Hi Guys
Another wet stop for this holiday, this time in Knoxville, Tennessee. Not to worry, I still hired a car and drove out through the Smokey Mountains to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg to go to Dollywood. It is an awesome theme park with a full size coal driven steam-train ride, as well as some other awesome rides (some were closed because of the rain) and a beautiful "Granny's" home made buffet with Dolly Parton hits piped into the dining room. As you can see from the pics it was a good day for ducks and the theme park was heavily themed towards Dolly and her life and career. There was an awesome eagle themed ride that I went on 3 times and a thunderbolt type coaster that was good too. However the rain got too heavy and was hurting my face on the fast outdoor rides (there was only one indoor ride), so I called it early and was back in my motel by 1500. Whilst lining up for certain areas of the park to open, I noticed security was packing heat, which seems to take the sparkle off the fun, knowing that security would need to have/use this type of force. Oh well that's the USA for you, but at least this was the first theme park that didn't have metal detectors at the front door, so maybe that's why they have guns. On a lighter note I didn't want to pay the $12 car-park fee at Dollywood, so I parked the car at a free council car-park and paid the $1 return fair on the Dolly trolley (council bus from the car-park direct to the front gate), cha-ching. The road into Pigeon forge was stacked with touristy things to do (think Cavill avenue but bigger), but the main standout was the Titanic replica sticking out like a sore thumb as I drove past (don't worry mum I was in the left hand seat when I took the photo, all legal). Hope all is well
Talk soon
David
