The great escape to The Smokey's

Okay, I'm making time to finally get some pics from our trip up and going, we had som much FUN, and well deserved FUN! We found a great deal on a package to head to pigeon forge and Gatlinburg and decided we needed to see more of Tennessee. So off we went on a little adventure, we were gone May 25-28. Pigeon Forge is located on the east side of the state by Knoxville right next to the Smokey's National Park, the Mountain were bigger than I thought, but nothin like the Rocky's, still very beautiful. As we arrived in town by dinner time, we headed to Corky's BBQ, they had the best sweet potatoe fries ever! yummy, then we went and drove around the town to see what we want to do. It is such a resort and tourist town, sooo much to do with the family, several family fun centers, museums, attractions. WOW, there was no way to get it all in on one trip, guess we'll have to come back next year! Here some of what we did: Wonder Works, this building is upsidedown! Its a lot like the adventure

science center. but soo much more. We got to experience what a 6.4 magnatude

earthquake would feel like, and a hurricane winds, and we got to feel how cold the

water was when the titanic sank (freezing). After we spent a few hours there, we

went down the the dinner show called "Hoot n Holler". It was great for the family,

Emma just loved the dancing, singing, and comedy.

Emma and Rick had so much fun playin on everything, especially the giant keyboard




Emma got to rock climb

make huge bubbles

We found this store and Emma just freaked out, so we had to go in!

We went tubing down the River, kids did sooo amazing! We had a lot of fun

floating down the river, we saw eagles, fish, geese, snakes. Rick was so

good and had fun.

Having a little picnic after tubing.

Here we are in the tram riding it up to Ober Gatlinburg

Kids thought it was sooo cool, and such a great way to see Gatlinberg.

At the top of the mountain has soo much going on, ice skating, alpine slide,

mini carnival, food, black bear reserve, hiking.

Rick found a batmobile and just had to ride.

We took the ski lift up to ride the alpine slide

Rick screemed the whole way down, too funny.

Emma was awesome, she wanted to go faster.

And we ran into Bella and Edward, isn't that cool! well actually it was

at the wax museum, and Nick had no interest in going in, and I wan't going

to do it by myself, but was able to get this fun shot.

Next up was the Ripley's Belive it or not Museum, me and Nick thought it

was cool but the kids didn't really like it as much. This is the 2nd museum

we've been able to go see, the main museum was broken up into 7 different

museums around the country.

A very large chair.

This was a crazy man, so I just had to take a pic with him.....

actually he's fake, coulda fooled me!

Emma is standing in a room thats spinning, but walking accross

can really throw your bearings off.

Here the kids are in the dinosaur room, freaking out.
After we left Ripley's we drove around Gatlinberg, which was cool, its a

great town to walk down main street. We then went down to old mill square

in Pigeon Forge to have dinner, real southern cookin on the menu and really good.

On the way home we decided to stop in Knoxville to see the zoo. Its got so much

going on in this zoo and many more animals than Nashville's zoo, so we just had to

go and stop by. Here we are in front of the bears exibit.

On the way home after leaving the zoo, we took a wrong turn during a huge down pour of rain

and ended up heading south towards Chattanooga, which delayed us only by about an hour, so

we ended up seeing even more of the state. Tennessee is very beautiful!

This video is of Rick trying to feed the camels, its really funny!