My grandson, Caleb, had a field trip with his class yesterday to Ober Gatlinburg. My daughter had to work so she couldn't chaperone. Caleb was a little leery about riding the aerial tram to the top of the mountain so she asked me to go in her place.
Caleb was so excited when we boarded the tram. The motion on the way up kind of gave him a little scare and he got pretty upset. He was insistent that he was not riding it back down, but he had no choice.
The mountains were beautiful. We were at 2700 feet elevation.
We visited the Wildlife Encounter section on Ober Gatlinburg and got to see several bears.
Mama and her two babies seemed to be the ones most photographed.
We stopped on the way to our lunch to watch some ice skaters from the Ukraine practicing. I decided the other day to start a bucket list. I think I will put ice skating on it.
One of the indoor animal exhibits had an aquarium inside a wall. You could see the aquarium on both sides of the wall. Caleb and his buddy thought it would be cute to act like they were trapped in the aquarium.
He decided that going back down the mountain, he would stand by the driver and ask questions so he wouldn't think so much about the bumps and sways over the towers. We boarded and there was an older gentlemen with a cane setting there. Caleb was scared about going back down and the man was talking to him about how it wasn't so bad going back down. We had Caleb nice and calm and then the gentleman said "There is nothing to be afraid of. What's the worst that can happen? We could die and go to heaven and that wouldn't be a bad thing." Why in the world would you tell a child that was petrified of something that he could die in it. I wanted to smack that old man. The driver boarded about that time and heard the conversation and she took Caleb under her wing and kept him calm. By the time we got to the bottom, he was talking about working there when he grew up.
The view going down was full of color. Check out the house high on the mountain.
There was the road winding through the mountains.
When we got to the bottom, the driver told Caleb to check out the machinery and gears that ran the trams. So we stopped down there and one of the employees spent about 15 minutes with Caleb answering his bazillion questions. That child is fascinated with equipment and machinery and can ask more questions than any kid I have ever seen. This employee was so nice and patient with him. Made up for the old man that almost scared Caleb to death.
We watched the next tram come in because the rest of his class was on it.
All in all, it was a great field trip.
