Day 6

The beginning of the day was nice, we slept in past when we wanted...but we were able to go to a nearby gym for no extra pay. Corey and I have been attempting to not only walk around each town at a decent pace, but exercise when we get the chance. (thanks Bergman's for letting us exercise with you in Memphis!) We sweat a lot more out here when we exercise! (and I don't think it is because we are working out harder than normal!)

We visited University of Tennessee in Knoxville before heading off to our next location. It was a beautiful campus, lots of brick buildings (that seems to be a trend as we go toward the east coast!). Corey was happy to take a closer look at the Architecture Department. We were able to talk with a graduate student who gave us the low down on what the graduate program was like.

We really enjoyed our stay in Knoxville. It was a fun town—but we were ready to move on to our next conquest: Clemson University in South Carolina. This leg of the trip would have to be our favorite part of our driving so far. We drove through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park for two hours of green tree-flocked mountains. (no reading happened during this part! just enjoyment with fun music as the background) Donna was a bit crazy dancing along to a new CD we just bought by the artist Adele. Corey was quite amused at the silly spectacle! It was a surprise to go through this area, as we had thought it would take us more north, but we were glad to follow what our GPS said as it led us to such a lovely stretch of curved highway. (though we could have done without the slow-pokes in front of us! Corey made sure they knew we thought so, as our car silently "winked" at them.) Toward the end of the drive we dipped through the corner of Georgia and realized it when we saw a sign that read, "Welcome, we are glad you have Georgia on your mind!" So, we unwittingly travelled through yet another state! (for 20 minutes or so) Yahoo! 

One spot we stopped at along the way was a Russell Stovers Outlet. Could we pass up that opportunity? Oh no! It would be a dear mistake. We purchased some yummy chocolates and received a hand-full of free chocolate squares. I think the ladies working there thought Corey was charming (which he is) but Corey insisted that they enjoyed both of us as we discussed our travel plans with them. Below is a picture of this outlet with an important message on their bags.

We saw some crazy side-attractions all along the drive before we got to the National Park. Some examples (of the 40+ odd children's attractions) are: mini-golf, go-carts, laser tag, water slides, arcades, themed restaurants, candy stores, and multiples of the like. All of which had large colorful statues of some sort to lure the vacationing families to their specific location. We passed through that with our jaw dropped down in amazement at the bombarding displays. To top it all off, at the end of all of this, was Dollywood! If only we had known...we could have planned extra time to enjoy the themepark. Though one called "Dollywood" named after Dolly Parton frightens us. Are their big hair attractions? One of the places we saw is pictured below. We just couldn't drive past this one without a picture! Corey was talking to a UofT architecture director while posing for Donna's photo-moment. Needless to say, he was quite distracted from the phone call and Donna called out poses for him to display! (Corey is such a good sport!)

We eventually made our way to Clemson; looking forward to the school and its surroundings. As we were enjoying the surrounding scenery...after 5 minutes we realized we had already hit the edge of town. What?!! We were aghast at the realization that this so called "town" was no more than the University itself (which seemed to mostly consist of sports complexes) and a VERY small "downtown" area. Every other little shop seemed to be colored the ghastly school colors of orange and purple (and that blasted paw print they call a logo). We blinked and almost missed it! Yikes! 

To redeem the time here, we went to the Botanical Gardens (Donna needed to be satiated by pretty things). Unfortunately there is a drought there as well as a very unattractive landscape that they dare call "gardens". Aside from viewing really cute tiny turtles wiggling in a stinky, stagnant pond, Donna was not satisfied—mainly looking a sad, thirsty trees (as was the one pictured below). So we fled the scene, moving on to bigger and hopefully better locations for schools. It might be a little obvious that we weren't impressed at this location.

Having made the decision to split from Clemson, we carried on to Charlotte, NC—hoping to see something worth seeing. We arrived at night, and happened upon a great hotel deal (thanks priceline.com!). Entering our 9th floor hotel room and flicking on the lights—we saw a startling sight! (or we should say we saw a startled MAN in BED!) We had been given keys to an already occupied room! Stunned, we quickly apologized and ran to the elevator to fix this mix-up (forgetting to turn off the light that was rudely interrupting an innocent man's sleep). Though, Donna thought it was a maid or hotel bellman who slipped into an unused room for a cat nap! We were given another room and gained a free deluxe breakfast out of the ordeal. Nice! We will be enjoying that in the morning! (no, the picture below was not taken of our startled friend in our hotel room, but hey, it made you guys read about it to find out!!) But we are glad that this was NOT the case! Thankfully we arrived at bedtime!