Day forty three - Monday, Oct. 15

Up early and off to Dollywood! Dolly Parton was born and raised in this area. She came back after she made the big time and created Dollywood. As the story goes, she saw the sign in Hollywood and wanted to change the "H" to a "D."

Dollywood is a theme park with rides, lots of music shows, copious amounts of food and enough stuff for sale to strain Mark Cuban's budget.

The park opened at 10:00 a.m. and we were there just after it opened. First stop was the booth where they get into your wallet. $7.00 for parking a car. As we pulled up to the booth, money in hand, the woman working the booth asked us something with a heavy southern accent. After she repeated her question for the third time we realized she was asking me if I was a fireman. Ann told her yes and the woman handed us our parking ticket and told us to keep our money. I still tried to pay but she wouldn't accept the money. Don't tell the Chief I accepted a gratuity! Free parking was a good start to the day.

$47.00 each got us in the gate. Inside we got our bearings and found someplace for our first meal. Too late for breakfast, we had lunch instead. Over the next six hours we saw a couple of shows, rode five miles on a real steam train, bought some stuff and had a generally good time. We avoided the roller coaster rides.

This is the kind of place we'd visit once but probably won't go again. 70% of the grounds are vendors. 20% is music shows and 10% is rides. We did see an eagle sanctuary that was interesting.

We left an hour before the 6:00 p.m. closing and drove back to the coach via Wal-Mart. We got back too late for a game of Scrabble because Dancing with the Stars came on at 8:00 p.m.

Pizza for supper!

G'night Y'all

Pictures show the train we rode and a huge pan of potatoes, onions and peppers at one of the food booths.