French Lick Springs Hotel

We decided to take a 4-day weekend and head down to French Lick Springs, about 3 hours south, southeast from Indianapolis. Despite having grown up nearby, Anita has never been there. Nor had I.


What a fantastic hotel. Everything was just great, from the room to the atrium.

We ate at the 1875 restaurant in the hotel. The food and service was great. Anita had the filet, with broccolini and garlic mashed potatoes. I had the prime rib, broccolini and asparagus. Yum! (As a note, the sides are huge... Don't be afraid to share them!)

After dinner we walked down to the casino and played slots for a few hours.

I made sure that the girls from The Shining weren't in the hallway before we headed out. Just kidding... but it does kinda look like the same place as in the movie (the Overlook Hotel), doesn't it?

Fortunately, they do have a non-smoking section in the casino, and it's rather large. We didn't win, but we didn't lose much either.

We had a great time. We'll be returning again in warmer weather to walk the awesome grounds at the hotel, and to take in the nearby railroad museum. We'll also go to the nearby West Baden Springs Hotel.

On the way back home we decided to take the backroads and ended up hitting some fairly thick fog along the way. The fog was frozen to the trees and roads, making it more fun than I had bargained for. Still it was eerily beautiful.

Carr's Cottages, Gatlinburg TN

When we were in Gatlinburg last weekend we stayed at Carr's Cottages, just up the hill out of town. We really enjoyed our stay there.

We rented a one bedroom cottage (with kitchenette) along the river.


Although were weren't but 50 feet from the highway we couldn't hear the traffic (except when really loud Harley's went by) because of the sound of the waterfall. I spent many an hour sitting out on the porch with a cold beverage listening to Twit podcasts.

If you go, I'd recommend getting a room or cottage along the river. It's really quite nice. And you can't beat their prices.

There are places you can sit and have fires, or read, or whatever.

Carr's has a nice playground area and pool.

All the folks at Carr's were pleasant and helpful. No wonder they came so highly recommended. The only thing I might complain about is that they don't have Wi-Fi.

Cades Cove Great Smoky Mountains National Park

We just got back today from a long weekend trip to Gatlinburg. Neither of us had ever been there before and we had a great time. We went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and took the Cades Cove tour which is an 11 mile self-guided drive. We drove into the park and followed a winding river for several miles before we got to Cades Cove. We pulled over several times to enjoy the river view.

The first sign of wildlife we saw was this little deer beside the road.

We first stopped at the John & Lucretia Oliver place, the first Euro-American settlers in Cades Cove arriving in 1818.

There were several other buildings along the way including churches, barns and log homes. Our next stop was at the grist mill which is still in use today grinding corn. It was reminiscent of the Metamora grist mill.

When we got to the old smokehouse, there was a sign that warned you that there were snakes in the area and I spotted these guys.

We saw a bunch of cars stopped in front of us and everyone was going into the woods. We got out and followed the herd. There was a momma bear and two little bears, but we could not get a good picture because she was hiding behind a log with her cubs. Later on our journey, we saw this little guy. He was pretty close to the car, but these are the best shots I could come up with as I was excited to see a bear in the wild and couldn't get the camera on.

We will definitely go back. We'll post more from our trip soon.