39th Anniversary Story...Part 1

Wednesday, February 11th we left Sadieville in the morning and headed to Pigeon Forge, TN where our room at the Holiday Inn Express awaited our arrival. We anticipated bad weather and wanted to get there before the bad weather hit in the afternoon. While traveling south on I-75 Claude noted signs stating I-75 was closed below Corbin, KY. So I pulled out the maps (we aren't GPS users to date) and found us an alternate route. We took Hwy 25 East out of Corbin through the Pine Mountain area, through the Cumberland Gap and into Tennesee. Beautiful drive. We arrived at the hotel just as the sprinkles started. We unloaded the Buick and checked into our room. Since this was a 3 night stay I unpacked us and set up our home-away-from-home. Then we headed to the lobby and caught the weather alerts on the TV before heading out to dinner. The storm was right over Pigeon Forge. It was a fast moving storm so we waited it out. It cleared quickly and we headed for dinner. Claude and I prefer eating at local restaurants when traveling if possible and I had a list I collected from the Internet. From this list we picked the Alamo and headed there. The building was built like the Alamo in Texas. The food was expensive but delicious. We had a coupon and they had a buy one get one free special that night as well. They only do this on Wednesday night. We had a great meal for a lot less than the usual cost. Score one for us!! After dinner we drove the "Parkway" which is really Hwy 441 going through Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and the Gatlinburg. There it enters the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and goes through the center of the park into North Carolina. We only drove through Gatlinburg as it was getting dark. We headed back to the hotel and picked out some brochures to supplement my computer research. We listed the things we wanted to do most, Claude suggested that we do outside things on Thursday as the possibility of clouds and then rainy weather was forecast for Friday and Saturday, I cut out coupons for all interested locations, then we plotted Thursdays activites and I filled my purse with maps and coupons. We were ready to sleep in preparation for our Thursday activities. Thursday morning we arose early and went to the buffet provided by the hotel. Then it was off to Scenic Helicopter Tours. We picked a tour that lasted about 28 minutes and took us over Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg and the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It was such a clear day we could see Knoxville in the distance. Our pilot gave narration of the things we were seeing. His name was Spencer and he was a really nice pilot. I sat in the front seat and took the pictures that I'll post in a slide show next. This was my first time in a helicopter. Claude and Jake took a ride in a helicopter outside of Gettysburg, PA many years ago. It was a great experience and a great way to start the day. We flew over Dollywood (closed for the winter). We learned it was originally a little train ride through the hills. They got permission to use Dolly Parton's name and the park was born from those beginnings. We flew over a gravel pit that serves these 3 cities. It was easy to see why a portion of the highway through the area is named Forks of the River as you flew over that area. We could see the snow left in Ober Gatlinburg. There are some huge homes on those foothills. It was a great start to our day.