Tuesday in Tennessee

Yesterday was a relaxing day and we enjoyed it. We slept late, tired from our trip up the previous day. Then we ate ate lunch at one of my favorite places, Applebees. This, by the way, breaks a cardinal rule of the road for me. I have a rule that you do not eat at a restaurant that you can eat at back home. I think Paul Franks or Danny Dodd introduced this road rule to me, but I'm not sure. Anyway, Paul's in Lithuania and can't defend himself at the moment if I'm wrong! (Prayers for Paul, please, as he leads a week of Bible camp with Lithuanian children.) We enjoyed lunch, followed by a walk around a big nice clean K-Mart. Our Pascagoula K-Mart closed a good while back before the storm, and I miss it so much! That other well-known Mart is so crowded and all the aisles are so jam-packed with merchandise that you can barely get around in there. Maggy and I decided to rent a car and on our anniversary (today) drive over to Sevierville for a visit. We rented a Dodge Stratus which is perfect for short people. I keep banging my head when I get in. Maybe it's better for skinny people. Or short skinny people. Anyway, I won't be purchasing one anytime soon. My Chrysler minivan is much more suitable to me. Am I being grumpy this morning? I'm blogging before coffee...that's the reason! There are 17 people in our group at the camp - 2 more than will fit in the Ocean Springs van safely. So we drove out yesterday evening and picked up three of our kids and followed them to the place Trent picked out for us to eat. He chose Outback. Evidently he doesn't know that road rule! Nonetheless, we enjoyed a meal at our table with Trent, Will, Brittany, and John Robert. Trent then needed to stop at that other Mart (the crowded one that is Charlie Whitfield's favorite place - you'll have to search HIS BLOG of April 3, 2006 for that reference). Afterwards, we followed them back to the camp and enjoyed our trip back to the hotel. Especially the part where we got lost. This morning we are going to get some breakfast and drive over to Sevierville. I'll report on our trip either tonight or tomorrow. The kids had a blast on the white water rapids rafting yesterday. They were all very excited. They all managed to stay in the raft except for one, and she was perfectly safe with helmet and life jacket. In fact, she'll have a better story to tell than the rest of them! They later swam in a lake, and they enjoyed that also. The heat index here for today is 111, so I hope everyone stays hydrated and takes breaks along the way. We certainly will!