Saturday night to Tuesday, Gatlinburg to Seattle

Saturday to Tuesday, Gatlinburg to Seattle
Saturday, and SundayWe should mention that once again we happened to be in the centre of holiday action: this has been Memorial Weekend – similar to our Anzac Day, except simply everyone decides to go on a 4-day weekend; so we had the crowds in Newark, flying off Thursday night; then we had the crowds and the traffic in Gatlinburg, a holiday destination for many. The traffic was really funny – it's a 4-lane main street but it was much faster to walk than to be in a car: it was inch by inch, bumper to bumper for the cars.
The concert was once again a great mix of all our favourites, plus some who are new to Homecoming events. One was a family of 6 who all have the most amazing voices, play various instruments and are soaked in musical talent (Collingsworth). As usual there was opportunity to meet and greet afterwards, so I added some more autographs and a couple of pictures-with-the-stars to my collection (which Graham very graciously and patiently endured! The concert didn't finish till 10.45, so it was a pretty late night again.
Sunday
Sunday worship service was so refreshing: the first time we've been to a corporate worship gathering in ever so many weeks. When you have a convention centre with 50 top singing artists and 3500 willing participants, “How Great Thou Art” lifts the roof off! There was a local church choir of about a dozen young people and their voices were amazing too: in all, a feast of heavenly surround-sound. The preacher was Steve Brown: his message was engrossing and he has the most incredible, gravelly bass speaking voice.
Sunday night's concert was a real celebration of the whole weekend; the idea of Family Fest is that the artists all have their families with them (the youngest was a few days old) and everyone who loves the Gaither stuff just gets together to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy their favourite artists. It's also a weekend where often some of the artists share their story of struggles or family happenings, so by the Sunday night, everyone is feeling like family, celebrating a wonderful gathering. The first half of the program was a continuation of the artists doing their thing, then after a very short break, they all relaxed and sat on the stage together for a wonderful singalong which just went on and on because no-one wanted to stop. The last 10 mins, they got all their families to come up on stage as well – the kids are gorgeous and very comfortable in the limelight, because that's the atmosphere they're growing up in.
So that's the end of a weekend that we've been anticipating for about 14 months: we've been greatly blessed by all we've experienced.
Monday morning.
Up early this morning for our taxi to take us back to Knoxville airport (about an hour's drive) for our flight to Denver then Seattle. The Smokey Mountains are so pretty to drive through, little valleys, beautiful trees, green everywhere and early in the morning the mist hangs down into valley and around the mountains like puffs of angel hair, soft and floaty. Had a lovely day with Rick and Barb. Damien and Matt, their sons, and two of Damien’s girls came for dessert; then Rick opened a nice bottle of port – our tradition renewed!
Tuesday
We went for a long drive to Rosario Beach, via Starbucks, of course! A beautiful, tranquil place where they’re really working on regenerating the environment. There were only a couple of other people there, so it was so quiet. The trees on the way are so beautiful, so many different colours; everything is in bloom, blossoms everywhere. On the way home we took the car ferry, adding another pleasant experience to the day. We’ve just taken Rick and Barb out for dinner to a restaurant called Kangaroos and Kiwis: we had pies for dinner! Great décor, with footy jumpers around the walls, AFL on the TV and the lavatories were marked “Blokes” and “Sheilahs”!