Target practice

We finished packing for our trip and were on the road by 9. We hadn’t agreed on a meeting place, and we couldn’t get any phone reception while driving in the Smokey Mountain National Park. When we got to Gatlinburg, we got a message that we would meet at the Pottery restaurant in Pigeon Forge for lunch. We went to our motel first to check in. We had booked through Hotwire and were delighted at the room we had. There was even a balcony overlooking the Pigeon River. We met, ate and the left the women to shop while the men went to walk their dog. We went back to the room for a nap and Glenn and Lucy came to pick us up for supper. We drank a bottle of wine in our room before going to the Smokehouse buffet. It had more selections than Evelyn had ever seen on a buffet. We then went to the show, “Tennessee Shindig”. It was excellent and had a great testimony from one of the actors. The first half was country music like we expected in Tennessee, but the second was pop tunes from different decades. We got back to the before 10:30 and went right to bed. Sunday I learned that Evelyn had wakened around 4. I wakened around 6 myself so we dressed for church. We walked to a pancake house where we had a coupon for breakfast at one of the more than a dozen pancake houses in the town. We drove to pick up the Combs and drove to one of the theaters where we worshipped at the “Cowboy Church”. It was more of a show than a worship but featured many fine hymns performed by good musicians. We took our friends back to their room and left for home around 1:30. We thought we would explore the park, especially Cades Cove. I drove the 24 miles to the Cove while Evelyn slept. I was not feeling very well either so we decided to explore another day. I drove back down the mountain and nearly killed us twice because I was too drowsy. The Lord in His mercy protected us and we made it to a visitor’s center where I slept for about 10 minutes while Evelyn got some brochures. I felt worse after sleeping but did make it to Cherokee. We had not had food until we stopped at a restaurant run by Indians and shared a meal. I felt better but not great as we drove to the Lake. Evelyn wanted to walk and I wanted to do some computer work. Unfortunately I couldn’t retrieve the items from the external hard drive and got nothing done. I will have to get help with the problem. We drove home and I noticed some strange pieces of dry wall and a piece of metal on our living room floor. I called Evelyn and we looked around for evidence of ceiling damage but found none. Suddenly we noticed a hole in the wall. I looked outside and found one there too. We concluded that someone had shot our house while we were gone. We were going to call the police but decided to ask the neighbor, Doris, if there had been anyone target shooting or driving by shooting. When I went to talk to Doris she was shocked. As it turned out she had shot her pistol at a cat, inadvertently hitting our house. She was mortified and apologized all over the place. I made jokes about blackmail,etc. and confirmed that she could hit the broad side of a barn, but I would never tell anyone what happened if she didn’t want me to. Evelyn ribbed me about watching 700 hours of CSI, but couldn't identify a gunshot hole in the wall! She was the one who made the observation first. We watched a Steve Martin movie and went to bed. I was feeling better but she still had rumblings in the tummy.