Valentine's Day Weekend in TN

Now here it is April and see how far behind I am in posting? Time to catch up! We had to have a getaway by Valentine's Day because we were seriously getting cabin fever! TOO MUCH SNOW. Yes, we actually drove across the state line just to see grass again! LOL. We are hopeless I know. We will take any excuse to go to TN. :)

And as you can tell by these first two photos, they were still celebrating their "Winterfest" because the Christmas decorations were still up! Very pretty indeed, especially since it was "flurry-ing" (is that even a word?) as you can see in the 2nd photo by the wet & spotted windshield. :)

Apparently they had so much snow and rain, that on Rte 441 between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, they had another mudslide and had to close off the road heading towards Gatlinburg. What a mess!

They had to detour traffic to "share" the left hand side of the route which normally is returning from Gatlinburg. Did it take long? Was there alot of traffic? OMGosh. I'm just happy we had a bathroom break BEFORE we headed back from Gatlinburg! ;) The traffic going to Gatlinburg was a steady pace, but coming back, it took us well over an hour to travel what normally takes less than 10 minutes. It was open again within a few weeks and they have built a barricade wall to hopefully keep it from sliding down on the highway again.

This is one of my favorite little scenic "pull-overs" on that route between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. They have "decorative" snow....that's my kind of snow...just on the mountains and sides of the highway and the roads are clear! ;)

We arrived in Gatlinburg and you could tell they did have some of my favorite "decorative" snow:

We decided to drive just a little way into the Smokey Mountains...

Beautiful snow everywhere!!

Uh-oh....the mountain was closed down and you had to turn around at the Visitor's Center.

Back to Gatlinburg we go!

And then it was the LONG wait between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge because of the mudslide and detoured traffic. I did get some pretty pictures though that I never would have seen whizzing by in normal traffic! :)

It was definitely nice to get away from all the snow we had at home even if there were flurries in TN. But we discovered that as far as scooterin' in February...well, we really need to have some heaters installed on those things! ;)