Today is our wedding anniversary, Liam's and mine--and while I have pleasant enough memories of that long-ago day, my favorite memories are from shortly after. Let Me Tell You About Our Honeymoon...
Liam surprised me with a honeymoon in the mountains of Tennessee. Five glorious days in a private mountaintop chalet, on the outskirts of Gatlinburg...
With the wedding behind us, we drove to our destination in high spirits. The view of the mountains on the drive was breath-taking; the chalet itself was beautiful--built of weathered logs and time-worn stone, and surrounded by a riotous garden of native wild flowers. A small goldfish pond graced the front garden, while a cozy deck with a hot tub completed the back. Lovely.
At first glance, the chalet's interior was just as lovely--shabby chic/French country décor, plush carpets of mauve and grey, a huge stone fireplace just begging to be lit, a quaint kitchen with copper pots hanging from an iron pot rack...Wonderful!
The rest of the chalet was a little less "lovely" and a little more "strange". The master bedroom was dark, decorated in shades of burgundy, the only furniture in it a waterbed. Not just any waterbed-- the Original Waterbed (meaning the first one ever made), with NO baffles and not nearly enough water in it. The 2nd bedroom was microscopic, decorated in faded pink and drab grey; it had an ancient bed, bigger than a "twin", smaller than a "full", with an depressingly saggy mattress. Oh well. It was only for a few nights... The only remaining room was the bath, which had a blushing pink toilet hiding shyly in one corner, and a gaudy pink heart-shaped tub sitting in the center of the floor... but NO sink. And NO shower. And for whatever reason, an industrial-type drain was built into the floor. Even stranger...
Ever the optimists, Liam and I stowed away our luggage in the quirky little cottage, and headed into town for groceries and a little sight-seeing. (Gatlinburg is a resort town with a lot of shops and restaurants, as well as scenic mountain views.) Gatlinburg has trolleys for conveniently getting around town, and we had great fun, jumping on and off whenever something caught our eye. The fun screeched to a halt when the skies opened up and torrents of rain proceeded to drench everything in sight. Dripping and laughing, Liam and I jumped off at the next trolley stop--and our car was nowhere in sight. Wrong street. When we finally found the car, we were soaked to the skin...
With teeth chattering, we drove back to the chalet-- only to find that the heat system was disconnected. Geez Louise! While I sloshed around putting up our groceries, Liam opened the damper and proceeded to build a roaring fire in the fireplace. (Thank goodness they had dry firewood!) Suddenly the air was filled with thick, billowing smoke, filling the rooms from the ceiling to a foot above the floor. Coughing, I crawled on hands and knees to the front door, where I found Liam gasping and waiting...
Apparently the lunatic that built the fireplace didn't build the chimney tall enough to draw the smoke out. Sheesh! Poor Liam had to grab a pail of water from the goldfish pond, cover his face with his tee shirt, run in and douse the fire. Then he opened all the doors and windows, and stood shivering outside until the smoke cleared. Cold, wet, and covered with smoke and ash, we finally went back inside.
Kindly, Liam suggested I grab a hot shower first, as there was no other way to get warm. But wait--No Shower. Settling for a hot bath instead, I grimaced at the lurid pink tub, cut the hot water on, and waited for the tub to fill. Minutes later, as I was sorting through clean clothing, water suddenly covered my feet. Yikes! The tacky tub was leaking all over the floor. Well, that explains the DRAIN!
I broke the news to Liam, who then suggested maybe we could just wash the worst of the soot and grime off in the hot tub in back. (The rain had stopped by now.) So we gathered up towels and traipsed outside to the hot tub....Guess what?! The Hot Tub was COLD. Not just cold-- icy mountain stream cold...Bummer. Poor Liam blew his top. "The hot tub is cold, the fireplace won't work, and the tub is 'working' all over the damn floor! What next?!"
I guess those two words are never harbingers of anything good. Cold, exhausted, and still very dirty, we decided just to call it a day...Bedraggled, we headed for what we thought was the lesser of the two evils-- the waterbed. ( Keep in mind that Liam weighed 225, and I weighed 114. And that the low-water bed had no baffles.) To put it mildly, we tossed and turned a lot. Liam turned--I tossed. Every time Liam turned over, a giant tsunami wave of water bore me up and tossed me over the side. I kept waking up in mid-air, shrieking, and then slamming onto the floor. It was like trying to sleep on a roller coaster that kept derailing...
Finally we gave up and tried the other bed. Worse disaster. It seems Ol' Saggy had a giant hole in the center...Every time Liam turned over, I fell in that Mattress Vortex and couldn't get out. Seriously. Leaving me with a long-lasting fear of mattress suffocation, or Sealy Suffocation Syndrome...
The next morning, bleary-eyed and yawning, Liam and I stood waiting in line for a helicopter tour of Gatlinburg. So what if I was afraid of heights? After the night we had? Piece Of Cake.
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