On Thursday, a group of us decided to head to the trolley that made stops in a park and then later do some shopping downtown. As we got closer to parking, it became fairly obvious that we would probably miss the trolley as parking was hard to find. We dropped off part of the group, only to realize that with all the rain, the park was closed and that we would not be able to go to the park. Katie and I followed the caravan of cars to park in a garage and were greeted by a parking attendant with the following phrase: “Beware, there is a bear in the building.” She said this very nonchalantly, as if it were a regular thing. We were slightly alarmed and slightly excited about the prospect of seeing a bear in the parking garage. We never saw the bear and eventually met up with the rest of the group at Savannah Bee Company for some shopping. We revised our plan to do some shopping in the downtown area, lunch, and later a little outlet mall shopping for a few of us.

While we were shopping, we found clever signs, visited a Paula Deen store, and had some delicious local coffee from a delightful woman at Burg Coffees. Most of us did more looking than buying while downtown. After a bit of walking and browsing, we were done and decided to have some margaritas with a side of lunch.

We walked back to No Way Jose’s Cantina, which was close to where we parked the cars and got the seal of approval of one of the parking lot attendants that Katie and I walked with, so we felt good about our decision. We had a little bit of a wait for our party of 7, but we were ready to order once we were seated. We all ordered margaritas and sangria for one last celebration before we had to think about packing up. Our charming waiter convinced me to order the large frozen strawberry margarita because they used real strawberries. It was a giant delicious treat that some family members had to help me finish because day drinking is rough.

After the downtown area, Katie, Teresa, Mom and I went to the outlet mall to get a new work bag for Katie and to stop by Krispy Kreme’s for Teresa. While part of the group was downtown, Mike stayed home to watch World Cup Soccer and Bryan chilled in the basement. Dan, Sue, Jared and Aaron took a trip to Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the Smoky Mountains. Unfortunately, it was a rainy, humid, foggy day and the views were not quite as amazing as they had hoped. Apparently, good times were had climbing to the top and watching a particular squirrel.

Some Random Person, Jared, Sue and Aaron at Klingman’s Dome

That evening we enjoyed leftovers from all the delicious meals we had made earlier in the week. We spent more time as a family playing Tenzies and we all got packed and showered, as we were [lanning on early departures in the morning.

The New Austonian