The World According to Kelli: I've Been Missing...

So, I guess I have some 'splaining to do. I have been a bad blogger.
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Fact: I had every intention of leaving my last post up for awhile, because it was so important to me.

Fact: I also had every intention of sharing every bit of my stay-cation with you as it unfolded.

Fact: What I didn't plan to happen was to get bronchitis (which I'm still convinced is something more exotic like the bird flu or swine flu).

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Needless to say, I pumped myself with water and antibiotics, and spent the next six days in bed. On day 7, I had decided that I had had enough of the inside of my bedroom and that I wanted to go be sick somewhere else. I called up our favorite resort in Tennessee and they had a cabin in the mountains calling our name!

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Even though it felt like I was breathing knives and jet fuel, I somehow managed to get my dog to the boarder, the cat to my mom's, and enough clothes for a 3 week trip together (although I was only going to be gone for 4 days).

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Thursday morning, we got on the road. We were just south of Lexington, KY when this happened.

Yep - That's my new friend Mike from AAA fixing our flat tire.

I guess I left one small detail out of my story. And that is that my husband is on crutches right now with bad ankles. Don't ask me what's wrong with him, because we don't really know. It's something between Rheumatoid Arthritis and Gout, where his joints will swell up and get really painful. He also tends to get these attacks when it's time for me to go on vacation (which is a whole other blog post). Either way, my husband was not in any shape to fix the flat tire. Thank goodness, we just renewed our AAA membership. Just for the record, AAA responded within 20 minutes and had us back on the road in less than 40 minutes. So, renew your membership today!

Needless to say, we got to our haven. If you ever plan on going to the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area, don't! Stay in the village of Cobbly Nob village. It's about 20 minutes Southeast of Gatlinburg near the North Carolina border. It's close enough to Gatlinburg if you want to get dinner or visit the shops. It's also far enough away, so there isn't the traffic, light, and noise. Cobbly Nob is a secluded mountain cabin village and it's absolutely heavenly.

This was the view that I woke up to each morning. As we were in the Smoky Mountains, the clouds would roll out in the mornings and roll back in come sunset. These tree-covered mountains are simply beautiful and serene.

This is actually the mountain chapel that I got married in. Every time we come back here, my husband and I make sure to stop. It's absolutely gorgeous, quaint, and secluded.

We are both history buffs. We always try to visit historical landmarks, wherever we go. For this trip considering neither of us were 100%, we decided to visit Cade's Cove in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Cade's Cove is a stunning isolated valley that was settled in 1819 by John Oliver. The population grew to more than 700 before the government took it over for the park. There is an 11 mile car trail you can drive through to see this gorgeous place. Here is a panoramic view of the valley (courtesy of Wikipedia, considering I only had my iphone with me).

Religion played a huge part in the Cove. Most of the population was Baptist, although there was a small Methodist church we visited as well. Inside one of the primitive Baptist church's I found this bible. When I started flipping through, there were all kinds of handwritten notes of people requesting prayer. There were also notes from others saying that they had prayed for the needs. We added our own prayer request and prayed for the requests in this picture.

The mountain air did me "good". I started to feel much better. We spent the next 2 days doing some light hiking and explorin'. This was one of the gems we came across near Brierwood. We ate lunch here and played on the rocks and splashed in the water like a couple of kids. Doesn't that mountain water look refreshing?