Tell Tennessee Jed We A-Came

Smoky Mountains Recap

Since I like to keep promises I’ve made, I have finally completed the Smoky Mountains recap, just in time for the 8-month anniversary of the trip. I hope you’re all doing something meaningful to celebrate this important anniversary.

Wednesday, March 15
As soon as we landed in Knoxville, Luke, Kelly and I bounded off our plane to explore the airport, unaware that our every move was being studied. Apparently we breezed right past Ross hiding behind a pillar and Vilas lying on a bench with a “Holland” sign on his face. We obliviously proceeded to compare the airport’s fake boulders to the ones we’d seen in Skymall magazine and pose for a picture with a huge plastic bear (because that’s what tourists do in Knoxville), and then claimed our bags and headed to the parking lot, where we were tackled from behind by Ross and Vilas.

After putting our bags in the van, we went back into the airport to hide and wait for Vivek and Dana to arrive. Ross and Vilas decided to hide in the same positions so that Vivek and Dana would serve as a control experiment to determine just how keenly observant Luke, Kelly and I really were. The overachievers spotted them immediately.

The ride home in the soccer mom van would not have been complete without a stop at Walmart (along with a few “stop touching me” fights that led to Ross’s warnings of “Don’t make me pull this car over!”). The first injury of the trip occurred in Walmart, when Kelly attempted to kick Ross in the butt but somehow nailed him in the upper back/shoulder region instead. We decided it wasn’t exactly a case of “I didn’t know my strength,” but more like “I didn’t know my…flexibility.” Luckily we made it out of Walmart without a trip to the hospital, and the next challenge was rearranging all of our luggage to fit our snacks, drinks and Oreos in the van while singing the Tetris theme song.

At last we arrived at Bearly Heaven cabin, where the sheer number of bear-themed posters, paintings, pillows, clocks, toilet paper holders and other knick-knacks left us stunned. My personal favorite was a poster of two bears waltzing together in a sunlit grove. In a confusing turn of events, we also discovered a couple posters of deer and wolves, but Luke quickly cleared things up by explaining, “I bet the store had just run out of bear posters that day.”

Vilas and Ross presented everyone with gifts from their travels in Memphis and Nashville (or “Cashville,” as they had overheard some convicts calling it). The presents were distributed as follows:

--Gun-shaped shot glass: Kelly

--“Tequila makes her clothes fall off” T-shirt, size XL: Jessi

--Bolo tie (“for work”): Vivek

--“Do you know Jack Schitt” T-shirt: Dana (as Ross and Vilas put it, a “we don’t really know you yet” present)

--T-shirt with a big, fluffy cat wearing a cowboy hat, with “Howdy” artistically scrawled underneath: Luke


We also got a sneak preview of the gifts for the Thursday arrivals:

--Sign with a swinging donkey that reads, “Don’t smoke, dumb ass”: James

--2003 music festival shirt: Swathi (another “we don’t know you yet, but…” present)

--Nashville T-shirt, doctored with a sharpie to read Ca$hville: Sharon


The next few hours were a frenzy of playing air hockey, putting together a random puzzle we found, playing pool (apparently Dana hustled the guys), whomping people, and breaking the hot tub by trying to fit too many people in it, causing it to overflow and make some weird noise and immediately shut off. There was also an intense game of Oreo poker that I slept through, in which Kelly ate two of her “winnings” and then bit off a piece of another cookie before putting it back into play. Ross quarantined the Oreo by putting it in a plastic bag, and every time the “diseased chip” entered play, people would fold or lose hands on purpose to avoid winning that Oreo. There was also a false scare when a chipped Oreo was discovered and everyone assumed Kelly had defiled it.

Thursday, March 16:
The first two pieces of info I received upon waking up were 1) Dana had made pancakes (yay!) and 2) Ross had just gotten back from running. The conversation went something like this:

Ross (entering bedroom, heading for shower): Groaning noises
Me: How was it?
Ross (Panting): Oh, that’s a killer.
Me: How was your run? Good?
Ross: Hard to say…
(He was still panting when he emerged from the bathroom post-shower.)

