After a not very good night’s sleep, thanks to a generator running all night at the Stampede dinner show opposite our hotel, we jumped on a trolley bus on Monday morning for the very short ride to the mill town part of Pigeon Forge. It cost us the whole sum of 50¢ each and that’s pretty much the same for any of the trolley fares here. It’s very old fashioned, the drivers don’t take the money, you just put it into a big jar as you get on board, so if you don’t have the right money it’s tough!

We had a good look around the small shops, including one that was basically someone’s house and sold anything and everything cat related…there were at least 6 cats wandering around. We also had a coffee sat in a wooden front porch rocking chair, just like something out of the Walton’s. After that we jumped onto another trolley and headed to Dollywood.

If you haven’t heard of it, Dollywood is a theme park that is owned by Dolly Parton. She wanted to give something back to the small town she grew up in if she ever made it big, she now employs over 3000 people with her attractions in the area. There are several very big roller coasters and rides, but even if you’re not adventurous enough for that it’s still worth a visit. Mum and I spent the whole day walking round the park and I’m still not convinced we saw all of it. At the momentum it’s all decked out for the Halloween celebrations, so there were amazing pumpkins everywhere, as well as a constant stream of amazing shows, singers, musicians etc everywhere. We saw Dolly’s old tour bus, and went on a steam train right up into the mountains. The sun shone all day and I even managed to get mum on a roller coaster! Well…I say that, I pushed her up the ramp, forced her onto a car and made her ride a kid’s roller coaster!! 😂 The man running it thought we were crazy, by the time we got off I had laughed so hard my face and sides hurt and Mum was NOT happy with me.

Crazy Cat house

The old mill in Pigeon Forge

Mirror selfie on Dolly’s tour bus

On the steam train

This morning we decided to head in the opposite direction to Dollywood, so we jumped on another trolley (75¢ this time!😯) and went to the next town along, Gatlinburg. This little town is known as the gateway to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and although it feels very much like a purpose built tourist attraction, thanks to almost the whole town being destroyed in a fire in 2016, it was definitely worth a visit. There is a gorgeous creek running right through it and you can get a cable car up to the top of the mountains. After yesterday and the roller coaster I didn’t think I’d have a hope of getting Mum up there so I didn’t even mention it, but she knew I’d want to do it so she said she would be brave. There were a handful of closed cars rather than open chairs so we chose to wait and go in one of those, and it was a good job we did. Mum was absolutely terrified!!! She had her eyes closed the whole way up, was shaking and crying and gripping my hand so hard I lost all feeling by the time we were half way up. The other 4 people in the carriage must have wondered who this horrible English girl was to put her Mumma through that 😀 The views at the top were worth it though, and I bought her the biggest ice cream you’ve ever seen to make up for it!

Even the Smokey Mountain sky saluted us with a St George cross!

We’ve extended our stay here for another 2 nights rather than moving on this afternoon as originally planned, so we are heading out for dinner soon and to have a look at all the Christmas lights that are already up around the town. We even saw Father Christmas go by in his sleigh yesterday!!!

This place is even more Christmas crazy than me, I love it! H xx