End of Summer Vacay

Earlier in the year, I forget when exactly, in the Spring sometime, I had caught a bad cold (sinus/respiratory infection), and was piled up on the couch in the livingroom where I could prop up so I could breathe, and watch tv between naps, and generally not bug J trying to sleep in the bedroom.

The Hallmark channel is one of the channels I watch mostly, what little I watch tv, and it was on and they were filming at, or kept advertising, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

We'd been to Pigeon Forge before, it's been quite a few years, but we didn't go to Dollywood then. I didn't think the cost of the ticket would be worth it since two of the boys wouldn't ride any of the "good" rides.

They kept talking about Dollywood over and over again until I thought, "We need to go to Dollywood".

We were already booked for a cruise on my birthday week in November, so I thought the week of J's birthday near the end of August sounded good for going to Pigeon Forge.

Turned out it was a great time to go, because most of the kids around here (the South, I guess) had gone back to school and the place wasn't at all crowded. There was nearly NO waiting in lines for the rides.

We went to Dollywood, and to the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and shopping at Gatlinburg, and had dinner at the Dixie Stampede.

It was a great little vacation!

I posted pictures at my family travel blog here: Dollywood/Great Smoky Mountains Get Away.