A guy named Steve became our hero when he came to repair the hot tub. Also, Ross, Vilas, Luke, Vivek and Dana took a trip to the liquor store and the visitors’ center, where they picked up a pamphlet on bears and safety for Sharon. They also found a stuffed bear that made a weak “eeehhh” noise when squeezed, and that became a frequently uttered noise on the trip. Kelly and I decided to stay home during this excursion--we figured we should take it easy after our strenuous morning of sleeping in, so Kelly read on the porch while I took a nap on the couch. When everyone came back home, Kelly and I took a quick break from our resting marathon so we could all do a 15-minute power hike near our cabin, before heading to the airport to pick up Sharoni.

From the airport we went to dinner at Corky’s, which had lots of toothpicks on the table for us to entertain ourselves with while waiting for our food. A hush fell over the table as Luke revealed an awe-inspiring flying-spinning-thingy made from a toothpick.


Ross also had a shining moment when he announced, “For a BBQ place, they sure skimp on napkins,” prompting Vivek to hand him the napkin dispenser from the middle of the table and comment, “I noticed you seemed to be conserving your napkin for some reason…”

After dinner we made a valiant attempt to go to Marble Slab, but it was closed. A friendly lady who was sitting outside and eating ice cream offered us some ("y’all can have a bite if you want!”) and Sharon and I wondered if she would be surprised if we said, “Well, OK, just a taste…” Luckily, the Baskin Robbins nearby was open (barely--I think we kept the staff there an extra 5-10 minutes). Success!!

Back at the cabin, we waited for James and Swathi to show up. When they did and we finally had everyone together, Vilas and Ross bestowed their Cashville/donkey/music festival souvenirs upon the remaining trippees, and Sharon and I unveiled our “Smoky Mountains Tic Tac Toe” game of scandalous dares and challenges, and handed everyone a copy. A small victory for the Bearly Heaven cabin that night was when the hot tubbers avoided the unfortunate “Wednesday night incident” by bailing water out of the four-person hot tub to make room for more bodies.

Friday, March 17:
After a brief stop at Krispy Kreme, we set off for our white water rafting expedition. We had a quick orientation from a nice man Vivek had made the reservations with. Vivek thought his name was either Nick or Rick, so we alternated between calling him those two names. By the end, Ross had determined that the man’s name was actually Mick, so we all just hoped the guy was a little hard of hearing.

We (Mick, our guides, Mike and Lisa, and our group) all piled into a van to ride to our jumping-off point. As we were driving, we crossed a bridge above some rapids, which Mick told us were known as the “meat grinder” (and were alternatively known as “fuzzy box of kittens,” according to Mike).

We had two rafts, which were:
Raft A: James, Swathi, Kelly, Luke, and their guide, Lisa
Raft B: Vilas, Ross, Vivek, Dana, Sharon, Jessi, and our guide, Mike

The first priceless moment was when our guides were explaining what to do to keep from drowning if we fell into the water, and looks of sheer horror slowly spread across Sharon, Swathi and Kelly’s faces.

Although Mike and Lisa were married, an intense rivalry quickly developed between our two rafts. As we approached the meat grinder rapids, Mike pointed them out to us, and Vivek said, “Oh, fuzzy box of kittens?” and then added, “You know, that could also be used to describe the other raft.” As we approached the Fuzzy Box of Kittens Raft, we all began meowing (except for Vilas, who “howdy’d” at them). Ross and Vilas also hissed at their raft, and Sharon responded, “I didn’t know they were snakes!”

The ride down the river was a series of splash wars, menacing facial expressions and insults, screams from Sharon and me as cold water washed over us, and helpful advice such as, “Hey JD! Your helmet’s crooked!” and “Hey JD! Your helmet’s crooked!” Our guides also pointed out some of the town’s landmarks that we passed along the river, such as the “downtown Exxon” and the “uptown Citgo” (which were right next to each other).

When we had finished our rafting adventure, our next stop was the climbing wall. Vivek, Vilas, Dana and Ross used their boundless energy and immunity to being cold to climb up the wall a few times (and Vivek and Dana tested out the zipline at the top). The rest of us gave a collective “hell no” to climbing up the wall, preferring instead to sit in the warm van. But to show our support, we drove across the parking lot and positioned the van at the base of the wall, and every time someone started to climb or reached the top, we opened the van door, cheered, and slid the door shut again (and went back to raiding the random “road candy” we’d brought along in the van).

