Yes. I did it. I went to Dollywood on the 4th (after all, everything else is closed), and I loved it. If you didn't know, my favorite rides are rides that resemble roller coasters but involve water. Dollywood has more of those than Disneyworld. In fact, that's basically what Dollywood is all about -- see the picture. Actually, Dollywood is about the Smoky mountains, and for a theme park, I was suprised at the amount of actual artistry Dollywood had going on. There was a Blacksmith's shop where you could watch blacksmiths work and purchase their items. And it's not what you think, their items were not all butterflies and hokey Dollywood stuff. Rather, they were useful items -- like hinges. They were beautiful, but terribly expensive. Dollywood also had a glassblower's shop, a pottery shop, and a musician's shop that featured authentic items. Dollywood is a problematic place on the Baudrillard scale. After all, the buildings were made of actual weathered wood, and the chapel must have been original to the area. I don't really know what to make of it in terms of postmodern theory. After all, the roofs were made of real cedar shingles!

While we were there, our friend Jeff (who we were staying with) met a young deaf boy and tried to sign with him (Jeff is a deaf interpreter). The young boy of about 5 years had difficulty signing his name in letters, and Jeff found out that the boy attended the Palmer School, which is a school for special ed. students -- not for deaf children. I'm sure that this kind of thing happens all over the country in areas where children do not have easy access to a deaf school. Still, it reminded me of the poverty and bad health conditions I encountered while living in Tennessee. Remember my trip to a Knoxville dentist where I was told I had the best set of teeth the hygenist had seen? Yeah, my hygenist in NY thinks "not so much." Or the trip to the other dentist who told me I had nine cavities and needed two crowns? Yeah, the second opinion I immediately got from my childhood dentist in MA also said "not so much."

Anyway, back to the vacation. We were in Tennessee from Monday night to Friday morning. Monday night we didn't do anything too spectactular. We just visited Market Square, which has transformed from an abandoned outdoor shopping place to a locale teeming with delicious restaurants and funky shops. We ate dinner at a place called Koi -- apparently it's a chain (we didn't realize) featuring Thai fusion. It really wasn't all that great. Then on Tuesday, we went kayaking on the Hiawassee river. Mike and I had a two person floating kayak, and we kept getting stuck on all the rocks. It was definitely a workout getting unstuck. After that we visited the Sweetwater cheese farm and purchased some Tomato Basil Cheese. Delish. At night we ate at my favorite restaurant in Knoxville -- The Tomato Head. I am still relishing that first bite of pizza. I can't even tell you how wonderfully fresh their pizza is. I don't know what they do to it, but it's tasty.

We had drinks at La Costa with many of Mike's old work friends. On the 4th, after Dollywood, we ate at LaCosta, which was delicious. Every night I would look at the bill and laugh because dinner for 3 people came to $30. Unbelievable.

Thursday started out by a visit to Mike's former boss's (and mine for a short time too) house. It was quite beautiful as the entire back wall was made of windows which brought in an incredible amount of natural light. Then I went to the law firm and had fun seeing people I worked with five years ago. I was amazed at how many people had left. I guess that since a lot of the older secretaries retired, there is more turnover with the new secretaries. Thursday night we ate at another old haunt of ours called Sunspot -- though I was disappointed that they no longer had raspberry lemonade. That night we saw Sicko, which I highly recommend...though Jeff mentioned that the information given about cochlear implants is somewhat tainted. Anyway, if you have seen it, and are interested in moving to France, let me know. Perhaps we can look for flats together.

En finale, we left for NY. On the way down and back up we stayed at an absolutely gorgeous inn in Virginia. Let me know if you are ever passing through Virginia on 81. I highly recommend this place -- especially for romantic getaways.

And the sign on the Broadway Baptist Church had an advertisement for a 4th of July picnic.