OHIO!

"O-HI-O!" Here is Andy (McAndrews!), Chris, the Colonel, Steve, and I sitting at the Colonel Sanders Museum in southern Kentucky. This is from our trip to Tennessee in July of 2004. It was quite an adventure--and it was spur of the moment (Andy, Steve, and I decided at 4:00 PM that we wanted to go to Vegas, but a one way ticket was $65 (with no guarantee of a returning flight). So we decided we'd head to the Great Smokey Mountains and we called Chris, found out he was able to go, and we left around 5:30 PM. Despite rational thinking, we allowed Steve to drive.

When we got to Gattlinburg, we stopped at about a dozen hotels to find a cheap room (Steve drove on the wrong side of the divided highway a few times and at other times made U-turns.) Everytime we stopped we would run as fast as we could to the hotel entrance yelling "Yea! We're in Tennessee!" Though it got old very quickly, we kept it up until God provided us with a hotel (possibly because He got tired of us yelling). The guy at the desk was a kind Southern Baptist gentleman, and so we got a good rate on the hotel and he told us what there was to do in the area (though he was unwilling to talk about his church's theology, but just kept saying, "It's a Southern Baptist Church.")

So the next morning we went white water rafting (I'm not sure what happend to my picture of it, but if I find it, I'll post it). It was a blast, and as we went along we kept yelling, you guessed it "OHIO!" And we also sang hymns and praise songs on our 2 hour journey. People who were in rafts around us referred to us for the rest of the journey down the river as "Ohio." At one time we all took turns getting in the near-freezing mountain water (it was only about 70 degrees that day, and we were in the shade of many trees) and getting pulled out. Thankfully we did this practice, for about 20 minutes later, while attempting to get another raft off of a rock, our raft flipped on top of us--which we later found out is quite the accomplishment, since it is one of the biggest, hardest to flip rafts (about a 1 in 1000 chance).

So, after getting out from under the raft (Steve thought for certain he was going to drown under it), we floated down the rapids until another raft picked us up and we were able to catch our raft (using proper technique of floating, of course). Then we finished the ride about 1/2 mile upstream of a level 6 falls (that is the same level of danger as Niagra--these falls are that bad because of all of the sharp, jagged rocks at the bottom of the falls).

After this, we enjoyed the rest of our time in Tennessee (even though the air conditioner in our room almost caught fire one night). We also visited a Sonic's (with a super-scary, really dark restroom), a Piggly Wiggly (not one of us had ever been to a Piggly Wiggly), and some cave where they try to rip you off. We made it back to Ohio after stopping at Kentucky's largest Christian book store, which was quite the disappointment, as their theological section left much to be desired (but boy did they have the PDL).

So, is another Tennessee trip on the horizons? Doubtful. Steve is married. Chris is busy defending the faith and advancing the truth of God's Kingdom. I am at Southern, busy studying and working. And Andy is on a crusade to put an end to the evil reign of Mullets in southern Ohio!

(By the way, this picture was taken at a point where we had been driving for about 6-7 hours. And after a week of giving the "Jimmie-finger" or just the "Jimmie" everytime we took a picture).