Our guides invited us to go back to their place and pound a few beers with them, and if we hadn’t been so tired, we would have because Mike and Lisa were really cool. Instead we decided to just eat lunch and head back to Bearly Heaven. For lunch, we opted to eat at the Beantree Cafe, which the guides recommended to us because it was a coffee shop/bar run by two sisters. We prepared a few questions to try to figure out which sister was the caffeine addict and which was the alcoholic, such as “what coffee could you recommend, that YOU like to drink?” When Sharon got up to take her drink to the condiments table, Dana asked her if she could bring honey back for her tea. So Sharon said “sure” and then, like the moron she is, mock-gestured carefully pouring the honey in a teaspoon to carry back to the table.

Also, while waiting for our food, we engaged in penny-spinning competitions. We discovered James was particularly talented at this, prompting Swathi’s advice: “Forget law school!”

EVENT: James' natural talent, impressive sure, but...


REACTION: ...apparently the BEST thing Dana's ever seen.

During the ride back home, we stopped at a scenic spot to take some pictures, and I decided I looked too tacky NOT to take a white trash picture. I tried to get others to take the picture with me, but was repeatedly told that I was in a tackiness league of my own. So, sporting my oversized “Tequila makes her clothes fall off” T-shirt and baggy gym pants, with hair shooting off in all directions, and holding a Coors Lite beer can found on the side of the road, I posed for a roadside photo that would make my loved ones proud.


Next we stopped at Food City so we could get provisions for our Bearly Heaven St. Patrick’s Day, and so that Ross could get a 50-cent temporary tattoo from the vending machine.

Back at the cabin, Vivek and Ross began bbq-ing food with the help of Vivek’s head lamp and reflective vest.


After a few rounds of Hang Man and a game of Risk, in which Swathi’s red pawns executed a communist takeover of Russia and Europe, we engaged in a highly skilled beer pong tournament. Highlights included Luke’s patented granny shot, Ross repeatedly kissing the “sweet tat” on his arm for good luck before every shot, and Luke’s “intruder face” in certain team photos.



After beer pong, we graduated to Kings. When I drew the categories card and chose “types of bears,” Sharon answered “gummy!” We also had some dares, which included:

a) Eat an Oreo soaked in orange juice and beer, covered in a heaping pile of salsa-Jessi (result: involuntarily screamed, attempted eating, gagged, spit out Oreo concoction, was saved by Swathi’s offer of gum)


b) Suck the stuffed bear’s mouth to taste the punch we had used it to mop up moments earlier--Vivek


c) Shotgun a beer-Luke (how was this lame dare part of the same game?)

d) Not so much a dare, but still gross: Sharon having to drink the King’s Cup of beer, rum and tonic, bits of Oreo, and Luke’s backwash beer that he sipped and spit back into the cup

After Kings we drunk dialed a few people (including Mama, Jen, Lisa and Erinn McNamara). There was a back massage chain, and some butt dancing courtesy of Luke, a few couch pileups, a game of asshole, and I was held hostage by Luke and his cap gun, but I have no idea in what order these things occurred. Sharon and Kelly passed out in the living room.




While in the bathroom, I heard the Olympics theme being sung by the hot tubbers. Wondering what the hell was going on, I ventured outside and found myself in the middle of the “what’s the theme song for that TV show” game. So I joined Ross, Vilas, Luke, Vivek and Dana in the hot tub. (This game continued throughout the rest of the weekend. At one point Sharon called Tammy to find out the theme for Who’s the Boss, but she couldn’t think of it. Tammy called back within five minutes--she didn’t have the answer, but needed to know the Punky Brewster theme.)

Saturday, March 18:
We spent all day hiking (in varying degrees of the word) the Chimney Rock Trail. Vivek was a model hiking trail guide, happily bouncing along the trail, but always looking out for all his fellow hikers, from Ross and Vilas in the front to Sharon and me lagging behind at what would have been deemed a “leisurely pace” if we hadn’t been panting, dizzy, and looking as if we were about to die.

