Derby Festival Half Marathon

So, this Saturday Erin and I are running the Derby Festival Half Marathon in Louisville, KY.  Yup, I’m running another.  Am I excited about it?  No…to say the least.  I don’t feel prepared.  I ran 11 miles a couple weeks ago (maybe 3-4?) but other than that the long runs have been laughable.  Yesterday I ran 6 and it was not hard but not super easy either.  Hey–at least it will be flat!!

If you want to track me, my bib will be 5939.  Here goes nothing!!

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Okay, so I have a lot to update y’all on.  I’ve been really busy but just no time to blog!  I got my first official stamp in my National Park Passport this past weekend and it was Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  Despite the dreary weather the park was actually really cool and of course the pictures don’t do it justice at all (maybe some of my dad’s will be better and I can update this post to add them).

My dad met me at my hotel in Blue Ash around noon or so on Friday and we took off in high spirits with bellies full of Chipotle.  Unfortunately, pretty much as soon as we got on 75 traffic was crawling…and it kept crawling until we got off of 75.  Long story short, it was the first weekend of spring break for Indiana schools and I guess everyone was on their way to Florida.  I’ll never make that mistake again (or I probably will).  Anyway, it ended up taking us about 8 hours to get to Gatlinburg and it was raining pretty steadily and hard so we decided to stay in a hotel for the night in beautiful Gatlinburg, TN (sarcasm).  We hit up Smoky Mountain Brewery for some dinner and a few beers and called it a night to get to the park the next day.

Upon arrival in the park we were greeted with a sign saying that the main road through the park was CLOSED because of ice and snow.  Bummer.  We had to find something to do around the park for a bit because we were told the road would open after the sunshine had melted the snow off of the roadways.  After much deliberation we decided to do the Rainbow falls trail, along with pretty much everyone else.  Ha.  Anyway, the beginning of the trail is beautiful because it runs along a river/creek.

Unfortunately for us it also seemed to be pretty much straight uphill, not have very many vistas and be very wet.  Nonetheless we enjoyed ourselves walking around outside and eventually came to Rainbow Falls.  I’m told they’re the highest single drop falls in the park.

After seeing them we turned around and headed back down (some of us with very wet shoes–me.  Note to self:  Never choose not to pack hiking shoes again).  We decided to go see if the main road had opened and it had so we drove up to Newfound Gap and enjoyed the overlook and saw where the Appalachian Trail passes the main road.

Afterwards there was still plenty of daylight and we hadn’t seen the other part of the park with Cade’s Cove so we decided to drive on over.  FYI-It is a very long drive.  This part of the park was actually way cooler than I had expected.  There is history about the people who used to live in the area and old houses, an old mill, and the views of the mountains over the fields are also pretty cool.  After checking out Cade’s Cove we hightailed it out of the park so we could go get some food.  We had decided to continue our stay in Gatlinburg because big storms were in the forcast for the night.

The next morning I woke up to dad watching the news and heard the newscaster say that there would be no rain from 8-2.  Heck yes!  Time to hike!  First we got some coffee and then we headed into the park, this time to take on the Alum Cave trail.  In short, do this trail (or maybe I shouldn’t say that because then there will be even more people on it).  This is apparently the most popular trail in the park.  We started pretty early, on Easter Sunday, with rain in the forecast, and we were lucky enough to see only two groups on our way up the mountain.  On the way back down we were the trail experts and everyone kept asking us about the trail.  It was funny.  The trail was gorgeous.  It runs along a river at first, then takes you through Arch Rock, and then takes you to the breathtaking ridgeline.  We had some AMAZING clouds on the tops of the mountains.  I really wish these pictures could do it justice, but you will just have to believe me.  It was beautiful.

After the trail we hit up Newfound Gap one last time before heading home.  All in all the trip was SO FUN.  Even in the rain, the park is beautiful (especially the trails with vistas).  I really want to get back in the summer or fall when the trails will be less muddy and when Clingman’s dome will be open.

The Great Car-tastrophe: Part 2

If you don’t remember the back story for this post you can read here.

So, as I left off the person who hit my car was claiming no fault and the insurance companies were trying to figure out who owes for what and I was trying to get the valet to call my insurance agency back. Well, once the valet called back and gave a statement, the whole issue went to an arbitration hearing at the end of January (yes this lasted that long). After the arbitration hearing the arbitrator ruled the accident 50% the other person’s fault and 50% the valets fault. So basically I should be getting at least some of my money back, and I have! I don’t want to bore you with the (months) of details of how I finally got paid back, and but now that it is safely deposited in my bank account I want to share some lessons I learned so that hopefully none of you have to waste hours of your life on the phone with insurance companies (over this issue at least).

Lesson 1: If your car gets into an accident make sure a police officer comes to the scene and takes statements from both parties.  In my case, I did not have much control over it because I found out after the fact that there had been an accident.  The fact is that my insurance agency couldn’t get ahold of the other driver to take a statement, and she had given a statement to her insurance claiming that she was not at fault.  If the valet had filed a report or taken pictures or called a police officer to take statements then the whole thing would not have been such a hassle because the hardest thing was tracking everyone down to get their statements.

Lesson 2:  Make sure you have all information regarding the accident in your hand before you leave the scene.  Luckily I did this.  The valet and the hotel people were really hard to track down and I can only imagine how hard it would be to get them to send me the papers with the insurance information in the mail (or scanned or whatever).

Lesson 3:  Get something signed that says you will be remibursed if going through the other person’s insurance doesn’t work out.  For a few months, I was worried I would be out $800 dollars until the valet told me they would reimburse me.  it would have been nice to have it in writing.

Lesson 4:  Get the information to file a claim with the valet’s insurance company.  Part of the problem was that I was never given this information to begin with and because the valet seemed so sure that the other person would be at fault, I didn’t really stress it.  It is always better to have contact information that you don’t need than to need contact information and not have it.

Lesson 5:  Seriously, just get everyone’s phone numbers.  I cannot tell you how many phone calls I had to make to get reimbursed.  In the end, it was worth it because I got paid back.

Lesson 6:  Think twice before you hand over the keys to your car.  I know there are a lot of cases where you can’t avoid having a valet park your car.  If you can avoid it, then do.  It is not good to have someone you don’t know or trust drive your car and even if your car gets in an accident and it’s not the valet’s fault, it is a huge headache to try to get everything sorted out.

Lesson 7:  The final lesson is be persistent.  Be annoying.  Be angry if you have to be.  I only really started getting serious action from the hotel when I started getting angry on the phone with the guest services manager.  It is nice to be nice but sometimes being nice does not always get stuff done.  I called the guest services manager, the valet, and my insurance company repeatedly until I heard what I wanted to hear.  I knew that I was not at fault in this situation (obviously) and so I should be getting my money back one way or another.  I just complained to everyone who would listen (including to Progressive service surveys.  Do NOT use them as your insurance agency!)

Again, I hope this never happens to any of you fine people, but if it does, please learn from my experience!