Day #3175 (Sat., Sept. 15, 2018) – Gatlinburg
Another free buffet breakfast courtesy of La Quinta Inn this morning. The pool has been down and the elevators didn’t work for a while and the wifi is slow, but the buffet seems to work fine, if you get there in the hours specified that is.
After breakfast the kids and I took Maple to the dog park while my wife cleaned up and packed and then we were off for Pigeon Forge to see all the attractions, like King Kong on a building (see photo to the right).
It was hard to find this new La Quinta Inn in Pigeon Forge as it was behind a number of shops on the main drag. To make matters worse, we are in the midst of the annual antique car festival, where people parade their antique cars up and down the road and people sit on the side of the road and watch and smoke and drink.
After a quick nap we got into the van and drove to Gatlinburg. The first stop was the tram, which went way up into the mountains. Katie was scared, but did it anyway. We rewarded her with a keychain of her achievement afterwards. Before the ride I got some maple fudge at the little store at the base of the tram…just as I remembered. The kids really didn’t like the fudge like I thought that they would.
After the tram we went to Five Guys where we all got a hot dog and some free peanuts. We then went to a house of mirrors (Katie was able to figure the way out). Bobby showed us some of his break dance moves on the floor (I guess Claudia has been teaching him).
Katie wanted to go see Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, but that would have cost us close to $80 so we declined. We got trapped in the traffic back to Pigeon Forge so it was too late to do anything more this evening…just sleep.