Winter Road Trip - Part 1

As spring approaches, I'm trying to get caught up on sharing our winter adventures.  We took a couple of road trips this winter, basically seizing any weekend that it wasn't actively snowing as a chance to get out of the house.

For Matt's birthday present, we took him to Gatlinburg.  He'd seen ice skating on television and was determined to try it.  We lucked into a Saturday that was cold but sunny and headed to the mountains.

Cool dudes outside Ripley's Aquarium

Before we headed to the rink, we stopped at Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies.  It's the perfect size aquarium for small children - big enough to have some cool exhibits, and small enough that you're done before the kids get bored.    There's a shark tunnel to walk through and the whole experience is very geared towards families.

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

The best thing about Ripley's is that they have multiple exhibits where kids can crawl through tunnels and pop up in the middle of the tank, to get a super close look at the fish.  It's really a cool feature.

Matt in the tank tunnel, checking out the fish.

Well, of COURSE I had to try it, too - it looked far too cool not to do.

The best of these tunnels led smack dab into the middle of the penguin habitat.  Matt did those over and over again, racing on his hands and knees through the tunnel to pop in the middle of the penguins.  The penguins were as curious as the people, and kind of congregated around the viewing bubble to see who would appear next.  

PENGUINS!

Penguin viewing bubble = pure awesome.

Tram to the top

Following our aquarium adventure, we headed to Ober Gatlinburg.  To get to the area where the ice skating rink and ski slopes are, you have to ride the tram to the top of the mountain.  Matt was excited to try this and after some initial fear when the tram swayed a bit, he loved the tram experience.  

Ice skating, however, was a different story altogether.  He wanted to start out in the middle of the rink, and didn't believe me when I said we'd need to stick to the sides of the rink at first.  I think he seriously underestimated how hard ice skating is the first time you try it.  Once on skates, we maneuvered our way onto the ice and inched our way around, clinging to the rail for dear life, along with all the other small kids. 

Matt did NOT enjoy the ice skating experience.  He did, however, enjoy getting to see the Zamboni in action.  And we ventured outside for a few minutes to watch the skiers and snow boarders.

Mmmmm...donuts....

To cap off the Gatlinburg experience, we of course went to the Donut Friar to buy their super yummy donuts.  This place has been around forever and has the best donuts, especially the warm cinnamon sugar ones. 

It was a nice little road trip and a great break from sub-zero wind chills and being trapped in the house.  Charles and I have been going to Gatlinburg since we were kids, and we want Matt to have that same experience.  There are still lots of classic activities there he hasn't experienced yet - Hillbilly Golf and the mini space needle chief among them.  I'm sure we'll be back soon.