Gatlinburg

10/22 Left the CG today, drove to Bristol, VA., and spent the night in a CG just off the highway.

We arrived in the early afternoon so we sat outside and read for a couple of hours. The weather was just great.  Had to take a couple of pictures of the scenery along the way:

10/23 Drove to Sevierville, TN to the Riverside CG. Got setup and waited for Belinda, Bryan, and Bailey to arrive. After they got there and got settled in to their cabin, we drove down the road to the BlackBear Jamboree. It was 8 miles but the road was so crowded that it took an hour to get there. Fortunately, we left in plenty of time and got there early. Had a good dinner of chicken and ribs and potatoes, etc and dessert and then a watched a great show.

10/24 We all got up early and left the CG around 7:45 to go to the Applewood Restaurant for breakfast.

Afterwards we walked around their store and then drove to Pigeon Forge to the Aquarium. They had a parking garage and when we drove in, the sign said maximum height of 6’10” with a bar across the drive. We drove up, got out and looked and saw that the bar was above the lights on top of the cab, so we figured we were good to go. However, as we drove in, the bar skimmed across the back of the cab. Since we were already in, we drove up, found a place to park on the top level and went into the aquarium. It was a neat place; several fish tanks were off the ground so that kids could crawl underneath and then stand up in the center with the fish swimming all around them.

These pictures were taken outside the acquarium - lady had some corn and was feeding the pigeons.

When we left, I talked with the guy that was taking the money for the parking garage and he suggested that I drive back down the entrance ramp. So he blocked it off, and we got out okay.

From there we drove to Gatlinburg to take the lift up the mountain. The car holds 120 people so we were packed in.

And it would swing a when we went over a couple of the tours which made it interesting to say the least! We had a late lunch up there and then went outside to see the scenery.

We saw a mother black bear and her three cubs in a tree not 100 yards from us.

From there we drove back toward Sevierville to a boat ride that Bryan had seen earlier and wanted to go on. I stayed back while everyone else went. A sign posted there included some warnings about the ride (including motion sickness) told me that I should not go. I guess the ride wasn’t bad but it was all in the dark with prehistoric animals jumping out at you!! I waited outside with 'my friends.'

Next we found the store that advertised “As Seen On TV” and was supposedly the largest store selling those items. We didn’t find anything that we needed!

Here are a couple of pictures of our site and their cabin (with the river in front of the cabin).