Over the Labor Day weekend, Craig & I drove to Tennessee for a little fun. We stayed in a great little cabin with a jacuzzi that was in the Smoky Mountains. The place was fantastic & much cheaper than staying in a motel in the tourist trap areas of
. It took us about 15 hours to get there, alternating driving. Before we got to the cabin, we drove
& got a few pics. The forest is so lush and green with a smoky haze throughout the mountainside.
On Saturday, we went to
Dollywood,
Dolly Parton's famous theme park in Pigeon Forge. Dolly's park is so fantastic! It completely exceeded my expectations. The park is extremely themed, unlike most other "theme" parks I've been to. There are not as many rides as at other parks, but the ones that are there delivered like
Dominoe's. The natural terrain & trees help to hide the rides, keeping the ride experience a secret until your strapped in, which made for ultra thrills!
Here's a pic of a flowerbed at the entrance to the park. It's Dolly's signature butterfly, but if you ask me it looks like Dolly's "major assets."
Craig & I playing around in a coffin...
The Mystery Mine ride was totally fierce! I've never been on a coaster quite like this. It's a mine ride that starts off inside, bolts you outside into some corkscrews & inversions, goes back inside fro some scary theatrics, then finally drops you straight down back outside for dizzying loops of fury! We ended up riding it 3 times that day.
The water rides were a lot of fun too, but we actually didn't get as wet as the other riders...
Thunderhead was a great wood coaster. It was FAST & smooth for being of wood construction.
Now, the Tennessee Tornado is what blew me away. It's a fast coaster & it's over before you even know what hit you. It starts by taking you up a steep incline, banks a good curve, then drops 128 feet down into a tunnel, which completely disorients & scares the hell out of you! As
so as you come out of the tunnel, you're catapulted
thru a huge vertical loop, an inverted corkscrew, then into Dolly's Iron Butterfly. That consists of 2 helix loops that look like the
under wire of Dolly's bra! You're immediately back in the station & in a state of shock. We had so much fun that we rode it 5 times!
We went to the Dolly
Parton Museum while in the park too. The had so much Dolly, I felt like I needed a
Bedazzler!
My favorite part was the 9 to 5 display, of course. It had her outfits & some props from the movie. It even had the pencils knocked all on the floor. The one thing that was missing was the box of Skinny-N-Sweet. (Or Rid-O-Rat, which looks just like Skinny-N-Sweet, except for the little skull & crossbones on the label...)
They also had a screen where you could try on virtual Dolly wigs!
Pigeon Forge is a complete tourist trap. It consists of all kinds of country musical shows, go-karts, overpriced crap stores, magic acts, and PANCAKE HOUSES. There were so many fucking pancake houses that I thought that it must be the state food! I got some pics of a few of them, but there must have been about 50 in a 6 block area.
While I'm on the topic of Pigeon Forge, we have to talk about the people. Besides pancakes, apparently the other major food group is Crystal
Meth... I have never seen so many emaciated, tatted up hillbillies with no front teeth. It was filled with
methed out, white, redneck prison looking guys with extremely obese wives & skinny kids with their tongues sticking through the giant gap in their jaws. Dead fucking sexy!!!! We even saw this guy at a gas station who was working his tongue into overtime during his crystal rush in mid afternoon.... In town it was so white that any other
ethnicities stood out like a bastard at a family reunion. It was down right creepy since we're not used to that at all in Dallas.
On Sunday we went horseback riding
thru the mountains. That was a lot of fun, but also scary because the trail is very narrow & drops off down the mountain on one side. Our guide was so hillbilly & had a lot of stories to tell us about various places he's worked over the years. One place he worked was in New York, giving rides to
Fire Island for people who had missed the last ferry. I told him that I was going to Fire Island at the end of the month & he told me to stay away from
Cherry Grove because that's where the drag queens are.
Hmmmm. I left it at that & didn't happen to mention that I'd actually being staying with friends at Cherry Grove, one of which IS a drag queen!
LOL.
Later that day we went hiking in the forest to a place called
Laurel Falls. It was a beautiful hike & the falls were gorgeous. I said earlier that in town it was totally white, but when we got into the forest, it was inundated with people from the middle east, especially India. Hundreds of them hiking & taking pictures. It was so jarring in comparison to being in town or at
Dollywood. I had no idea that the Smoky Mountains held a holy place for such a pilgrimage.
LOL. I decided that I needed to get in a zen-like state & take a picture mediating on a rock. During my snapshot I got caught by an Indian lady who just stopped & nicely said "That is a nice pose." BUSTED!!!
We drove back on Monday & stopped outside of Nashville to see Craig's dad. It was great visiting with him & his family since we don't get to see them that often. Then it was time for the rest of the 15 hour drive home... We didn't make it back until after 2am.... Glad to be back from the land of Dolly, but will definitely go back again!
