Pigeon Forge

(Gatlinburg? Sevierville? Are they all basically the same thing?) 

This mountain Labor Day tradition is become one of my favorite things. We drove on Thursday and got to our cabin. That night the fire alarm went off at 1:00 am and continued till morning. It was the one in the eve so all we could do was stare at it. I was all for ninja raftering, but was shot down. Turns out another alarm had the batteries out and in replacing those the next day, Gramps found the fix we could have done 8 hours and 500 beeps before. Hilarious. Gramps also ended up being best friends with the maintenance crew who between the fire alarm and a broken tv spent half of the weekend with us. 

We went to Dollywood, just the 4 of us. I didn't realize it was Silver Dollar City 2.0. Like literally it used to be Silver Dollar City. This made it underwhelming because even with so much similarity it lacks the childhood nostalgia and just can't compete. If I liked rides I think it probably had a few that ranked. The bird show was comically bad. They literally showed 3 maimed birds, none of which even flew. We did have fun, but mostly just from being together at a theme park while the rest of the world was in school.

The cousins arrived Friday night. Saturday we drove through the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. At first it was depressing because it was crowded with no parking so we couldn't actually get out to do any trails. But then at the exit there was a parking lot with immediate access to a waterfall and views I imagine to be just as good as anything we would have hiked to. Cue family pictures.

  

Back at the cabin we are still in awe of two novelties.

1. A black bear showing up on our front porch! (I couldn't get my camera until he was meandering off through the yard.)

2. The questionable coffee table book, Rodzina, was a talking piece until Logan came in with a Rodzina shirt, blowing our minds with coincidence.

We played Hillbilly miniature golf where you had to ride a cable car up the mountain to get to the holes. Daron and Eric tied for best golfers, but Logan had 2 holes in one! We also did a mountain coaster and a lumberjack show. Silas (as ambassador for the cousin crew) was selected out of the crowd and given a tree cookie when our side won an event. We were on team Dawson who unfortunately did not end up victorious. All of these excursions were all the fun they promised. We also celebrated Conor's birthday, picnicked, had a fire/smores, played ping pong, and all the boys had fun with the retro video game machine that had like 300 choices. I am so excited that the cabin for next year is already booked!