By Josh Singletary
Gatlinburg, Tennessee is a place you have to experience at least once in your lifetime. Scenic highways, great restaurants, fun attractions, music, nature – LOTS of nature. There are also many large events and the Gatlinburg Convention Center is home to many of them.
Now, if you’ve ever been to Gatlinburg, or even the convention center, you’ve noticed the parking situation is, well, interesting – there is a lot of walking to be done. However, the city has made it work and it really isn’t as bad as you may think.
If you’ve been to see a large scale music event at the convention center, you may have asked yourself, “where are all the busses?” The architects were very smart to build an open lot through a tunnel to an enclosed lot on the backside of the building. So, busses drive through and park where no one can see them and it doesn’t clutter the street.
There is an entrance to the convention center through the back or “backstage.” It’s more like a very large hallway. Down the hall is a door that exits to the Parkway or the “main strip” where much of the “things” of Gatlinburg resides.
Down the main strip, about half of a mile, is a restaurant that Tribute Quartet decided to walk to after a Gospel Music event they were a part of. Now, as you know, when with friends, you get caught up in the moment and can lose track of time and, in the case of Gary Casto, personal items.
After dinner, we all proceeded to walk back to the bus, parked at the convention center. Upon arrival, Gary noticed his cell phone was missing to which he proclaimed: “I will walk back and get it!” So, he did.
Now, a half of a mile for a group of people can be about a 10 minute walk. Gary returned in five – out of breath, wide eyed, sweaty, white as a sheet – phone-less as if he’d seen a ghost or, more accurately, “nature.”
“What’s wrong?,” I asked.
Gripping the stairwell rail and gasping for air, he sputtered, “Bea—the—I—there— I was walking out of the hall*breath*way and up the ramp to the street.” He swallowed and continued, “I heard a big breath behind me and a little bit of a growl. I turned and it was a big ol’ bear staring back at me! So, I started praying over it and rebuking it and ran back here!”
After we unsuccessfully stifled our laughs, Gary declared, “somebody else is going to have to go get my phone!”
So, the rest of us decided we would brave the pathway back to the restaurant. At that point, of course, the bear had moved on and was found exploring the lay of the land with locals shooing it away, attracting the ever ready cell phone cameras from tourist onlookers.
Needless to say, we retrieved the cell phone unscathed and returned it to a still recovering Gary who now knows to never leave his “bear necessities” behind.
