{Travel} Tennessee Trip - Day 3 Dollywood, Smoky Mountain National Park & Cades Cove

Here we are at Day 3 of our Tennessee trip. I loved waking up to the Smoky Mountains.

We were heading back to Dollywood that morning.

We wanted to hit all of the attractions we hadn't done the day before. First up was Dolly's tour bus.

They only allow groups of 6 at a time so it was a little bit of a wait.

This was Dolly's room in the back.

Some of her tour outfits.

The details were so pretty, down to her dishes.

Our tour guide was wonderful and got choked up talking about his interactions with Dolly Parton. He was a performer at the park and got to meet her a few times. 

We toured a replica of her childhood home.

Another fun pumpkin display.

We were pretty amazed by this Tennessee Water Tree!  We watched an outdoor show and then headed to the indoor show. 

We didn't know what to expect from "Heidi Parton(Dolly's niece) Kin & Friends" but it was quite good.

They end with a song that Heidi wrote and Dolly had recorded with her.

We stopped at the Front Porch Cafe for some lunch.  I tried the chicken club on a butterfly shaped pretzel roll.

On our way out of the park we stopped at the Spotlight Bakery to get a look at the famous 25 pound apple pie!

This is the size of slice should you get one! We bought a cookie for the road.

A sweet tribute.

We were looking for coffee and stopped in this cute area called The Old Mill. I had to go into the Smoky Mountain Cat House to say hi to the kitties.

We got our coffee at Lucky Brews. I tried the white chocolate pumpkin latte.

We wanted to check out the Cades Cove Loop in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and stopped in at the ranger station for directions once we got there. They showed us the map of the stops along the way.

It's an 11 mile, one way paved loop with scenic views, historic homesteads and possible wildlife sightings.

The views were spectacular.

We spotted some wildlife-- wild turkeys!

We didn't stop at every site but got out when we wanted a better look.  The drive took us about an hour and a half.   We headed back to the hotel.

We tried a restaurant near the hotel called Bullfish Grill. I got a chicken rice bowl.

We had passed The Inn At Christmas Place and were curious about it so we stopped in. Santa was doing a bedtime talk/show with some guests.

We peeked around the lobby.

It is Christmas there 24/7!

It is decorated quite festively and felt like a Hallmark movie.

to be continued...

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{Travel} Tennessee Trip Day 2/Part 2: The Island In Pigeon Forge, Downtown Gatlinburg & Dollywood Great Pumpkin LumiNights

 I'm back with part 2 of our second day in Tennessee.   We had just gotten to the hotel in Pigeon Forge and checked in.  We were ready to explor so we dropped our bags and went!

The hotel store in the lobby had a great selfie mirror!

First we went to The Island In Pigeon Forge. It was on the list of things we wanted to see.  There are shops, restaurants, rides and other attractions spanning 23 acres.

We walked around and found a place for lunch.  We picked the Timeberwood Grill.  It was nice to sit down in a cool restaurant. I had the salmon & avocado salad.  

We explored the Island and decided to ride SlyFly based on some recommendations.  

It's similar to Disney's Soarin' but much longer. 

We thought it was cool!    We walked around some more. It was HOT!.

We watched the fountain dinosaur show and then we were ready to move on.

We drove to downtown Gatlinburg to check it out.

We did a wine tasting but didn't love the wine.

The area felt super touristy.

We wanted to sit for a bit and have a nice glass of wine so we stopped in Jason Aldean's Rooftop Bar.    They didn't have much of a wine list but we found a white wine blend that was pretty good.

We watched the duo play for a bit and it reminded us of our Nashville trip.

Somehow we had the energy to go to Dollywood next. We had a 2 day pass and knew we wanted to get to the nighttime event-Great Pumpkin LumiNights.

We got there later in the afternoon and were greeted by some really incredible pumpkin displays.

We enjoyed just walking around the park.

We were also looking for this Grist Mill.

We had to try the famous Cinnamon Bread. It was amazing!

We took the train ride around the park and that was a lot of fun(and informative).

By then it was starting to get dark and we walked around to see the pumpkin displays.

What a hoot!

It was the first night of the event but not too crowded.

There were sounds and lights and fog. Oh my!

Spider friend.

There was some special entertainment and we watched the dance party for a bit.

We most enjoyed looking at all of the pumpkin displays.

Frog pumpkins!

Of course I had to get a photo of the cat pumpkins as we were leaving.  

Phew! What a long day and we racked up over 20K steps! Back to the hotel for us and our tired feet.

to be continued...

Linking up:

Talking About It Tuesday

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