"Where in the world are you?"

As you know, we try to post something about Gatlinburg every four days.  We're a couple of days late, but we have a good excuse.

Phyllis and I are in Dallas, Texas.  We left home two weeks ago and still have another week to go before we get home.  We've driven over 2,000 miles and still have a thousand more to go.  We're getting to see Marcia and her family (Marcia, as you know, handles our reservations and other Gatlinburg work - so we're getting some Gatlinburg work done).

But our trip has other other purposes.  I (Dave) spent several days in Illinois at an event sponsored by Delta One Leadership Institute (www.DeltaOneLeadership.org).  About 30 people joined together to "InterACT with Bill Pollard" (Chairman Emeritus of ServiceMaster).  The photo shows how we spent our day together in discussion of values-based leadership and other topics.  Write to me if you want more information.

Our reason for being in Dallas is to participate in Board meetings for Christar - a mission sending agency (www.Christar.org).  Tonight, we'll gather with about 150 friends to celebrate a group of new missionary candidates being accepted into the mission family after they have just completed two weeks of intensive training.  Tomorrow, we hope to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

What does this all have to do with Gatlinburg?  Not much!  But we thought you might like to know what we've been doing.  We'll get back to Gatlinburg in our next post. 

Calendar Photo for June

Wow - here it is the middle of June and we haven't even shown you our June Gatlinburg calendar photo yet!  Here it is:

Unfortunately, this isn't the whole family.  John and Marcia and their boys were not with us on this trip.  But here's the group (from left) - Tim (Angie's husband), Kathy (our oldest), Kyle (Kathy's son), Phyllis, Lindsey (Kathy's daughter), Drake (Tim and Angie's oldest), Kelcie (Tim's daughter), Adam (Tim and Angie's youngest) and Angie.

This was taken at All Decked Out.  If you have been there recently, you know that the picture is a couple years old - because the couch is our old leather sectional and the walls are still yellow.  If you want to see what the main room at All Decked Out looks like now, just go to our website at www.SmokiesRentDirect.com/All-Decked-Out.  You can look through our photo album and see different views.

Of course, you can actually GO to All Decked Out and see the new layout personally!  Now is the time to make your fall reservations, because we still have great dates available.  Then you can take your OWN family picture there!

And the answer is...

We had a couple of guesses on our last post about the octagonal window.  Where is it?  Take a look:

It's the window just above and to the right of the front door.  This window is just to the right of the entrance to the queen bonus room, right over the little ledge.

Now do you remember?

Where is this?

Great captions, folks, on our last post about the bear.  Thank you!

Now, let's try something a little different.  Where is this?

I will give you a hint:  The picture was taken somewhere around Smoky Mountain Tower.  So if you've ever stayed at Smoky Mountain Tower, this should be easy.




And it's no fair to ask Marcia or Angie about this.   Let's see how many of you can figure it out!

And your photo caption is...

This photo was sent to us by Joy - one of our guests.  She took the photo down the road from All Decked Out.

This photo is just BEGGING for a caption!  So let's see how creative you can be.  I can hardly wait to see what you will come up with!

And please pass this along - let's see how many captions we can get!

There is no room in the inn, BUT...

Today is the last day of May.  If you look at our availability calendars for All Decked Out and Smoky Mountain Tower, you will see that we are almost completely booked from now until July 28.  The only exceptions are at Smoky Mountain Tower:
   -June 11-12
   -June 19-20
   -July 1-2

August isn't full, but it's filling up.

BUT - there is good news.  We are WIDE OPEN starting in September.  That means you can get your first choice of dates for this fall and even for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Of course, you can do like a lot of other folks and wait until the last minute to make your Gatlinburg reservations.  But if you do that, it's very possible - based on our reservation history - that you will be disappointed.  So we hope you will do the smart thing and make your reservations NOW for your fall and winter vacation.

See you in Gatlinburg this fall!

Hijacked!

If you're reading our posts on our blog, this is all going to be news to you.  But if you keep up with us via Facebook, you know that Phyllis and I took a 'business trip' last week to check out another way to vacation.  Yeah, we took a cruise - because it's the only way we know to get away from the phones and email!  Fortunately, our two daughters, Marcia and Angie, kept everything going for us.

But wouldn't you know it.  We leave town for a week and Angie hijacked our Facebook page to tell you about a boogie board, of all things.  It's even something we could have used at one of our beach stops!

Actually, promoting this boogie board on our Gatlinburg page is not so far fetched.  You might be able to use it at Dollywood Splash Country - http://www.dollywood.com/waterpark.aspx.  This is just one more reason to come to Gatlinburg.  See you there ... boogie board and all!