Tuesday, May 17, 2016

May 17, 2016

Pigeon Forge

Left the nice little campground on a lake, headed east and immediately lost an hour as we passed into Eastern time.  Dipped briefly into Georgia and back up to Tennessee and around Chattanooga.  North a few miles on an interstate and then shifted over to a parallel highway.  Four lane divided road through country side and small towns.  Much more relaxing way to travel. 

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After about 50 more miles we turned onto a two lane mountain road and drove into Pigeon Forge from the less congested rural side.

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Reached our campground before getting to main drag of town.  After setting up and having lunch we headed out to do some sightseeing.

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Smoky Mountains

How to describe Pigeon Forge?  Combination of Branson, Wisconsin Dells (if you have been there you will know what I mean), Las Vegas, and several other destination tourist spots.  Pigeon Forge is the home of Dollywood amusement park.  Thankfully it is tucked back in the hills east of town and not visible from town or even from the park parking lot (it really is tucked back in hills).  Aside from Dollywood there is plenty else to attract the tourist dollar.  Arcades, go karts, dinner theaters of all kinds, souvenirs, food of all kinds, shopping malls, and on and on and on.  Very difficult to find old, historic parts of town.  They are there but even those spots now cater to tourism.

 

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As I said, ‘Dinner theaters of all kinds’

 

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We saw this same thing in Branson several years ago. 

 

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In the Napa Valley one has to pay for wine tasting.  Other places in California you do not.  At Jack Daniel’s we had to pay to sample whisky.  Here we did not and got eight different tastes.  Best deal so far in Pigeon Forge.

Drove north a few miles to Sevierville, home town of Dolly Parton. 

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‘nuff said Smile

Map of journey so far.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&authuser=0&mid=12x4dHvzJbvb0UcaUtz2NjLNihZE



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