My husband, love him, planned a day for us at Dollywood, “the friendliest place in the south” yesterday.  I’m an East Tennessean now and I needed to have the experience.  Now, I can say I’ve been there and done it.  And…that is enough for me!After being reminded that I don’t care for upside down roller coasters, Blane was determined to get me on one (they have two).  Oy.  I discovered that I just don’t care for roller coasters at all anymore.  It’d been a long time since I’ve been in a theme park, and you know, I’m just not a thrill seeker.  My kind of thrills come from accomplishing a goal I set for myself (like a half-marathon).  Boring, I know.

The trick, I discovered, was to keep my eyes closed.  For the entire ride.  That way, I had no idea what crazy angle from which I may have been dangling.  Afterward, we looked at the lovely pictures taken during the ride and it was hilarious.  Blane had a look of sheer enjoyment on his face while I had my eyes scrunched closed as tightly as possible, my head bent down, and a death grip on the harness. I was just trying to keep from getting whiplash and my brains bashed around, thank you very much.  Not to mention preventing potential bruises.

My poor husband.  His boring, unadventurous wife was thrilled to ride the carasouel, “a mild thrill attraction,” as well as the bumper cars and flying elephants (aka Dumbo at Disneyworld).

All in all though, it was a fun day because we were together.  He is my favorite person to spend time with even if we are getting whiplash and a good brain sloshing.   It meant so much that he took the time to plan the day and wanted me to have a good experience at a place that brought back to him so many childhood memories (like running from security with a weighed down fanny pack from taking money from the fountains, sigh).

We missed our kids and were excited to see them in the evening!

This weekend has brought more fall-like weather…I opened the windows and daydreamed of apple pie, hiking in the Smokies (our next kid-less day date), camping, and football (I don’t necessarily enjoy watching it, but it means fall is here).  And I made a mental note of the soups I hope to prepare when the cooler weather is here to stay.

what a crew!