Vacationing in the Mountains

My family took very few family vacations when my sisters and I were young. Besides the two trips to Florida, I remember one other one. It was the summer before my sophomore year in high school. BJ would be starting to college in the fall where MA was a senior.

This time we went to Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains. The thing I remember most about this trip was that the two sisters and I dressed very similarly. We wore shorts and shirts, and somewhere along the way bought hats that matched. Our hair was short and when we put those hats on with sunglasses, we looked just alike. We were asked several times if we were triplets. I can’t tell you what that did to me, the younger sister of these two.

Both BJ and MA were very pretty and popular in high school. MA was a cheerleader, homecoming queen, and was voted “Best Looking” in her class. BJ was captain of the cheerleaders, homecoming attendant, and voted “Most Popular” by her classmates until her senior year when she was “Best All Around.” They were certainly hard acts to follow. So to be mistaken for a triplet with them was the best compliment I could receive.

We stayed in a little cabin in the woods, part of Ruff’s Motel, while we were in Gatlinburg. Once again, Mother was careful about our food, and we only ate out at night, which was a real treat for us. We almost never ate meals out at home. I also remember swimming in the coldest swimming pool I had ever been in in that little mountain town. Someone said it was spring fed and never got warm, so we couldn’t bear to stay in it for long.

Actually, Gatlinburg was only a stop on the way to bigger and better things. We were headed to Ashville, NC, to the Grove Park Inn where Daddy had some kind of convention with Met Life, his company. It is a beautiful old hotel nestled in the Appalachian Mountains with wonderful views. The weather was great, and we had a glorious time—no homemade meals there.

I do remember a formal dance, however, where my newly inflated ego was jolted back into reality. MA and BJ were dancing with boys they had met, and here I was, the skinny wallflower, sitting with my parents. Finally, Daddy, who didn’t care for dancing at all, led me out onto the floor. Looking back on it, that was a wonderful thing he did for me, and I appreciate it so much more now than I did then.

That trip was to be our last family vacation together. MA married the following summer and left the nest. But it was a great one and I wish I could scan and transfer the photo I still have of the three of us sisters with our dress-alike outfits on.