Pigeon Forge, September 2005

I needed to get away from it all so I took a very last minute trip to Pigeon Forge. I loves the theme parks so I was all about some theme parky fun. Also, to stay at home would be to sit around feeling sorry for myself. I stayed at the lovely America's Best Value Inn. Best Value indeed--it was the only PF area hotel that cost less than $79.

Word of warning: when they told me they were located between lights 7 and 8 behind the Golden Corral I thought that meant 7 or 8 lights from a certain landmark in the directions. Nope, they number their intersections in PF, which is a fantastic idea.

Also, there was some classic car thing going on which caused me to take an hour and a half to go 5 miles. I was so tired when I got to my hotel that I walked to McDonalds. You know I'm tired when I'll eat McDonald's when there's a Taco Bell a mile from where I am.

And the pictures I took aren't so great. I kept forgetting I had my camera. Click on the images for larger pictures

This fake cemetary was outside this roller coaster called the Thunderhead. I took it because I passed a real life cemetary on the way to Dollywood. At the time this was interesting enough to warrant a picture.

I forgot how much I love roller coasters until I got on the Thunderhead. This is my first theme park since my 2001 Disney trip.

Deep fried oreos! Not as good as you'd think! I should've gotten the snickers instead!

After the Oreos I headed to Chasing Rainbows to learn all about Dolly. I think she was at her peak in the late 70s/early 80, but she's danged adorable at any given point.

In this picture it's a marvel I'm smiling. See, I'm on the Wonder Wheel. Dude loading the Wonder Wheel was surprised I was alone. I told him yep. He insisted that the Ferris Wheel wasn't as fun by yourself. I said yes, I know. And then made ANOTHER comment vis a vis my riding the ferris wheel alone. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??? Obviously, if someone's riding a ferris wheel alone there is a DAMN GOOD REASON. Yes, FW operator, I know what the FW is for, but this is not the 1950s and I doubt that any young dandy is going to give me his ring and ask me to go steady so CLOSE THE DAMN GATE AND LET ME RIDE THIS DAMN THING IN PEACE! I mean, he wasn't offering to ride it with me, so why go on about it? He was one of the few young, decent looking ride operators, so it wouldn't have bothered me or anything.

Added on to this was an older man operating the Sky Rider. He told me he helped raise a girl like me. Ok, fine and good, although I wonder what he meant by girl like me, especially when he found out I was alone and said he would've flirted a little more with me if he had known that. WHY?

This is the Dollywood equivalent of Disney's Mad Tea Party, they call it the Lemon Twist. There's a joke in here, I will leave it up to you to figure it out.
Ok...sometimes when I'm really down and near inconsolable I usually feel better when I go into a church (whether there's a service going on or not). Luckily, Dollywood has its own chapel. Or the chapel has Dollywood. Whichever way, this is the Robert F Thomas Chapel. Instead of stained glass they had these lovely quilted panels.
More from the Robert F Thomas Chapel.

Please, click on the picture for a larger version, then hit your back button and come back.

This is a shape note typewriter from the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame. Wicked cool. Shape note singing is great.

It was at this point I wish I'd had my digital camera this me, I took this one on my cell phone. If I had the digital camera I would have taken a movie so you'd have sound and could get the full effect. If you're in the Sevierville area, it's in the big huge As Seen on TV store that obviously was a Kroger before.

This crane machine was playing a familiar song. At first I thought it was from an old school nintendo game. THEN I placed it: it was the Lambada song. You know the one. The slow song sung by a woman, I can't remember the name. In fact the song may have been called "Lambada". The one played OVER and OVER and OVER in the movie Lambada: The Forbidden Dance (MSTies will reckognize the director's name, if said MSTies click on the link above). Yes, I saw it. Why wouldn't I see it? I have always loved movies that cash in on extremely short lived trends! This movie was so bad (you can bet I loved every minute of it). All I remember is something about a hot South American girl using Lambada to save the rainforest or something and she falls in love.

At any rate, the crane machine played the Lambada song. I don't know why I found this facinating, I just did. The macine is certainly doesn't look like it's been around since 1990, unless it was a different machine and I was just confused.

At any rate, I went to the gigantic outlet mall In Sevierville. HUGE!

Yes, once again I get the "just one???" accusatory question. I intended to eat at the Mandarin House because I hadn't been to a Chinese restaurant in ages. For some reason I couldn't find it (I found it the next afternoon, it was delicious). I decided just to go back to the hotel room and walk over to the Golden Corral. Apparently they have steak night every night. It was fan-frickin-tastic.

 

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