About 1.5 hours into the hike, Sharon wasn’t feeling well (and I wasn’t doing too hot either), so we stopped to rest and take our time getting back down the mountain while the others continued to the top. Apparently there was an awesome 360-degree view up there, but they had to work hard to earn it--Vivek and Dana had to scramble up rocks at the end of the path, while Kelly, James, Swathi, Luke, Vilas and Ross unwittingly chose the most challenging way to get to the top--scaling a wall that pretty much made a 90-degree angle with the ground. They ate lunch at the top while taking in the glorious view. Then came the death-defying descent--they crab-walked down boulders and had a system wherein Vivek verbally coached people on where to place their feet, with Luke spotting them from the top, and Vilas on foot-spotting duty. Everyone made it down from the rocks safely, and their system improved by the end-according to Ross, at first they were telling people to wedge their heads in cracks, but by the time they got to the third person, Kelly, it was smooth sailing.

The rest of their hike down included Vilas and Ross spotting a side trail and taking it, giving the hike a suspenseful “will we ever see them again” component. When they all reunited further down the trail, Luke, Ross, Kelly and Vilas decided to abandon the trail to climb down the river, where climbing on rocks turned into hopping from wet boulder to wet boulder while fighting rhododendrons in true adventure junkie style.

Meanwhile, Sharon and I were relaxing, sitting and eating our lunch, when a man and a little boy came up the trail, followed by two black women wearing platform shoes and clothing not quite suited for hiking. The man playfully yelled back to one of them, “Complainer! Don’t worry, we’ll go to the mall after this.” Sharon and I laughed and said to the women, “It’s okay, we’re quitters too!” The women paused for a minute to pant and catch their breath, and then one of them sighed, “OK, let’s go see the beauty.” The family came down a few minutes later, and one of the women complained bitterly, “there’s no waterfall up there--it’s just some chimney rock.”

Sharon and I took our time getting back to the car, and eventually Sharon had to pee. Sharon went into the woods off the trail, and I served on lookout duty so I could tell Sharon if anyone was approaching. When I heard her making her way back to the trail I stopped staring down the path for other travelers, which resulted in Sharoni loudly announcing “Muuuuch better!” just as an unassuming middle-aged man crossed her path as she emerged from the woods.

When we reached the beginning of the trail, Sharon and I played on the river rocks for a while, taking the obligatory “oh no, we’ve fallen and are hanging on the edge of the boulder with our fingertips” picture.


We also took some pictures of ourselves jumping up and down on the bridge (Sharoni’s idea).


Then we went to sit in the car to escape the cold. We talked for a while and then decided our hard work should be rewarded with a nap, so we reclined our seats, only to be awakened from our hard-earned slumber by overachieving hikers like James and Swathi tapping on the car windows.

We figured the best way to celebrate a day of hiking was to go to Ben & Jerry’s for a Vermonster, a big tub with 30 scoops of ice cream. It was exactly what we needed, although there was an awkward moment when the tub of ice cream was set down before us and everyone was a little afraid their fingers would be bitten off in the feeding frenzy. The down side of the whole Vermonster thing was that we had to venture into Gatlinburg, home of stores that sell guns, knives and purses with Audrey Hepburn’s face on them, all in the same display case, and wedding chapels with signs like “Walk-ins Welcome.” (As James put it, “What are you doing next weekend? I dunno…getting married…..”) We also had a fruitful mullet watch in Gatlinburg-Kelly and Ross each scored a two-point fem-mullet sighting.

The ride home was full of trickery and deceit, though. I rode in the car with Sharon, James and Swathi as my allies, while the elitist van riders kept faking us out by pulling over at potential lookout points ahead of us just so our car would pull over too, and then zooming away without even really stopping. The following exchange also took place during one of these stops:

Van: Roll-down-your-window motion
Car: Rolls down window
Van: Rolls up window with “ha, suckers!” expressions
Car: Passengers roll eyes
Van: Rolls down window again, in “OK, seriously though” fashion
Car: Rolls down window, cautiously, and asks “OK, what did you guys actually want?”
Van: “…Nothing.”
Van speeds away.

We stopped at the liquor store to buy more party provisions, and in the short distance between the liquor store and the house, James decided we would stick it to the van people once and for all, and use a devious shortcut to beat them in the all-important race to the cabin. Unfortunately, this “shortcut” took us through some parking lots that required some adrenaline-filled waits behind other cars waiting to merge onto the main road back to the cabin. Needless to say, we were poster children for “there’s no shame in being last” by the time we made it home to the cabin.

