Back In North Carolina

We packed up this morning and hit the road at 8 a.m. Good thing as all the visitors get an early start, out of Pigeon Forge, to make their way back home. Three lanes of traffic till we got to the outskirts of town and then it all eased up when we headed out on 411. We didn’t have to ride any of the rollercoasters, at Pigeon Forge…this road is so twisty and rolling, that it served that purpose. Nice drive back to North Carolina. Arrived around 12:30…got set up and then had our meeting with the manager so we can get out tomorrow and start selling. Park is very quiet this time of year. Large, older park with 450 sites. We have a long, pull through site just past the office. Town of Mocksville has a population of around 5000 so should be an easy territory to cover over the next two weeks. We’re hoping to hear from our boss in the next day or so on where we are headed next. We still need to get the replacement microwave ordered, to replace our buzzing one that is under warranty. Have to know where we’ll be three weeks out so once we get our schedule we can set up delivery, of the microwave, to that “future” location. Tomorrow will be our first time out selling with our car, instead of Bertha. Will be a very nice change and much easier to get around town. We are certainly enjoying the .60 less per gallon we have to pay for gas as opposed to diesel. Sure adds up….
Weather forecast is for 70 degrees tomorrow and in the 50’s at night. Colder temps coming at the end of the week…daytime highs of 50’s and freezing temps at night.

Dollywood

We got an assignment ! Our company has picked up a new park in Mocksville, NC and the other team in that  area can’t squeeze it into their schedule so we will add it to our schedule. Sure beats sitting around and we like North Carolina….this way we’ll be able to see our friends in North Carolina each year if we keep this job in our schedule. Since we’re leaving in the morning and don’t know if we’ll ever get back this way again, we figured we might as well bite the bullet and go to Dollywood. Our friends, Hugh and Dianne have never been to Dollywood to see the holiday lights so we knew that we wanted to do that. Dollywood is running a special till the end of the year that if you get a day ticket, after 6 p.m., you can get in free the next day. The four of us went Friday night and then Linda and I went back today to take in more of the park that we couldn’t cover in just three hours Friday night. Dollywood boasts having four million lights up for the holidays….wow, is it gorgeous at night !
The blue tree above had what looked like white shooting stars throughout the tree…really neat. A beautiful array of lights AND a full moon made for some nice pictures. We were able to get in three of the shows while we were there Friday evening. They have a “Christmas on ice” show, which combined singing with ice skating, and lots of other shows….everything from the southern Gospel group, “Kingdom Heir” to An Appalachian Christmas. Seems odd to hear Christmas music and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet but it sure starts to get you in the mood for the holidays.
Today, we went back and everything sure looks different in the daylight. Linda and I rode the carousel, the scrambler (after the ride got cranked up and my head was spinning, I remembered why I don’t do those twirly rides anymore :(   We enjoy the carousel at a Pennsylvania amusement park, called Knoebels, cause you can reach out and try to get the brass ring. It’s alot of fun but we have since to find another carousel that has it. The “southern” tradition must be yelling “Yahoo” at the top of your lungs when you go by the ride operator’s booth cause everyone was doing it. Twice the operator would return the southern holler…not sure if it was truly him or a recording. Note to self: rebel yell when riding carousel in the south next time
Speaking of surprises, I have to tell you about one we had Friday when we were out and about. We were approaching an intersection, in our  car, and we hear this scraping noise. In unison with the lady in the car next to us, I turn and look at her and she at me. The look on her face was priceless….as if to say: “It ain’t us so it’s got to be you”. I wasn’t sure where the sound was coming from but once they pulled away and it isolated the noise to us,… yep it was us. I pulled off into a gas station parking lot and get under the car. A big chunk of metal was hanging, by a thread, from under the car and dragging on the ground. After kicking it for a bit, I got it off and threw it in the back of the car. I think it’s the heat shield that covers the muffler….I kept thinking about the look on that lady’s face and it made me chuckle all afternoon.
We got to tour Dolly’s old tour bus. It cost her $750,000 back in 1994 and is a Prevost bus.It’s 45 feet  long, 9’ wide and 13.5 feet high. They got 7 m.p.g with it and had enough fuel on board to be able to go non-stop from Nashville, TN to Las Angeles, CA…2050 miles in 32 hours. They made more than 100 of these non-stop trips. The bus was retired with over 600,000 miles on it. She bought a new bus in the last year or so at a cost of 2.2 million. There were three bunks on board, in addition to her bedroom and two bathrooms. Good darn thing there’s two bathrooms on board with all those non-stop trips. There’s bound to be a potty stop needed over all those miles !





Had lunch at Red’s Drive In….not really a drive in, more like a diner. This restaurant is in an area of the park that’s set up like an old town. Remember these old metal type Christmas trees. One of my favorite childhood memories is of the red cellophane wreaths, with a light in the middle of them, that my mom used to put in the windows. I always thought they were so pretty and I’ve never seen them again. Nothing like smothering your burger with sautéed mushrooms and onions, pickle and the works. Wow !

