June 2008 vacation - part 3

Friday was going to be our best weather day on our trip, thus that is the day we earmarked for our trek to Splash Country.

Now, I have to tell you that my family loves water parks. We've been to them in Virginia, Florida and even Palm Springs. It is a great way to have fun in the sun and keep cool. And Dolly's Splash Country ranks as good as any we've been to.

We spent a good while in the Mountain Waves, a 25,000 square foot wave pool. My son and I would get inflatable rings and have races to see who could ride the waves to the shallow end the fastest.

As a family, we enjoyed both the Big Bear Plunge and Raging River Rapids, two twisting and turning white water rafting rides. Even when you end up riding down backwards as I often found myself doing, it was a blast. The Mountain Scream body slide was a lot of fun as well - shooting straight down a wild ride with just you and the slide.

Our favorite though had to be the Downbound Float Trip, a lazy river floating experience where you just have to hop on a tube and let the river do the rest. Very relaxing and just what I needed on a vacation - time to unwind. I can't tell you how many circuits we made on that.

Only downside - I think it is time I move from SPF15 to SPF30 sunscreen. Come Saturday morning, I had the signs of a wicked sunburn on my back. Ouch. Ah well. You play, you pay.

After the water park, we hit a local place called the Blue Moose for some wings and burgers. A wonderful, low-key restaurant in Pidgeon Forge that has a marvelous waitstaff. Definitely a winner with us.

June 2008 vacation - part 2

So, Thursday night we had dinner at the Dixie Stampede in Pigeon Forge. Now, this is dinner theatre, southern style.

Before you get to the main event, about 50 minutes or so before show time, you are escorted to the Carriage Room. Here, an opening act consisting of four musicians - a fiddle player, a bass player, a guitar player and a mandolin player - do a few rousing numbers with some humor and a lot of down-home charm. The performers there on the night we went were outstanding. A lot of fun.

After that, you're all escorted to the main area which is a huge tiered arena with a large dirt field in the center. The sides are broken up into the "North" and the "South", where a number of friendly competitions both by the regular performers and some of the patrons are done while supper is served.

What's for supper? How about some creamy vegetable soup for a start, with a delicious biscuit? Then, a whole rotisserie chicken, a slice of barbequed pork, some corn on the cob and an herb potatoe. Finish it off with a delicious apple turnover - and all the tea or soda you can drink out of a Mason jar. Oh, forgot to mention - all this meal is without eating utensils. Yup, you eat with your fingers. And it is finger licking good.

The competitons include horse riding, pig racing, chicken chasing (this with the kids helping out), ring catching, horse-shoes with toliet seats, ostrich racing and more. A lot of fun and the two hour show and dinner goes by very quickly. All in all, a whole lot of fun. We really enjoyed ourselves.

Oh, and who won? Well, we (the South) were ahead until the final round. Then the North pulled out the victory. Ah well.

June 2008 vacation - part 1

Where have I been since the middle of last week? Tennessee!

Two weeks ago, my wife and I were looking at our calendars and trying to find a time we could take time off from work this summer for some family vacation. What we decided we could do was a long weekend (Wednesday night depart and Sunday return home) - right around Father's Day weekend. Given the price of gasoline, we wanted something relatively close but still somewhere we hadn't gone as a family.

What we decided upon was Gatlinburg, TN. Nestled just on the other side of the North Carolina border, in the heart of the mountains, it was a perfect fit. Just three hours drive (150 miles), we could get there on Wednesday after work and have three full days of fun before coming home again. So, we did just that - left work on Wednesday and got to the Brookside Resort around 9:30pm.

Our room was nicely sized for our family of three - two queensized beds, a little fridge and bar area, and a back porch that overlooked a running brook (thus the name of the place). It was very nice. The place had two pools as well.

Thursday morning we took a hike down the hill into the heart of the tourist center of town. Gatlinburg is pretty much a huge tourist town, with lots of places to eat, things to do, etc. Our morning hike took us down and around a couple miles so we could get a bearing of what was there and what to do for the rest of our time. After that, we took a trolley-bus back to the hotel and got the car. Since the weather was looking stormy, we decided to dive the five plus miles over to Pidgeon Forge, to check out what was there and to do some shopping.

Pidgeon Forge, if you don't know, is also a huge tourist town. It mostly sprung up around Dollywood - the amusement park funded by Dolly Parton and her investors. There is also Splash Country, Dolly's water park, and of course the Dixie Stampede, a dinner show also connected to Dolly.

While we ate lunch, we called the Dixie Stampede and made dinner reservations for Thursday night at 8pm. Figured it would perfect to go on a non-weekend night. We got in just fine. After our lunch, we shopped at one of the outlet malls. I got some things to wear to my 25th reunion picnic next month. We then drove back to the hotel, showered and prepared for our evening out.