Back at the cabin, we went to work cooking dinner, making several trays of Jello shots, and creating an exquisite punch. Luke, who was in charge of the punch, asked James and me to sample it several times so he could perfect his concoction. My comments were along the lines of “tastes good to me,” but James offered more helpful feedback such as “I’d say it needs more fruit juice” and “that’s better--the alcohol gives it more body.” I commented that James should have his own magazine, and James proposed Punch Connoisseur.

We ate dinner while watching Eddie Izzard on TV, and played some drinking games with the refined punch and “fresh from the freezer” Jello shots. We played an intense game of Mafia, featuring Ross in an impressive portrayal of the “god” role-the person who announces who has been killed at the start of every turn-mostly due to his colorful supply of mafia euphemisms for death (“sleeping with the fishes,” “wearing cement shoes at the bottom of the ocean,” etc.) We also turned off all the lights and played an exciting game of sardines (reverse hide and seek, where the “it” person hides and everyone else looks for him/her and hides together when they find the hiding spot). A couple of hiding spots that made it to the sardines hall of fame were:

1) The crevice between the wall and the sofa bed in the basement (due to its location within earshot of the bathroom, when James happened to enter the bathroom along with two other people and refer to it as a “red herring,” causing the pile of people hiding in the couch spot to snicker)

2) My personal favorite, when James hid between the couch and the wall at the bottom of the basement stairs, so that with each person who found the spot and joined the pile, the couch was pushed farther and farther out from the wall, until finally the remaining seekers were bounding down the stairs, sharply turning the corner, and falling over a huge pile of bodies in the middle of the floor.

When I finally went to get in bed--which I was sharing with Sharon and Ross--I had to fight off an attempted whomping. I was just getting comfy, and Sharon was already asleep next to me. I sensed danger when I saw Ross’s and Vivek’s silhouettes as they entered the room, and everything was a little too quiet. I assumed a defensive position--I was at a considerable disadvantage, being unable to see without my contacts. Turns out I didn’t need the contacts because Vivek announced his presence by giving the overhead fan a nice, loud whack with his stealthy whomping pillow before it ever touched my body. A short whomping ensued before the cowardly attackers retreated. Sharon provided me with no help whatsoever, and was left untouched by the assailants. I got out of bed to chase them, and Vivek bolted upstairs to his room like a five-year-old kid and slammed the door in fear, prompting Dana to ask, “Um…do I need to lock that?” Figuring it would be too hard to chase Vivek without my contacts in (I taught him a lesson by calling after him, “Hey…where did you go??”), I spent the next 5-10 minutes trying to kick Ross out of the bed, but I only succeeded in making him mildly uncomfortable, so I gave up and went to sleep.

Sunday, March 19:



After taking bets, we counted the number of bears in the cabin for a grand total of 97. James and Swathi left for their drive back to DC, and the rest of us headed to the airport in Knoxville. We ate lunch at the airport’s Ruby Tuesday’s, recapping our favorite moments from the trip. Ross was the first to leave, with a dramatic goodbye to Vilas of “We’ll always have Cashville!”


Ross's departure prompted this discussion:

Remaining People: “And then there were 5…no, 6…no….”
Luke: “And then there were a bunch of people who couldn’t count….”

At the start of the trip James had announced, “I hope this doesn’t make me re-think this whole ‘hating nature’ thing,” and I think we made some great strides in learning to appreciate the differences between all of nature’s creatures. James and Swathi started off the trip warning us about a “scorpion in the bathroom” that turned out to be a really big spider; by the end of the trip, they were only misidentifying centipedes as “scorpions in the bathroom.” Also, Kelly started off the trip thinking Vilas was older than Vivek because he seemed “taller and more mature,” and she spent the rest of the trip being proven wrong about his maturity.


Sharon captured it all when, looking down from her plane on the land of “Old Time Photo and Weddings” stores, endless supplies of mini-golf and go-carting places, Dollywood and Dolly’s Splash Country, and bad bear puns like “Bearly Heaven” and “Bearadise,” she captured a picture of the beautiful landscape that formed one magic word: “Poo.”