Had a great day….so glad we took advantage of the opportunity to hang out with our friends until we got a new job assigned to us. Had a great time visiting Dollywood and other area attractions. Got to meet up with Froggi Donna and Stu and get to know them better. One the things that we heard said today, in the museum on Dolly Parton’s career, is that “life is about the experiences we have in our life”. That is so true and we’ve been really blessed to be able to travel and gather lots of these experiences.
Dolly seems like such a neat lady, very insightful and generous. Some of the information we put in our campground guides, for filler space, is on the Imagination Library (set up by her foundation). Dolly feels that all young children learn so much from reading and being read to and that they deserve to have books,  in their developmental years. Her foundation gives one book a month, from the day the child is born up until their fifth birthday. The child will receive 50 books ! She started this here in Sevier county for the children and it has caught in various communities across the country. What a great cause and one that our company helps to promote by putting information in vacant spots in the guides. Click the link above for more information.
That’s all from Pigeon Forge…heading out in the morning for Mocksville, NC. Back to work we go….

Lunch with New Friends

Today we met Froggi Donna and Stu for lunch. We’ve e-mailed with Donna and followed each other’s blog for a while now but have never had the chance to meet. We learned that they were coming to Pigeon Forge so we found some time to go to Mel’s Diner for lunch. Had a great time getting to know each other.
We are still waiting on our assignments. Linda B did talk to our boss this morning and he asked if we’d be interested in going to the west coast….we said sure, as long as there’s no snow. He said he’d get back to us after he made some arrangements so we’re hoping to hear first thing tomorrow morning where we are headed. If he doesn’t give us an answer, we’re jumping on the bike and getting some riding in.
Tried to get some things done around the rig today, in preparation for leaving and getting back to work. From the looks of our water filter, do you think it was time to flush the system and put a new filter in ? Wow, and that’s only about 7 weeks of use. Really easy process…take out the pre-filter and fill the chamber with Morton salt pellets. Disconnect the water hose from the rig and turn the chamber upside down and run the water stream about the size of a pencil till all the salt is gone from the chamber. Run a little bit to get any salty taste out of water, put new filter in and away you go till it loses that “slippery feeling” again. A nice process to walk away while it’s doing it’s thing and work on something else. We’ve been in a dilemma about putting our e tracks down in the garage of the rig. We have three tracks, made of steel and feel we should mount at least one so we can secure the trike to it while its traveling but wasn’t quite sure how to do it. I spoke to the RV dealer, where we got the rig, and he answered my questions. Didn’t recommend using the tracks on the walls, as I’ve seen others do and said to cut the tracks to go over the arched area on the floor, back near the ramp. Will have to see if my jigsaw can cut it. It’s pretty thick steel.
Weather has been awesome. In the 60’s today. Tomorrow, it’s supposed to hit 70…a great day for a bike ride. Rain possibly on the way for Wednesday so we’ll see what we can accomplish tomorrow. 

Pigeon Forge

We arrived in Pigeon Forge on Friday afternoon. The trip through the mountains, from North Carolina to Tennessee, on Interstate 40 was really pretty. The foliage was still very colorful and the trees were holding their leaves. Quite a winding road but nothing compared to 411 south that leads into Pigeon Forge. Holy Mackeral….the first 11 miles were pretty wicked. We came by the Bush’s Beans plant…very large plant in the middle of no where. We got to Eagles’s Nest campground and got set up. They are a Passport America park…so half off for the length of our stay. We’re not sure how long we’ll be here so paid till Monday ($66). We have a phone meeting with our boss this evening and will get our schedule.

Hanging out with Hugh and Dianne, our trainers with AGS. They are here working 14 parks over a three month period. They will finish up end of November and then go back to their condo in North Carolina. This is the only assignment they do every year (but heck what a big job it is). Dianne has been dying to see our trike so she tried it out by sitting on it. Last night we went to see Country Tonite, a country show in Pigeon Forge. They’ve started their Christmas show so the first hour was the regular country show and the second hour was the Christmas show.

It was very good and the comedian in the show, Bubba was hilarious. He did this one spoof on the song, “Jesus Take The Wheel” but instead it was Cletus Take The Reel….oh my, it was funny. Had a really good time and it was a fun night out. Today Hugh and Dianne are coming over to watch the race with us and grill out. Tomorrow we might take the trike out and get some riding in before we leave this beautiful area. Would hate to leave and not see any of the back country roads. We hear the rumble of bikes on the road, that goes past the campground, and know this area is a favorite for bikers. The Dragon Tail, an 11 mile stretch with 318 twists and turns is something we might tackle….stay tuned to see if we take on the Dragon !