also did a little shopping and found a great place called Sassafras in Pigeon Forge. We attempted to traverse the 8 mile Arts and Crafts Trail in Gatlinburg; however, things didn't turn out quite like we thought. We decided to take the trolley and thought we'd just get on and off along the way. That didn't quite work out. The distance between the shops wasn't really walking distance, then it started raining and we left the umbrella in the cabin and the trolley didn't come as often as we thought. We decided we'd just come back later in my truck and drive from place to place. Well, everything closed at 5pm and we got there at 5:30ish, so there went that idea.
Anyway, we had a lot of fun, ate some good food and made it back almost injury-free! If you need any ziplining advice call my mother.
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