Pigeon Forge KOA

It took us about 4 and a half hours to get to Pigeon Forge, this a very interesting KOA because it like literally in the middle of a town.

Sunday Paul and I did homework in the morning while the kids played outside skipped breakfast and went to the pool most of the day. They just installed a lazy river right of off the pool area and even though the water was pretty warm it was nice to jump in a cool off for a little while. They didn’t have any tables or umbrellas and very minimal chairs so I was baking in the sun for 4 hours and I was drinking but I did manage to remember to apply sunblock like 8 times so I didn’t get any sun. That night after dinner we drove around town and ended up in Gatlinburg just to check out the sights. I was pretty much chaos and that was right around 930. I can’t believe there were that many people out just walking around. 

Monday was a day packed full of fun in the hot hot sun! it was well over 90 degrees and man it felt over 100. Paul and JP went to The Old Mill restaurant for lunch while Mckenzie slept and I finished up some last minute homework. They both raved over it and said it was very good and the portion sizes were huge. JP got a BBQ sandwich that was about as big as his head. After that came back they picked up the two slow girls and we headed out on the town. Paul said we had a day of fun ahead of us but didn’t tell up where we would be going. To my surprise we ended up at the Outlets to shop I was very underwhelmed because shopping is one of my least favorite activities of all times. Between spending an absurd amount of money on things that most of the time I don’t think you need, and trying to get my fat ass into clothes that I ended up looking fatter in then I think I am, it just ends up making me feel like shit about myself so I refrain from doing it. Surprise, surprise everyone bought something for themselves except me… actually I bought myself a small coffee at Starbucks which I will end up wearing some place on my body so I guess I got something to… All three of them got new adidas slides. JP got a pair of converse shoes and a pair of under armor tennis shoes. Paul also got a pair of tennis shoes, and Mckenzie got a pair of converse and some socks. FUN FUN. After that we made our way down to Gatlinburg for some actual fun, paid ten dollars to park all day and started our walk to the Hollywood car museum per JPs request. We saw all kinds of cool cars from a bunch of different movies, including the Batmobile, Herbie, Elvis’s car, and a bunch of cars from Fast and the Furious. We left there and made about a ten minute walk to a fun center where we played glow in the dark golf, it was all neon colors and blacklights. JP won then Paul then Kenzie and I was lest, as usual, but it was air conditioned thank the lord, the laser tag that we placed next however was barely. I felt very bad for the kind gentleman that I had to give my laser vest to because it was practically dripping with sweat. We all had a really good time though JP won mini golf and Paul won laser tag. I have never played laser tag but I had more fun than I thought I would. After that we stood in a small breezy spot because it was hot as hell outside and we were all sweating from playing tag. We made our way back up to where we parked and tried to have dinner at Dicks Last Resort but they had an hour wait and me and the children were starving. So, we went to choice number two which was luckily right across the street, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. I have never been to a Bubba Gump shrimp but the movie Forrest Gump is one of my all time favorite movies and my family knows just about every line in the movie, to the point that the waitress was asking us trivia and we pretty much got every question right, she was very impressed. She even told us that we were a very cool family, like there was any doubt, and told us she was “going to give us half off double of our bill” :P. After getting our bellies full we decided it was time to go back to the camper. Paul wanted to do some ski lift thing up the mountain but it was still pretty hot out and we were all exhausted from walking around in the heat all day. We delivered on one last request form Kenzie, all she wanted to do was go see the Dolly Parton statue that was about 30 minute away…. So we set out on one last adventure and found it in the middle of town right in the middle of a construction zone lol they were updating the roads around the town but we managed to find it. After a quick stop at the grocery store we were back at the camper to enjoy a fire.

Tuesday was a stay at the trailer and let the kids play at the pool with their friends. I had classes from 8am until 3pm and while I was doing it I spent some time doing laundry while Paul stayed with the kids at the pool. Later that night we had a bit of an argument because Paul was bored and he thought it was a waste of time to jut stay in the park when we could be doing Tennessee things. I really don’t care I enjoy a nice quiet day in the campground, I am very aware that would could have stayed home to do the same thing but its nice to have a relax day considering we were out and about pretty  much all day yesterday. So we just decided to go home a day early because we were both mad at this point so after I made dinner (kabobs with steak, shrimp, squash, onion, zucchini, mushrooms, and tomatoes) we ate, yelled a little, packed everything up so we wouldn’t have to do anything in the morning and prepared for the 8 hour drive home in the morning. It also didn’t help that JP came back to the camper with a fever, cough, and runny nose. All really great symptoms when you’re in the middle of a pandemic where everyone is suppose to be wearing masks and staying 6 feet away from each other and cringe at the first sign of a cough. luckly, that never happened, we cooled off the next day.

Wednesday we woke up in better moods and instead of going home we desided to look around for other openings and stay camping until Sunday somewhere. We looked at Cherrystone, Luray KOA and Harrisonburg KOA, the only place that had room for us was the Luray KOA so we booked Thursday to Sunday. Around 1 we ventured out for another day on the town. We went to the Smoky mountain national park, where we did a lovely scenic drive up a mountain. We stopped a couple of times to get some picture of the forest that had burned down in 2016. On the way down the mountain we saw the most amazing thing a brown bear walking casually down the road. We was close enough to the truck that Kenzie and I could have reached out and touched him. Considering how vast the forest is and how little area the road takes up it was pretty slim that we would see a bear in the wild. This is now the second bear we have seen just roaming in the wild, the first was at Skyline drive in Virginia. We stopped again near a stream and got out and walked on the rocks, the water was soo cold and looked amazing, I actually wished that we had bathing suits and water shoes to get in. Once we were done our scenic drive we stopped in Gatlinburg and got on the chair lift up a mountain called the SkyLift. At the top we walked across a 700 feet long suspension bridge across a cannon that was 150ft in the air. Half was over there was a glass bottom that you could stop at and look down (I did not). The view from up there was amazing, I’m not big on high places but this was well worth the money and the ride just to see the view. The ride down was scarier than the ride up but I made it Before we took the ride back down though we decided to get some snacks at the snack stand where I waited behind a family who must have bought one of everything and spent 60 bucks on junk. We got 4 slushies and shared nachos and cheese. While we sat at the table we did a facetime call with my family because my sentimental boy was home sick and missed his grandparents. We was so excite to show them all the views that we have seen so far and answer any questions in the process.. We purchased game tickets the last time we were in town so we stopped back and finished them up. The kids did some kind of laser maze and then Paul and the kids played another round of laser tag, thank god I didn’t have to play. We purchased the souvenir shirts for both the kids. That’s all Mckenzie was talking about “ I have to get my Tennessee shirt”! then we went ot a place called slice for on of the biggest slices of pizza I have seen, 2 slices fed all of us. It was inside of an arcade and considering that it was actually really good pizza. We took a walk up the street so Kenzie could find a hand held lacie fan and as it was getting dark we went back on the Skylift for another ride to look at the town in the dark. Paul and the kids went back over the bridge but I had been there done that and opted out. Stopped to get fuel before heading back to the campground and since we had a hissy fit the day before everything was already packed so we just got showers and went to bed. The next morning we were on the road by 930 with very minimal effort on our part.