Welcome to part 2 of the Summer of '08 mini trips, in which we go to Tennessee for Charles's daughter's high school graduation.
I'll spare y'all the tales of unpleasant air travel, as I'm sure it's already quite familiar. In any case, we arrived fairly late on Monday, May 26th, in terms of both schedule and time of day. C4 met us at the airport in Knoxville, and then we drove about an hour to Gatlinburg. We chilled in the somewhat peculiar hotel room (clean, but excessively patterned, plus aqua sink and tub!). Jami drove over with her boyfriend to visit briefly. Of course, big brother C4 gave him the eye. He left when they did to go stay with some friends, and Charles and I crashed out.
We tried to hook up for lunch the next day, but I think Jami was pretty busy getting ready for graduation. Charles and I had a good time wandering about town - we could walk from the hotel into downtown Gatlinburg. It was warm and humid, but not disgustingly so. Downtown is all tourist oriented. In order of frequency, there are about a billion mini-golf places, then Old Tyme Photos (one of which Charles used to work at), then pancake houses, and then assorted ventures owned by Ripley's Believe it or Not. We had lunch, strolled back to the hotel, and zonked out for a nap.
Graduation was at the convention center off main street, so we drove down to grab dinner, then headed over. The place was packed, but we found some wall space in back. There were two Salutorians and 7 or 10 Valedictorians who all gave short, similar speeches. Then they read the names of the 175ish students. You wouldn't think it would take that long, but they read off where they were headed for college (or entering the work force) and all of the scholarships they earned. Holy effing shit, that school is a scholarship machine. Every single student going to college had some scholarship money. Jami earned about $96,000. I think the highest individual take was around $250,000. The grand total haul by the class of 2008 was 8.4 million. I kid you not!
After a lot of elbowing and periscoping, we finally found Jami in the lobby. Hugs around, and some photos of course. Earlier I had asked Charles about a graduation present, and he said he was going to go with ye olde cash. When we shopped for a card, I saw some photo albums and suggested we get a small one, and put the twenties in the photos slots. Around dinner that evening, I realized we didn't have any sort of gift bag to wrap everything in, so I hit one of the many shops. Not finding any gift bags, I figured I'd look for a cool t-shirt or scarf to wrap it in and found a pretty, bright teal handmade scarf, probably from Thailand, to wrap it in. The California hippie gets one in with the eco-wrapping. Turns out, Jami is very into photo albums right now, and the scarf matched the dress she was wearing under the graduation gown. Score beaucoup points for dad's new girlfriend!
The next morning, neither of our two alarms went off and we woke up about half an hour later than we wanted to leave. We made it to the airport OK, with about 15 minutes to spare before boarding. That flight ran late, and our already tight connection was just made tighter. The landing gear of our incoming flight came out right as our outbound flight was scheduled to board. We deplaned, raced to the connecting flight, and had our tickets scanned right as they made their final boarding call. Although we made the connection, our bag did not. Continental delivered it to our neighbor the next morning.
And now, a few snaps, mostly of the curiously touristy Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg:
Tennessee was very green.
Crazy, quasi-castle themed building in progress.
One of a brazillion mini-golf places.
Not your every day pizza joint.
One of many Ripley owned buildings.
Another building in progress with no distinguishing features, except for that shark of a portal.
(psst - for you Californians out there, Tactical Outdoor Accessories = guns and knives)
Early morning, outside our motel, day of departure, May 28th.
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