Pigeon Forge & DOLLYWOOD

Pigeon Forge where are you? The Tennessee Smokey Mountains are no place for a couple of California’s to be travelling after the sun goes down. I don’t think these people have heard of street lamps yet. I’ve seen black night skies before, but never as black as this. And what about signs, don’t they know how to put signs up? After travelling for over an hour and still not getting any closer to our destination we came across a little country store that, believe it or not was still open. In dire need of a restroom we went in and were greeted by a plump little woman (at least we think she was a woman) and told that we’d come too far. She told us to go back the other way and “cut to the right” at the second street light, then “cut to the right” again at the next street light and that would take us straight into Pigeon Forge. Okay so we get back into the car and try to figure out if “cut to the right” means to make a right turn or to bear to the right at the fork in the road, and not wanting to feel any stupider than we all ready did, we decided to take our chances and see what happened when we got to the second street light. Guess she wasn’t too thrilled with tourist. She definitely wasn’t as friendly as the rest of the Tennessean’s we would soon encounter.
After finally making it to the Dollywood KOA, long after the office closed, but thankfully having made a reservation, we found our key and Kabin with no trouble at all. Roger being the gentleman that he is went and checked out the facilities for us and reported back that they were A-OK. Being that he didn’t take a flashlight with him, I figured I didn’t need one, so off I went to visit, well, you know. Needless to say, on my way back my foot came down on the side of the asphalt wrong and I went head first straight for the dirt and gravel still wearing the dress I wore to church this morning. Roger was more than a little surprised to greet me on the porch whimpering like a baby with blood oozing out of both knees and palms. Thank you Lord for making me remember to bring the first aid kit. Dr. Roger cleaned me up pretty good and wrapped the worse knee and bandaged the rest, but we both were wondering if I would be able to do all the walking at Dollywood the next day.
DOLLYWOOD, here we are. We made it and it’s opened this time. 12 years ago when Roger and I drove cross country I tried to surprise him by detouring to Pigeon Forge while he was napping, but when we got there Dollywood was closed. Needless to say that was a 2 hour detour we could have done without. The town of Pigeon Forge, where Dolly Parton was born and raised is almost as brightly lit as Las Vegas. There were so many places open as we drove through the night looking for the KOA, that we thought it must not really be as late as we first thought. It seems that the night life of Pigeon Forge is just as popular as the daytime activities.
Driving just a short distance from our campground, we arrived at the entrance to Dollywood and were delighted by the brightly colored Butterfly in her signs. Another plus for us was the fact that Dolly has thought of the military and during times of war, (like right now in Iraq) she offers a substantial discount to active and retired military. Thank you Dolly. We found our way through the crowd and of course the first thing Roger spotted was the very big, very wooden, very fast rollercoaster ride. As any good mother would do, I held his camera so that he could go enjoy himself getting dizzy.