Afterwards, we drove along the Tennessee Scenic Highway, which took us past some stunning views, into Cumberland Gap National Park area. We briefly crossed into Virginia, where we used the public restrooms in a campground area, and into Middlesboro, Kentucky, where we stopped for lunch. The cool part about Middlesboro is that it's a city inside a meteorite crater, so we were surrounded by a ring of mountains.
We took a different, equally scenic route back to our hotel. Some of the sights from our drives:
Back at our hotel, we spent a few hours at the water park, where Julia faced her nerves and rode on the wild and crazy "Wild Vortex," which begins with a straight vertical drop inside a tube and winds around several loops before shooting the ride out to the bottom. I was okay with skipping that one!
When it came time for dinner, we Rowes had one of the creepiest, most bizarre experiences ever. We planned to eat at one of the hotel restaurants, called "The Hidden Trail." The hotel is made up of two resorts, across a busy street from each other. The restaurant we were planning to try was in the resort across the street. We had seen people taking a hotel shuttle to and from the other resort, but we figured we would just walk the short distance.
When we got across the street, we had to tread up a steep hill, at the top of which was a parking garage. There was a cacophony of shrieking sounds coming from inside the garage; my guess is that it was birds, but it sounded like a screaming banshee or howler monkeys killing each other violently. There was a random car or two parked within the garage, but otherwise no sign of humans. There appeared to be no way out of the parking garage except through a door with unspecific markings. The door opened into a stairwell, but there was no clear indication of where to go to get to the restaurant.
At this point, Julia became legitimately FREAKED OUT.
JULIA: (in rising panic) I don't want to go in there!!
We reassured her that it was fine, and we all ascended a flight of stairs and came out on the next floor of the parking garage. Again, two or three random cars were parked in the garage. Upon exiting the garage, we came to an outdoor parking lot full of cars. We even saw some signs of human life; far ahead of us, two people dressed all in black were walking towards the resort building. Unfortunately, they were no longer in sight as we got closer to the building, as if they had vanished into thin air. We walked by the resort's water park, which, unlike the one at our building, was completely abandoned with no water running.
ETHAN: (turning back to me) This is like a scene from "The Walking Dead."
ME: Uh...yeah, I know.
We entered the main building and approached the hotel's front desk. Loud music was playing over the speakers, but not a single person was behind the desk. We made our own way over to the hotel restaurant, which had a chalkboard sign saying "Please wait to be seated" beside a big sign proclaiming: "CLOSED."
Okay then. Mission "Hidden Trail" was a bust. Where were all the people?? How were there cars in the lot if everything was closed? And where does the shuttle actually take people if not to this resort??
We had to walk back through the Screaming Banshee parking lot and down the creepy stairwell again, and at this point, Julia was losing her poop with terror.
JULIA: That hotel gave me a definite vibe of clowns. Hang on. NO! I don't want to go through the parking garage again! It sounds like clowns are MURDERING PEOPLE in there!!
MADELEINE: (reasonably) No, it sounds like half-human half-kookaburra hybrids are shrieking because some person is sticking a knife up their throats, and monkeys are cheering, Julia.
We made it back to our non-haunted side of the street in one piece and decided to just re-visit one of the restaurants we liked best on our trip. And, hey, we had a little spine-tingling adventure before dinner, which made the night extra exciting!
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