Saturday – Dollywood

We left the campground early Saturday morning, and drove to the park to get a good level parking place near the entrance. Since the park opened at 9:00am, I wanted to get there two hours early. We decided we would just wake up, and drive over and get dressed and make breakfast there. I set the alarm on my cell phone, and since we were the Eastern Time zone, I set it for 6:00am to adjust for the one hour difference.

After the alarm went off, and we were getting ready to leave, Patsy noticed it really was 6:00am…………. I had forgotten that the cell phone resets itself for the time difference. So we were really early!!! But, we got a good parking place, and since no one was around to collect the $10 parking fee, we saved that! Here’s a picture of our parking place later in the day……

We had studied the park attractions the night before, and marked the ones that we wanted to see. The rides were mostly roller coasters, and we are not into those. We did choose to ride the Ferris wheel, carousel, and bumper cars. We got into the park right at opening time, and went to the rides first. We were second in line for the Ferris wheel, and first for the bumper cars. A few others came behind us for the cars, and the guy let all of us ride 5 or 6 turns until some other people got into line. We got a long ride………. And Patsy turns into a real maniac in those cars!!

we spent the rest of the time strolling the park, and attending shows. They were having a gospel festival, and had a lot of outside performers. We managed to see all the show that we had selected, and more. It was a good day. Here are a lot of pictures, starting with early morning when the park was empty and ending with the performers:

Dollywood has an eagle sanctuary where they have professionals employed and they take in birds that are disabled (some by being raised by humans and can't survive in the wild), and can't be let go in the wild. We went to a presentation, and here are some pictures:

We left the park about 30 minutes before closing and the traffic was very heavy.

We headed toward Nashville, but did not make it. We were tired, and found a Wal-Mart at Crossville, TN, and pulled in and spent the night. Tomorrow, we will head to Nashville, where we will pick up the Natchez Trace Parkway, and drive to Jackson, MS where we will get on I-20 toward Texas.