The Griswolds, we are not...

Ah, the relaxation of vacation...Or, broken down into more verbose terms...the stress and craziness of packing everything up, the uncomfortableness of a long car ride, the stress and craziness of getting settled into your vacation spot, a rush of a few days of grat fun, the stress and craziness of getting everything RE-PACKED, the uncomfortableness of another long car ride, then back to reality.

This year's adventure journey found us going tent camping in Pigeon Forge, TN for a week. The trip went pretty well...we had some stressful moments, like Noah picking this week to begin the typical 2yo tantrums, sleeping (the first couple nights were a bit rough, but by the last 3, I had a good routine down where we waited until 8:30-8:45 for bedtime routine and it went about as clockwork as it does at home. Napping was a different story), the campsite in general...but we had a lot of fun at Dollywood and Splash Country, we did a bit of random exploring which was cool, and the view of the Smoky Mountains was great pretty much EVERYWHERE you went.

I won't get too much into the play-by-play though...this blog entry is going to focus on two or three gripes that came up during the trip...

1. The Natural Bridge - This is, as the name says, a natural archway crated by Cedar Creek which is about 200 feet tall. You see a lot of signs for this coming down I-81, and we decided on the way there, how often are we really going to be here? Let's check this out. Well, after driving about 5 miles, you come to the "Natural Bridge Entrance Building", which is where you can buy your 18 DOLLAR ticket to see the Natural Bridge. Seriously??? In what world can you justify an 18 dollar price to see a natural landmark? I really want to know the justification for what the 18 dollars does, other than simply make money for someone. To make matters even MORE frustrating...so we decide nevermind, let's just head back to the road. As you drive past this big canyon where the bridge is, THEY PUT UP 10 FOOT HIGH FENCES to make sure people who didn't pay can't get a glimpse of this thing. Completely ridiculous! Especially when you read about the bridge, and how it was a sacred site for the Native American Monacan tribe. So, let's celebrate how sacred it was by charging an arm and a leg for someone to see such a thing of beauty.

2. Common decency - I've been to camp sites with a shared bathouse a couple times before, so this isn't new, but it just boils to the surface for me again. We were at this camp 6 days. Literally, every day, I came across at least once a toilet that hadn't been flushed. Really? In what world does it make sense to drop your business and then just walk out saying "That's how I roll!" I mean, HOW HARD is it to turn around once you've finished and hit a damn lever! And the one time both toilets were clean, the urinal had been used as an ashtray. It's just nasty and really gets me wondering the train of thought going through the mind of whoever did that..."Eh, we pay the campsite to clean the bathroom, so they will flush it for me...Too much work for me to do it". It wasn't just the toilets either. Once or twice, I came in to find someone had just left the shower on full blast. Because clean water is this thing that we can just demand whenever we want it, it'll NEVER run out.

I guess those were my only two soapbox things that came up on vacation. To balance out the negative, I have come to really appreciate places that have splash pads. I swear, Noah could've spent 8 hours straight at the splash pads at Splash Country.