Finally, back on the road again. We were home for about 2 months which was really too long and grass was growing under my feet. Again we were driving cross country making our way to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. My parents would be flying in and my brother and his family driving down from the Chicago area. We took 3 days to drive the 1300+ miles as we wanted to do it at a somewhat leisurely pace. We spent one night tent camping in Arkansas at the Village Creek State Park. Got there just in enough time to set-up and cook dinner before it got dark. So, we really didn’t have time to do any exploring, but the golf course was rated #1 for Arkansas in 2018. The park also offers 2 lakes and a number of hiking trails. We have to come back to this one and spend a few days.
Picked up my parents in Knoxville. We still had a few hours to kill before check-in, and decided to catch a movie. My parents and I saw Green Book. We all thought, it was really great and would recommend seeing it. Will didn’t want to see Green Book and instead opted to see the latest Madea movie from Tyler Pery. The timing worked out great and we headed on down to Sevierville where we rented a “cabin” near Dollywood. This place was billed as a luxury cabin and had plenty of space for all of us with 4 bedrooms and a main living area and 1 bedroom on one level so my parents didn’t have to deal with stairs. The house also had enough to keep my niece and nephew entertained with both board games, arcade games, a pool table, and a number of dvd movies. There was also a community indoor salt water pool that they enjoyed as well. The house was under 2 miles to Dollywood, about 4 from the tourist areas in Pigeon Forge, and the Smoky Mountain National Park was a short drive away.
Our first day was low key as everyone needed to relax and plan the week’s activities. We knew the next day was gong to be cold and rainy, so we planned an indoor activity for the whole family. Gavin, my nephew, had been wanting to do an escape room and we found one with a family friendly scenario of a run-away train at Breakout in Knoxville. It was fun and something that our whole family could get involved in. Our Proctor, Cole, gave us our 3 hints (plus a few more), to help us solve the puzzles and get us out. We made it out with 5 seconds to spare and Gavin was over the moon that we weren’t locked in. GiGi did a great job as well unlocking some of the locks and being the assistant conductor on the train.
It was cold and misty the next morning, but the weather was supposed to clear in the afternoon. So, we took the kids for a family friendly hike in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, near the Sugarland visitor center. It seemed everyone had the same idea as the area was packed with other families on spring-break. We made it to Cataract Falls without breaking a sweat. This is an easy flat short trail that would even be good for small kids. We had heard that the Gatlinburg Trail was also a nice family friendly trail and wanted to check that one out as well. There’s a point on the trail after passing a second parking lot that you are walking along a park maintenance road and have a “lovely” view of the maintenance yard. That part is not very scenic and a little unnerving to be walking with kids on the shoulder of the road, but after that, the trail was quite nice. The trail is flat and had some views of the river and old foundations and chimneys from former homesites. It is 3.8 miles out and back and goes right up to the outskirts of the town of Gatlinburg. We didn’t make it quite that far, but we got pretty close to finishing.
Then it was time for the whole family to visit Dollywood. It’s an amusement park with a number of rides and entertainment. We arrived at Dollywood with both vehicles needing handicapped parking. What we didn’t realize is that the trams don’t seem to stop at that lot and it’s a really long way to walk for those that cannot walk long distances. So, best advice is to drop-off those with trouble walking and then park. My mom kept saying she would walk it until a total stranger offered to give her a ride. So, yes we just looked like an uncaring family making grandma hoof it. One would think that the scooter/wheelchair rental would be next to the main entrance. Unfortunately, that is not the case, but once we got the scooter rentals done and got my parents their ride accessibility cards we were ready to roll. My parent both in their 80’s rode the barnstormer, the water rampage, and the Dollywood train. So, yes they had a good time.
While my mom was waiting for some friends to come visit and my brother and his crew were off to ride some go-carts, Will and I decided it was a great day to go hiking. Great little manway with foot bridges crossing the creek. Yes a manway, we would just call it a trail, but apparently in Tennessee, if the trail is only wide enough for a man, it’s a manway. It was an out and back trail of around 5 miles. We met a lady that works in the backcountry office, she was telling us the story of her great grandparents who grew up in the surrounding area. They lived 18 miles apart, while dating. That’s a long ways to walk for a date. We passed an old cemetery, a backcountry campground, and if you continue a little further, there’s what appears to be an old steam powered tractor in the river.
My brother and family had a full day drove the Newfound Gap Road, went to the decorate your own donuts place, and rode go-karts. They even had a go-kart track where my 6 year old niece could drive her own go-kart.
Keith and his family took off a day early and so Will and I opted to spend another day at Dollywood. We got there right around opening and knew that we should head to the main roller coaster section of the park. We managed to ride 3 coasters in about an hour. Well, at least I rode 3. Will was too chicken to ride the Wild Eagle. But I did get him on the Tennessee Tornado. He said he enjoyed it, although his eyes were closed for most of the ride. We spent the rest of the day seeing some of the shows, checking out Dolly’s old tour bus and eating a lot of over-priced junk food. We found the secret to eating lunch is to go early. The lines for food seemed to get bad around 1 and stay that way until around 3:30. We had spent a good 30 minutes in line for lunch a few days before.
We dropped my parents off for their flight and headed off to our next destination. We had time to kill, so we drove through the town of Gatlinburg. We slowly made our way through town as traffic is terrible and drove up to Ober Gatlinburg to check out the ski area. Ober Gatlinburg is Tennessee’s only ski hill. There’s a tram ride you can take from the downtown up to the ski area or you can drive up and park like we did. They have an indoor ice rink, arcade, snow bumpers, snow tubing , ski coaster, and a waterslide along with a couple of ski runs. Really there seems to be something to do here all year long. The snow tubing was still going on when we were there. Then I thought we’d take a drive to Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountains. It was a long drive to get over there from where we were, but Will hadn’t seen that section of the park before. It was a nice sunny day, great for a drive and picnic in the park. We saw some turkeys and elk, but no bears on our drive. We then headed on down to North Carolina and the Sapphire Valley. Beautiful area known for it’s water falls.
