Nate, Maddie, Mom and I spent some time in what is now Candy Corn Country, the ol' carnival area where we rode the bumper cars one time without having to wait in line. One kid was driving so poorly and blocking a lot of others (inadvertently) that the operator let us ride a bit more, which was fun.
The new decorations there are great, with lots of crops growing, and all kinds of candy corn characters milling about throughout the area.
After this, Maddie and Nate went off in a different direction for the day, and Mom and I had our fun in the park together from that point on. Maddie may share some pictures in a bit for the blog, and a description of their day. Until then, here's the adventures of Mom and I at Dollywood.
On our way back to the glassblowing appointment, we stopped and rode the carousel together!
And here's where we made it to the glassblower's place. Mom enjoyed this quite a bit. She really wanted a glass pumpkin, and she got to pick the color and extra texture for the glass, and then you can see above how it is applied, where the molten hot glass is rolled in the texture.
Mom's participation was simple enough - she had a mouthpiece, and blew into a tube, inflating the flexible hot glass to a spherical shape. So yeah, that's Mom's air inside the pumpkin.
As you can see, it turned out really well! The stem was a color that Mom picked, and then things were ready to go soon after that. We just had to wait on a slow cooling process before seeing our glass pumpkin again - it was about 4:30 when we went to pick it up from the front entrance of the park. It looks wonderful though, a nice seasonal decoration with a great story behind it.
After that, we were on board the train for a small ride, and I say that because we were on a unique journey that only made it about halfway up the mountain, and then had to turn around due to a truck being stuck across the tracks further on up. No worries though, it's okay. We backed down the track slowly, and got off without any fanfare.
On the way to the Celebrity Theater, we saw a group of people all dressed up as the Lorax! How wild was that? Oh, and we saw the new Dollywood sign up there on the hillside.
We got to the Celebrity Theater, and saw our first show of the trip, seeing Rhonda Vincent and the Rage perform there.
First, I love this theater. The shows here are fantastic. This was an amazing one-hour performance of solid bluegrass and country music. Mom and I really loved the show.
Afterwards, Maddie and Nate joined us at the Front Porch for a great, great lunch together. Look at all the prizes they won playing games down at the Candy Corn Country area!
The food here was so good. We had a little wait to get in, but we enjoy this place because it has good food for Mom to eat, and really just some great choices. We'll eat here tomorrow too, likely!
Here's a ravioli with cheese sauce and inside the ravioli is butternut squash, along with sausage and spinach on top there. Really good stuff. Mom got this Brunswick stew that was just as good, both of these part of the harvest festival theme of the park.
Here we are at the Pumpkin tree, ready to march on to the rest of our day... which included something we've never done before at Dollywood, but is very famous. Here's a hint:
Okay, that's a really obscure clue. This is painted on a wall right before you place an order for some cinnamon bread. We actually stood in line for a bit to get some!
Our verdict? It was really good! We only had a little, because I think that's all you can eat before you overdose on sugar. But wow, they're intense. We only had a little because tomorrow we'll heat these up and have them for breakfast. Yummy. In the meantime, we sat and enjoyed a little of the show across the way by a yodeling performer named Francelle. She was a lot of fun!
And right after that, another performance! We saw the Larry DeLawder family performing at the chapel there, and it was very nice. Lots of gospel music today!
Ah, the pumpkin carving! Here we go, getting into the night time. Dusk, really. Our friend who does the carving wasn't here at the moment, but she had some pumpkins on display including this "Starry Night" one that probably looks very cool when illuminated.
The Mystery Mine was open for business, but just don't look for this guy because you know there'll be trouble.
We had one of Maddie's plush friends in there for a fun photo-op. And me too, right in there in the coffin. How do you stop a coffin from going after you? Got to get some cough drops to stop the coffin.
Oh my. And here's the first triple-scoop ice cream sundae (two parts butter pecan, one part vanilla) with caramel sauce and whipped cream and cherries on top. Yummy! Mom and I spent some time at the ice cream parlor, and just a little further down we spotted this great t-shirt that Mom bought for herself:
That's a big pumpkin! The usual line-up of massive pumpkins were there on display for us, and they were just impressive. I mean, wow.
And here we are waiting for dusk to really settle in. We spend a good bit of time this vacation at the Porch Sitters Union, a place on my bucket list. Essentially, this is just about ten rocking chairs located in Dollywood, but I always wanted to just sit and relax for a spell, rocking away for a while there. We did that today - and a bit tomorrow too - just rocking in our chairs together in this gorgeous weather.
And soon it grew dark enough for us to see the Great Pumpkin LumiNights! We started out in Hoot Owl Hollow, and as we've done in the past, made our way up through some amazing lighting and pumpkins, and then down the hill, following the path past all sorts of decorations and fun.
Harvey the Pumpkin was there, happy to pose with us. Harvey loved my sweater, by the way. I've had this for a few months now, waiting for this moment to wear it. Run your hands along the front part, and it becomes either a pumpkin or Jack Skellngton's face. Pretty cool! It was also comfortable tonight, because the temperature was a bit cool outside. Perfect fall weather!
These pumpkin quilts are some of Mom's favorites!
This parliament of owls is mysterious and spooky!
We love this area, the cascading lights all around, the leaves of trees in the forest illuminated in purple.
The rides are still in operation, the rides all illuminated with the colors of the season.
We like the pumpkin frogs too.
Here we are at the end of the trail - or the beginning, depending on which way you go. Regardless, it was another fun time seeing all the fall lights. And t was the end of our journey for the day, a long day at the park where we started at the opening of the park and went from there. We were tired, but happy as we met up with Nate and Maddie at the Emporium, and got ready to board the tram to head back to our car.
On the way home, we stopped by the grocery store to get some milk, and look what I found! Ho Hos! So a few weeks ago, we were watching "Encino Man," and Pauly Shore's character mentioned these chocolate cakes, and I was wondering if they still existed. I mean, I haven't seen them in the stores at all. So yeah, I had to get a box!
Tonight we didn't do much getting back to the room, mainly because we were all fairly tired. We snacked, and watched "Hocus Pocus" again shortly before bed. We said our prayers, and then were fast asleep.
Oh, before I forget! Here are some pictures from Maddie's great day with Nate at Dollywood:
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