Tennessee – Part 1: Gatlinburg
In NJ, all schools have off the Thursday and Friday of the first week of November for the NJEA Teacher’s Convention. Being that the Tuesday of that week is also election day and many schools are used as polling centers, some schools have taken to giving staff and students off the entire week.
Win-win when you have school-aged children and adults who both work in education!
This year we asked the kids if they would rather vacation somewhere warm or go on a camping trip.
It was unanimous…we were going camping!
This time, we had friends of ours come along too with children the same ages. It. Was. Awesome.
Destination: Tennessee.
For the first leg of the trip, we picked Gatlinburg, Tennessee which is about 10 hours (by car) from us.
So after school on Friday, we drove about 4 hours to Virginia to stay overnight at a Cabelas.
FIRST TIMERS HERE!!!
We’ve never boondocked before! We were only there to sleep, so it wasn’t so bad. We didn’t miss out on anything. We woke up the next day, did a little visit to Cabela’s to check it out, (I’ve never been there before either) and got on the road.
As you may know, 6 hours by “car” always turns into 10 hours towing a camper. We had a lot of headwinds and hills to fight against, so not only did it take us longer but there were more gas stops involved.
We finally arrived at the Gatlinburg East/Smoky Mountain KOA in Cosby, TN. We were arriving after hours and the camp owners were wonderful with accommodating us. In fact, when we arrived the host even helped us back our monster of a camper into a back in patio sight.
This campground is beautifully kept. There is a small store with essentials and gifts, a common area in the main house, laundry and bathrooms and you can even book adventures there!
Day 1, we hung out at the site for a while. Not only were we tired from travel, but it was a beautiful fall day and the kids just wanted to play.
Then we ventured into downtown Gatlinburg. This is such a cute tourist town! We went to small little shops and walked around for hours.
Then the dads stumbled upon a distillery.
Why had no one told us about this!
Once you show your ID and pay $5, you basically try every whiskey and moonshine they make! The dads did this at Ole Smoky Tennessee Whiskey while we walked around with the kids. They said they tried about 12 different kinds and they left with 6 jars and a cooler!
Well, now it’s the moms turn.
The dads took the kids mini golfing on the main street while the moms went to Sugarlands Distillery. The staff was knowledgeable about allergies! (I was not about to go down on night one with an accidental Gluten exposure.) Fast forward an hour later, the moms walked out with 6 jars too! (oops)
We had an easy dinner at the Mellow Mushroom. The kids love it there. It’s an old standby.
After dinner, we went back to the campsite for some more moonshine and a warm fire.
We had a little scare because that night the weather got really bad. The rain and wind were the worst I’ve ever experienced in the camper. There were tornado warnings in other areas of Tennessee! After Googling “at what wind speed does it take to flip a camper” and monitoring the Weather Channel all night (plus some moonshine to make me sleepy) I was able to finally go to sleep. I didn’t sleep soundly…it was pretty scary. But we were safe and had no damage (thankfully). A tree limb fell on our friend’s camper, but luckily they had no damage either.
Phew.
On day 2, we had a late breakfast, waited until it dried up a bit and headed to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was pretty late in the day and we did a short hike. Rookie move…the kids were starving and we should have packed lunch.
After the short hike, they were begging to go back downtown for a late lunch. We went to the Smoky Mountain Brewery on the main street. They were great with the allergy thing again and we had a good sized lunch.
With full bellies, we walked around the downtown more, stopped and played at a park and the kids played near a creek.
On the way back to the campsite, we stopped at Santa’s Claus-et, a store in Gatlinburg. There, we bought a few ornaments (we have one for everywhere we travel!) and the kids got to sit with Santa and get a picture. (In their hiking clothes, but whatever.) Santa was so sweet! He played trivia with the kids and made them handmade ornaments with their names on them. The staff there were really lovely people.
Day 3 we took the kids to the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge. This was decorated for Christmas already and was beautiful! They have a contraption that you walk around with like a phone. You put in the number of the exhibit you are at and each is narrated and described. There are both adult and children descriptions to keep the kids engaged. It was very interactive and interesting. The staff gives you a “character” when you enter and you can follow their fate through the museum. The whole tour took about 90 minutes.
We stopped at Christmas Place on the way home. This was a cute tourist spot and I wish I had tons of money to spend on beautiful decorations (but I don’t) so we walked around a little bit. I have to say, I wish there was more going on there, but really it’s a few connected stores with decorations for sale.
Day 4 we hung out at the campground sulking that it would be our last night there. But that night we had the biggest plans of the trip here…Dolly Parton’s Stampede. This. Was. Awesome. It’s very similar to Midevil Times where it’s a theatre in the round and there are two “sides” routing against one another. We were the “North Elves” and the other side was the “South Elves.” The main attractions are the beautiful horses and the tricks the riders do. The whole thing was Christmas themed and it was wonderful. The food was pretty good. I heard the soup was really good, but it wasn’t gluten free, so no soup for Mrs. Bougie. My gluten-free meal was a GF roll, chicken, pork, corn on the cob, a broiled potato and the most delicious GF cookie for dessert. Everyone else had a creamy vegetable soup, cornbread, chicken, pork, corn on the cob, a broiled potato and an apple turnover for dessert. The kids ate up and were all smiles. This was really a fun night!!
We were really disappointed that we didn’t get to visit Dollywood while we were there. Unfortunately, it was closed the whole week we visited for the fall to Christmas changeover. Such a bummer!
We headed back to the campground to clean and pack up…it was going to be an early departure for Nashville in the morning.
We woke to the early morning sound of the leaf blower, cleaning all the falling leaves from the changing weather. (I told you they kept it very tidy) We packed everything and got on the “4 hour” (read: 6 hrs+ towing a camper) road towards Nashville, TN.
Since they are such different areas, that will be a different post.
Overall, such a lovely place to camp! We agree that we would love to visit this area again. People here were so nice and polite and everywhere we went felt safe and clean. A definite plus when traveling with family!
Happy Camping,
~Michelle
