Most of you reading this probably already know the story, but in case I left out details in your version...here goes.Wayne came home from work on Friday evening with an envelope marked, "Clue 1: Do not open until Saturday, November 7 at 8:30 a.m." Well, despite my inability to quit bugging him about it, trying to get him to allow me to open it early, I did manage to wait until Saturday morning. The clue indicated that we were going somewhere new for breakfast. We ended up at Long's Pharmacy, which doesn't sound like a culinary juggernaut, but it does a surprisingly brisk breakfast and lunch business in the soda shop area of their retro-fabulous pharmacy.
After breakfast, I got my second clue, which had us heading to Gatlinburg to a winery. We did a wine tasting at Smoky Mountain Winery and tried a handful of locally-crafted wines. We purchased our favorite-, a white muscadine wine, and off we went.
In the truck, I got a choice for my next clue and selected to head to a "land with no land." The destination was Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies and we explored all the cool exhibits. They even had a new exhibit on sea creature defenses and we had the chance to try to shoot plastic bugs off a log with a fish-shaped water gun. The exhibit was inspired by the archerfish, which preys on land-based bugs, shooting water at them with sniper-like precision to cause them to fall into the water. But I digress, you're here to hear about the proposal- NOT get a marine biology lesson!
After the aquarium, we headed home and I got the last clue. It indicated that we were heading to the Melting Pot and that my "chariot [would leave] at 5:55 pm." Pretty specific for a chariot, huh? Well, we ended up at Melting Pot and had a great dinner and even some dessert fondue. Wayne excused himself to the bathroom (nervous, perhaps?) and when he returned to the table, asked me to pass him his jacket.
Hidden inside the jacket pocket was a ring box and he proposed! I have to say that even though we had been dating for almost 4 years and I figured the proposal was on its way, he still managed to surprise me. I was thinking somewhere in the holiday season, not just a Saturday afternoon in November!
