flummox and yesthatjill, and my cousin and her fiance south of DC. However, then the house thing happened and along with general stress and stuff, we decided that while the long road trip would have been fun, we wouldn't have come home very relaxed, so we changed our minds and decided on a shorter trip somewhere in NC. We ended up getting a cabin at the Cherokee KOA, with the idea that there'd be plenty to do in camp if we just wanted to relax, and there'd be plenty of tourist stuff to do in the area if we wanted to do that too.The trip up Monday was mostly uneventful. We stopped at Cook-out in Statesville for lunch - the first Cook-out I've ever seen with indoor seating. (Caramel cheesecake shake, noms.) Once we got up into Cherokee, things got more eventful. Google maps was less than accurate (as sometimes happens in rural areas). There was a road we were supposed to take that either 1) wasn't there 2) was there but was marked something differently than it was on Google maps [all of the roads on Google maps were marked "BIA Hwy #"; in reality, they all had names] 3) was blocked by construction. A little side trip through Great Smokey Mountain National park, realizing that we were almost in Tennessee, and calling the campground for directions later, we were there.
We'd gotten a cabin overlooking the river, and the view was gorgeous. This was also the perfect time to be up there, apparently; most school systems aren't out yet, and the campground was only half full. The munchkins that were around were terribly well behaved, and it was very quiet all week.
Monday night we unloaded the car, got in the swimming pool and the (rather wimpy) hot tub, traipsed up to the store a couple of times for things we'd forgotten (towels, citronella candles; luckily, prices were reasonable instead of set to gouge). I'd cooked up dinners for the week before we left, so all we had to do on the camp stove was heat them up. Monday night was burgers and chips and raw vegetables. :)
Tuesday we had breakfast and coffee (there was electricity in the cabin, and yes, we took the coffee pot), we went tubing, read a lot, went swimming, napped, read some more, and walked up to the pool area to use the wi-fi a couple of times. Dinner was mashed potatoes and vegetarian apple sage sausages.
Wednesday we took the shuttle into town and bopped around the small downtown for awhile, poking fun at the tourists and getting pizza buffet for lunch and ice cream for dessert. We came back to camp, and Jeff rented this weird 3 wheeled bike that he'd been wanting to try all week. I took a turn on it as well, and it was interesting... hard to balance, not bad to peddle. There was more reading and more napping, and enchiladas for dinner, and then heading out to Unto These Hills, an outdoor drama about the Cherokee, which was excellent... right up until it started raining, 5 minutes after we'd picked up after the intermission. Of course, they only issue refunds or rain tickets up until intermission. Sigh.
The next morning, it was raining off and on again, including when we wanted to make breakfast. So it was turkey sandwiches for breakfast and loading up the car in the rain before we headed home. There was Cracker Barrel for lunch (so we did get breakfast; cheesy hash brown casserole, nomnomnom), and a minor detour on the way home, as we got behind a nasty wreck, but we finally did get home. The cats were beyond happy to see us. We computed, gamed, had pizza rolls for dinner, and fell the heck over.
It was a lovely vacation, with enough relaxing and just enough touristing. The KOA was clean and the staff friendly (and mostly efficient). I'd like to go back to Cherokee, and if we do, we'll do more historical/touristy stuff.
