The Tennessee Trip

I’m finally back in Vancouver and happy to be here. I missed Chris, Abby and “home” in general.

Tennessee was an interesting experience.

When we arrived in Knoxville our first difficulty was picking up the baggage and our rental car. Dad is 85, mostly deaf and fairly infirm. He is able to walk, very slowly, with a cane but the distance he can go is pretty limited. The airlines were very good about pushing him around in wheelchairs but they tend to drop him in the baggage area and go on their merry way. It was a long walk to the rental car pickup so we just took our time. Of course, the vehicle I had ordered was not in residence and instead of giving me a free upgrade, I was offered the next smaller size. The other option was to wait 15-20 minutes for the right size car to come in. I don’t think so. Dad was already pretty tired out and there was nowhere to sit and rest.

The rental company provided a cryptic map of the Knoxville area but it didn’t cover our destination so it didn’t help much. The agent gave me directions to Pigeon Forge but, unfortunately, he wasn’t exactly correct. In addition, the highways in Tennessee all have two (sometimes three) numbers and road signs and “towns” are extremely far apart. This means you can drive a long way before you find out you are going the wrong way. It took over two hours to drive the 50 miles to our destination but since I am pretty strong in my “cruiser’s mentality” I was able to remain calm and enjoy the scenery. Dad was a bit tenser and couldn’t hear the small talk I was attempting in order to reassure him. By the time we arrived at our hotel the group was preparing to go out for dinner. They waited while we got our luggage into the room and then we were off.

Pigeon Forge is best known as the home of Dollywood…a country themed Disney-esque amusement park but that is only the beginning. The main portion of the town is a huge “gut” that is lined with hotels, restaurants, souvenir buying opportunities and entertainments. Remember the 60’s when we used to cruise “the gut” showing off our cars and trying to pick up guys/girls? According to Trip Adviser there are 95 hotels and most are along this long main drag with restaurants, shops and entertainment options filling in the spaces between.

Besides the regular fast food options (McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, etc) there is a plethora of local restaurants, many of which offer the ever popular buffet. Dad loves a good buffet but I diligently ordered off the menu in order to reduce the likelihood that I would be taking in enough calories to feed a small village. If you aren’t familiar with southern food it generally has lots and lots of carbs and calories. Think fried chicken, biscuits & gravy (both favorites of mine), beans, cornbread, corn on the cob, home-made chicken and noodles (I actually learned to make this yummy dish from my ex-mother-in-law), green beans cooked with bacon, macaroni and cheese, okra and grits. Delicious food but given my current propensity to “put on a pound or two” if I ate like that I would very soon be as big as a house. I also discovered that Tennessee is a dry state…except, of course, for the moonshine.

I was surprised to discover that this part of the country still has a great number of smokers. Everywhere we went people young and old were smoking. I have gotten spoiled by living on the west coast where smoking is becoming rarer by the day. I’m just guessing here, but maybe the smoking and high fat diet contributes to the fact that Tennessee ranks 45^th in life expectancy.

Here’s an interesting factoid. Apparently lots of people go to Tennessee deliberately wanting a hillbilly experience. Thus, there are cabins for rent everywhere and the amenities range from very “rustic” (no electricity or running water and an outhouse out back) to luxurious. I was also surprised to learn that Pigeon Forge is a big wedding mecca. Of all the beautiful destinations in the world in which to tie the knot this one being on the list just seemed odd.

There isn’t much fear of becoming bored in this little town as entertainment opportunities are endless…the majority of them family oriented. Dollywood is, of course, the main attraction but there are also (to name just a few) the Titanic Museum, the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame, the Dixie Stampede, the Black Bear Jamboree Dinner Show, a couple Comedy Clubs, indoor (?!) skydiving, the Motion Seat Theatre, the National Elvis Museum, Nascar Speedpark, Wonderworks Museum, several zip lining tours, whitewater rafting as well as several themed miniature golf courses and water parks. We attended the Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Show and really enjoyed it.

The trip lasted five days and Dad was able to get in lots of visiting with the remaining members of his Army unit (the 532^nd) from WWII and the Korean War. I enjoyed meeting these friends of his but I was mostly there as Dad’s escort. On one day Dad & I made a trip to Gatlinburg which is a bit more quaint but it’s mostly another shopping opportunity. The 4 mile drive, however, is drop dead gorgeous. It is right on the edge of the Great Smokey Mountains and the road runs alongside the Little Pigeon River under a canopy of deciduous trees. It was beautiful and I’d love to do a bit of hiking through the area someday.

One of the really fun activities (for me) was the car show. Twice a year there is a Rod Run here that attracts people from all over the country. Everywhere we went there were old cars that had been beautifully restored. If Dad had been more able to walk around it would have been fun to just wander for hours looking at them. I wondered if my friends from California were there with one of their ’40 Fords but I had no way to reach them to find out.

So that was the trip. It was a great opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with my Dad and see a new area of the country. The state is beautiful and the residents are super friendly.

And, as I told Dad while we were between planes in Chicago on the trip home, “I love the whizzing through airports. I think I’m going to start traveling with a “crip” more often.” We both got a good laugh at that.