6/22/09 - Everything We Didn't Do In Gatlinburg, TN

We arrived at our KOA in Newport, TN in the early evening on the 21st to find that the campground was basically one giant mud puddle due to several days of rain and storms before we arrived. It was ... fun ... setting up the tent and trying to keep everyone out of the mud so that it didn't get all over everything. And even worse, the only site that would fit our tent was on a mild slant, so that when we woke up in the mornings, we would find that our sleeping bags had slid 2-3 feet into a bunch on the downward side of the sloped side.

I had originally planned on meeting up with a friend on Monday, the 22nd, at a playground in Gatlinburg, but somehow we never finished making the plans so we didn't meet up after all. The heat/humidity was just unbearable, so maybe it wasn't a bad thing that the kids weren't going to be running around and getting even hotter. I do keep a case of bottled water in our car, but Becky, especially, tends to really overheat so I have to keep a close eye on her when it's hot outside no matter where we are.

We drove around Gatlinburg trying to find something that looked appealing. The truth is that I was too cheap and too hot to pay $10 to park in a lot and then have to walk blocks and blocks in the heat to whatever places we wanted to go. Plus, it was really touristy, and I didn't drive all this way just to see the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. In fact, I didn't drive all this way to see any of this touristy stuff.

Here are just a few of the things we did NOT do in Gatlinburg:







I admit that I took these pictures while I was driving. But in my defense, we were only driving 5 mph and the traffic was wall to wall, stop and go the entire length of the main drag of Gatlinburg. Yuck. I was as surprised that so many people braved the heat to see this stuff as I was surprised that anyone would honestly want to pay money for this kind of entertainment. You can see this stuff anywhere - and the Great Smokey Mountain National Park is only about 5 miles away.

We had better luck in nearby Pigeon Forge. We were able to stop at a candy shop without having to pay to park, so I treated the kids to a couple of pieces of homemade taffy and I had a homemade peanut butter meltaway. It was all delicious!

More from this day in the next post.