Wednesday, May 2 to Monday, May 7, 2012 Tennessee/Georgia

Wednesday….Today we left early to drive to Pigeon Forge, NC to Dollywood.  It was about a 90 minute drive from Athens.  Pigeon Forge has every kind of family entertainment and restaurant you want. The main drag is just restaurants, hotels, motels, mintature golf courses, museums, magic adventures, and so on lined up one after the other.  You could stay there and not run out of things to do before you ran out of money.  See some pics of a couple of places to go to in Pigeon forge, they even have a Titanac Museum, bottom pic (It's a ship, duh!)

Anyway we found our way to the parking area where you take the trolley for 50 cents each person delivered to the front door of Dollywood.  This is much better than paying $9.00 for the day at the Dollywood parking lot.  We got to Dollywood just as it was opening at 10:00 am. The first ride we rode was the wooden roller coaster.  It turns over and under itself 32 times and pulls 2 g’s.  It’s rated #5 in the US for roller coasters and I believe it.  WOW!!!  All the rides were wussy compared to this ride, even their newest ride the Screaming Eagle was not as thrilling as the roller coaster.  There was this one ride that was like being in a large swing;  this was scary when you’re swinging and looking a long ways down to the ground.  We rode all the rides we wanted to without any waiting time.  Pat wanted to ride the roller coaster one more time before we left, so I let him go by himself.  I did ride the screaming eagle a second time with Pat before we left the Park.  You could probably spend 2 days at Dollywood unless you stayed there till closing to take everything in.  We didn’t really have  time to visit any of the shows.

We left the park around 3:00 and by the time we got back on the trolley ride back to the car and the drive home got back about 5:00 pm.  It was a full day. 

Thursday…… Pat did laundry and I worked all day as had to catch up for taking the day off yesterday.
Here's a couple of pictures of the Over Niter RV park in Athens, TN.

Friday…..Got up this morning and took care of some work items before we got on the rode heading for the Hard Labor Creek State Park in Rutledge, GA.  I now know one place I would never want to live and that is in Atlanta, GA.  We took the bypass around downtown Georgia, traffic was awful even on the bypass and then when we had to get on Highway 20 it was a cluster.  It took about 20 to 30 minutes to get on 20 as there were 3 lanes with entries from 2 different roads condensing down into 2 lanes to then get on 20.  Once on 20 it took another 10 minutes for you finally get up to speed.  I never want to do that again.

Got to the State Park about 2:30 – 3:00.  It’s a beautiful park and we have a very large tree shaded site.  We got our RV set up and then headed to the equestrian area of the park where Pat’s friend, Craig and his wife, Susan are staying for the equestrian gathering this weekend.  Visited with them for a while then back home for dinner.

Saturday…… We got up ate breakfast and then all 3 (That means Blaze) of us went riding on the BMW to view the town of Rutledge and Madison.  Madison is about 10 miles away from Rutledge.  Madison has some beautiful old homes… see pics.  I’ve come to the conclusion that whoever has the most pillars, tallest pillars and/or widest pillars around your home makes you the winner of home design in the South.  We only got a few pics of houses.  There were lots of big, old homes.  Of course Madison’s main street also has old buildings that are  occupied by antique shops and eating establishments, etc.

Below are pics are of our campsite at the Hard Labor

Later that evening we went to a gathering of the equestrian group for a pot luck dinner and to bet on and watch the Kentucky Derby.  I actually picked the winner of the race along with 6 other people but didnt have the correct 2nd place winner so missed out on the $125.00 pot.  I'm trying to remember the name of the horse, it was something like, "I'll have another".  We had a great time and ate lots of good food. Everyone was very nice and welcoming.  

Sunday..... We pretty much chilled.  Pat cooked ribs with a baked sweet potato and a baked onion.  I read a book; we couldn't get on the computer as there was no wifi and no  phone.  Too many trees.  Speaking of trees, there are so many in other parts of the US.  Craig, Pat's friend, made a statement during our visit saying that when his family moved to Texas years ago his father looked at him and said, "Son, there's a lot of sky here".  I never realized that Texas didn't have that many trees until you visit other areas of the US.

Monday.... We left the park early and drove to McDonough, GA to our new RV park.  They have great wifi so worked about 5+ hours.  Went to the grocery store and now working on getting this blog posted.  Hope to get out and about in the area.  Getting ready to fix a salad for my dinner.  Pat ate pizza.  Well, it's after 6:00 pm here in Georgia (5:00 in TX) and I'm ready to make my salad. Later.......