The Krauska Family Blog

Today I turned 27. The entire day was made up of driving, eating and listening to Twilight on audio books. Brandon, Brooke and I had a wonderful trip to Tennessee celebrating our anniversary and my Birthday. Brooke did such a great job traveling this far in the car. During our entire trip we ate some amazing food and visited some great places. On our way back home we stopped at the Dairy Dip and Uncles Lou’s for a second round. I think we both gained 10 pounds from all the food we ate.

After our long drive through the national park we decide to take a short drive around the park that was near our hotel. I was determined to see black bears because several people had said they had seen them. I said out loud “Bears, Bears, Come out Bears” not 30 seconds later Brandon yelled “CUB.” I looked ahead and there right in front of our car crossing the street were 2 baby black bear cubs. I looked around and then saw the momma bear. I told Brandon to put the car and reverse and that is what he did. We parked and got out and took some amazing pictures and video of these 3 bears. There were other people around and these bears were not afraid or aggressive at all. It was such a beautiful sight to see these bears in the wild. I was thrilled that my hope of seeing bears came true. This made the trip for all of us. After our short drive and adventure with the bears we ate dinner in town at Bubba Gump Shrimp and again walked the town some.

We arrived in Gatlinburg around dinner time. We first went to our hotel which was surrounded by trees and mountains. The view was amazing. After checking in we rode the towns trolley down to eat dinner. We were planning on eating at the aquarium but the restaurant they had there was only open for lunch. So we made our way down the main street of the town and found a place that claimed to have homemade Italian food. This was the worst food we had eaten during our entire trip. But hey one bad meal isn’t so bad. After dinner we just walked around town and went to several of the little shops they had around. This town is very much so a tourist trap. Good thing Brandon and I caught onto that, lol. The next morning we ate at the wonderful Pancake Pantry. After that we made our way up the mountain and rode the Aerial Tramway. This was very fun and again had beautiful views. After this we drove to the Smokey Mountain National Park and drove around, played in the creek and enjoyed the great outdoors.

We arrived in Nashville stopped at Bobbie’s Dairy Dip for some Strawberry shortcake and fudge cake. After this we made our way to the Opry Land Hotel and the Grand Ole Opry. Once we got there the Grand Ole Opry was closing so we walked over to the Mall for Brandon to visit the Gibson store. Here he got to play several guitars and found the one he thinks he wants for Christmas. It was so fun to watch him play some really amazing instruments. After the mall we headed over to the Gaylord Opry Land Hotel to look around. This hotel is beautiful and Huge!! Once we were done there we were unsure of where to eat but I found a place called Monell’s on Yelp so we headed that way. This place was AMAZING. It was family style eating where you also sit with strangers. The food was awesome and another guest gave us a buy one free coupon. If you ever go to Nashville this is a MUST to eat at. So while in Nashville we took a tour of the old Grand Old Opry which is called the Ryman theater. We also took a backstage tour here. This was very interesting and informative. After the Ryman we went back to the new Grand Ole Opry and went to the Museum. Once we were done with the museum we headed off to the Great Smokey Mountains.

Today we arrived in Memphis Tennessee. We stopped and ate at a fried chicken place called Uncle Lou’s. We heard about this place from watching food network so we were very excited. We both ordered a 3 piece meal and man this was the BEST fried chicken either of us had ever eaten. The rest of our stay in Memphis we went to Mud Island which was not very much fun till I bought a little sail boat for Brooke and we mad it float down the river. We also went to the Gibson factory but just looked around. Brooke was too young to go on the tour. We also ate at a few BBQ places that we also heard about on food network. We ate at Corky’s and had ribs that were outstanding. While in Memphis we also visited Graceland. Both Brandon and I had been there as children so it was fun to go back as adults and revisit. It was a lot smaller and closer to the road than both of us remember. I guess as kids things look bigger than they really are. With our Memphis check list down we then headed off to Nashville.