Pigeon Forge Part One

We arrived at Pigeon Forge in the mid afternoon after a slight detour to Camping World at Knoxville TN, and yes i missed the entry, BUGGER! I will have to stop missing turns! So we checked out the parking lot at the local church a couple of miles up the road and back to Camping World we went. At Pigeon Forge we were met with a massive traffic jam! Although it was Friday, the day after thanksgiving there was lots of traffic in Pigeon Forge. We picked Pigeon Forge because it was close to the entry to the Great Smokey National Park, that was about all we knew about it. As expected people made a long weekend of it and took Friday off to. After attempting to book into one RV park with no luck we found one a little bit further down the road called "Eagles Nest". It's part of the Passport America club so five nights with full hookup, power, water and sewage, Wi Fi and cable TV for $97 for 5 nights including tax, great value.
All set up at Eagles Nest


Now Pigeon Forge is not what we expected. With the opening of Dolly Partons, "Dollywood" many years ago, Pigeon Forge has been transformed into a tacky strip of theatres, amusement centres, $10 gift shops etc but the people love it and flock here annually. We were amazed at the amount of traffic and the number of people here. The Main Street through Pigeon Forge is 6 lanes wide so it's not a small road by any standards. We found out that they run a "trolley" bus covering most of the places of interest so for a mere 50 cents you can get to most places of interest. So Saturday we decided to make use of this service so we drove to the Old Mill which is the terminus for the trolley service. We got on the trolley bus, paid our money and then the driver announces that due to traffic the round trip will take upwards of 2 hours! 4 people got off, they had a show to go to in an hour. The driver said the trolley was a great way to see things, and we agreed especially since I did not have to drive, but sitting in the one spot looking at the same thing for extended periods of time was not what we had in mind! Several hours later we got back to our trailer and said, we are not going into town until Monday when every one has gone, so Sunday would be a catch up day doing not much except going to the "Dixie Stampede" show.

The traffic was bad



Saturday night was the coldest night we have had so far, a low of minus 4c to a high on Sunday of plus 3c. We were somewhat unprepared for it but did what we could, I drained the fresh water tank completely, left a tap on a fast drip to help stop the pipes freezing but to no avail by 2am all was frozen including the water supply from the park. We were lucky that we did not burst a pipe, so we will be making better preparations for the next time. The next morning talking to others around the park also said it was a very cold one and many had made more preparations than so I picked their brains for some tips. Dwight next door had even gone to Walmart on Saturday night and bought insulation to put around his water pipe but the hose still froze solid!
Even the taps froze solid


We went to the show which is pretty similar to the "Outback Adventure" on the Gold Coast, it follows a them with horses riding in and out of the arena. It was fun as it just been reformatted with a Christmas theme added. Dinner was eaten with your fingers, a whole small chicken each, piece of pork, potato, corn cob. It was a good night entertainment. The street outside was alive with Christmas lights as well.






- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Tennessee