Smoky Mountain Adventures!

We just spent an amazing 8 days in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee!  We've been to Pigeon Forge many times, as it's a quick hop from Charlotte, but we'd only ever been for a long weekend before.  With a long weekend we would have time to hit the highlights (Dollywood, The Island, a dinner show or two), but nothing more.  This time, with over a week, we explored all sorts of new and wonderful things!!

So, first things first, we stayed at Walden's Creek RV Park right in the heart of Pigeon Forge.  This location was extremely convenient and the cheapest campground by far with our Passport America discount.  On the downside, it took several days to actually meet our hosts (despite me checking at the office every day during their posted office hours), and by the time we finally talked to them halfway through the trip we found out they had already charged us $5/day for plugging in our electric vehicle!!  This was VERY surprising - we've been plugging in our electric hybrid car at every campsite with 50amp power for the past 2 years and have NEVER been charged extra.  So the fact that not only did they charge us a rather ridiculous rate for the car but also did so without telling us or advertising the charge rubbed us quite wrong.  However, had I known that was the policy, we just wouldn't have plugged in the car (it is a hybrid after all) and then the rate would have been pleasantly low as expected, and really the location can't be beat and the campground is well kept.  So I'll post a review online to help any other unsuspecting electric vehicle drivers...

Our campsite at Walden's Creek RV Park

Walden's Creek at the campground

We got to add the Tennessee sticker to our map!

We started the next morning with breakfast at Frizzle Chicken.  This very fun restaurant had good down home food and singing animatronic chickens!!

Singing chickens at Frizzle Chicken!  Zoom in and check 
out the names!

Our first outing was to Dollywood - we love it so much, we bought season's passes, so we have to get our money's worth!  Dollywood was holding the Flower and Food Festival, which involved lots of neat shaped plants and a cool umbrella - shaded walk into the park.  These are the only photos I'm posting so as not to be ridiculous, but we went back multiple times during this trip.

I particularly enjoyed the mischievous raccoons

Fun umbrella

On our anniversary (the 20th) we started the day with a vigorous hike to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.  Fortunately for us, there's a road all but the last 1/2 mile of the elevation.  But that last 1/2 mile...it's a doozy!  Very steep, though flat and paved.  The view was incredible and well worth the hike and drive.  As you can guess from the photo, it was significantly colder up there than down in town.

The view off Clingman's Dome

We stopped a couple other places in the national park before heading back for our reservations at the Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Feud.  This is one of our favorite places to go in Pigeon Forge, and this time did not disappoint!  Dolly Parton had acquired the show since our last visit, and she made a couple of nice changes.  Overall our anniversary day was a refreshing change from our pandemic-clouded 20th last year!

One of the gimmicky displays outside
the dinner show

Our next outing was a drive on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail in Gatlinburg.  The highlight of this drive was a hike at Grotto Falls.  This trail is unique because it actually goes behind the waterfall.  It was quite a pleasant hike, much less strenuous than the ones we took earlier.  One of the coolest things we discovered here was Le Conte Lodge and the llamas that serve it.  We didn't make it all the way to the lodge, but we saw the llama trailer in the parking area.  I looked it up later and discovered that the lodge is only accessible on foot, and they use llamas to bring supplies up 3 days a week.  They used to use horses, but their hooves tore up the trail, so they switched to soft-footed llamas.  So cool!  It reminded me a bit of our trip to Phantom Ranch on mule back - supplies are carted down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon by mule.  We're still debating whether a trip to Le Conte Lodge should be in our future.

Grotto Falls

Some friends from Charlotte and their kids came to join us on the weekend - they love the area as well!  We all went to Ober Gatlinburg together, where we rode the alpine slide and took the ski lift to the overlook.  Later we went to Paula Deen's Lumberjack Feud show - SO impressive!  There was one lumberjack who could run on floating logs like they were solid ground.  Absolutely amazing.

Ober Gatlinburg ski lift

Looking down the mountain on the ski lift

At the Lumberjack Feud

Our final incredible outing in Pigeon Forge was a UTV ride with Smoky Mountain Adventure Tours.  We had never done anything like this before, and it was such an incredible experience.  We drove up a narrow rutted dirt trail to one of the mountain tops in the Smoky Mountains - guided by someone who knew what he was doing of course.  We were going up and down scarily steep inclines with huge ruts - things we never would have attempted on our own, but where the guide goes, you follow!  I really can't express how much fun we both had with this!  Aaron drove most of the way of course, but I did do the last leg back to the shop.

Driving off the mountain top

One example of the crazy rutted roads.  It's really hard to
capture on camera

Taking a break on the mountain top.  If you look closely
you might see the dirt covering both of us, including a lovely
dusting all over my hair...

Our guide was kind enough to take a picture 'in action'

See, I really did drive!

That wraps up our week in Pigeon Forge!  We had a blast, it was so fun to be back on the road, in one of our favorite destinations, and finally spending enough time at that destination to explore so many things!  Spoiler alert: we'll be returning to Pigeon Forge later in the trip, but don't worry, we have even more adventures planned there!