I have long had an affinity for nature, having camped with my family when I was a child.  For years, I have been visiting Gatlinburg Tennessee. For someone who has spent much of his time in North Carolina, it is sad that I found this place accidentally when my wife won a three-day trip.  Since then, we have gone back at least once a year.  It is a great balance of nature, a cool town with plenty of things to do and wonderful restaurants.  I have many favorites for breakfast and for dinner.  I will give you many ideas for things to do and restaurants to go based upon my years of vacationing in Gatlinburg.

I have hiked the park, and when my son was younger we explored the myriad of small creeks in the area, looking for salamanders and crayfish.  On a hot day, there are few things more refreshing than sitting next to one of these rocky creeks with your feet in the water, the cool water radiating into the adjacent air.  I have zip-lined and gone horseback riding as well.  There are exciting things to do, and there are sedate opportunities as well.  During times when I have had difficulty thinking of how to proceed, the idyllic setting and fresh mountain air brings clarity.

The town is an interesting place to walk around; there are places for wine tasting as well as moonshine and whiskey.  For years I have wanted to host a product development / project management event there. I have wanted to introduce people to this great place for restoration. To that end, I have been exploring putting on an event here with the objective of learning and get new ideas for how we can work, restoring energy, as well as something like a vacation with good food, and good times. 

We are thinking the event will be a round-table event with a number of topic areas, allowing a great exchange of ideas and solutions for those things that keep you up at night.

To that end, we have put together a survey to test the usefulness of such an event.  Please check this out at Survey Monkey or email me with your ideas on the topics for this event.  Check it out and let me know what you think.