Gatlinburg

I decided to extend my trip to Gatlinburg to a zero day. There's just so much to do here and i just want to spend a longer amount of time not in my hiking shoes because of my heel and ancle pain.

Barrel, Milk Man, and I started the day off be going to this restaurant with a giant sign that says breakfast.

It was themed to the extreme. Think cracker barrel on steroids. It was actually really cool. They had giant cinamon rolls in the front bakery window that had just come out of the oven right as we walked in to get seated. Milk Man ordered one of those for breakfast. It came covered in frosting and sitting in a pool of it too. They gave us steak knives for the cinnamon rolls. 

I ordered the fried cinamon roll which is essentially one of the cinnamon rolls made into french toast. Mine was topped with a cinamon glaze and whipped cream. 

It was almost sickeningly sweet but I ate it all. It probably would have been better if I split it with someone but it was so very good! 

The three of us walked the strip through Main Street to catch the trolly line that would take us to the post office and the grocery store. Downtown is like a touristy beach town just mountains instead of the ocean. Games, rides, attractions. All kinds of goofy animatronics and museums, 3D rides and they even had stuff like earthquake simulators, haunted houses, and fun houses. 

I didn't take all that many photos, there was just so much to see!

After we got back Barrel and Milkman decided to pack up and head on out. I did laundry and rented the room for another night. It wasn't hard to find another hiker to split the room with. There are just hikers everywhere! I'm sharing the room with Viking tonight. He's from Denmark. Also,  Chris showed up! I haven't seen him since the NOC when he was really sick and left with Ben and others to go back to Franklin. He's splitting a room with MacGyver.

Viking and I wanted to see the aquarium which was at the other end of the strip. I ended up getting an Auntie Ann's pretzel and a Ben & Jerry's chocolate dipped waffle cone along the way.  The aquarium was pretty nice. It reminded me alot of the one in Atlanta but a lot smaller.

I got to pet some horseshoe crabs, moon jellyfish, and stingrays! I love petting stingrays so that is definitely my favorite part of the day. 

There was an out of place Pearl Harbor museum halfway through the aquarium. I have no idea why it's there though. 

On the way back I found a chocolate shop with caramel apples and i got a salted milk chocolate apple! Viking had never had one before, it sounds like caramel apples are just an American thing. I gave him a few slices (the place had sliced the apple for me)  abd he thought it was really strange. 

I saw a melting pot in the main strip and I couldn't resist. A lot of my friends back at home had just eaten there last week so I was really craving it. I decided to go! Viking joined me, a few other hikers were on the fence about coming along because there was a $10 endless appetizers at the Friday's next door. The $10 deal won them over. I still got my melting pot though!

I feel like my stomach is going to explode from the amount of food that I've eaten. I think my hiker hunger that I had in Fontana went away. It'll come back though. It's really strange to be able to eat anything and everything I want to and still be loosing weight. I'm hearing about stories about the things that skinny hikers have to do to be able to keep up, things like drinking gallons of whole  milk like Milkman, liquid calories as he calls it, or Barrel said he picked up a friend hiking the AT another year and he bought all this food at the store and an 8in 2 layer cake and he finished off in one sitting just to get the calories his body needed. It's just crazy!  Endless hunger. I find myself having to eat something every two hours on the trail because my stomach starts growling and I start hiking slower.