Great Pumpkin LumiNights 2018

Tonight we walked through the Great Pumpkin LumiNights once more, and were very happy to see things had gotten even better than last year.  We enjoyed it very much last year, and went on a weeknight so it wasn't as crowded, but evidently it was so popular there were quite a few logjams in the traffic flow.  So this year, the crowd moved along generally in one direction, and there was quite a bit more to see!

For starters, there were pumpkins everywhere.  And just about everything was made of pumpkins, each one carved and lit from within.  Look at this butterfly above, Dolly's symbol, made up of many pumpkins, fluttering there nearby the beginning of the journey.

Pumpkins were made into all kinds of shapes and used for many ideas, including these pumpkins on Lilly pads in a pond along the way.  And look at these "quilts" here:

Each hanging rectangle features forty-eight carved pumpkins, creating a colorfully lit pattern.  You almost don't recognize that these are pumpkins until you look close enough to see the familiar pumpkin shapes.

And here are some other familiar shapes:  a guitar.  This makes sense, given that this is in Dollywood.  Yes, it does play music, and yes the notes light up as they play, along with the guitar strings as well.  This thing is pretty big - look at each note, and see that they are made from pumpkins carved as well!

Here are some pumpkins carved and stacked up to create mountain scenery, when all lined up.  There were so many pumpkins last year, but they literally doubled the amount of pumpkins this year, and that might be an understatement.  There were so many, it was impossible to count them all.  Yes, many were the foam sort of pumpkin shape that you can buy in craft stores - but there were many actual pumpkins there too, and every single one of them was carved.

Here's Madison with one of the pumpkin characters wandering throughout the park.  There were a few of these, including a lady playing the banjo, dressed up with orange, purple and green lights.

Ah, the pumpkin frogs.  This was a neat area, as there were so many of these little pumpkins with glowing eyes.  The glow was probably not as intense as these photos make it seem, as these seem to be staring right into your soul.  But they were pretty cool nonetheless!

The whole place had a spooky vibe, but in a fun way.  It wasn't scary in the slightest, but rather fun and colorful.  The closest comparison might be Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, which was another fun destination to go for the holiday.

Here's another shot of those "quilts" made of pumpkins.  They were impressive!  We sat there and looked at them for a while, just amazed at the very idea of taking pumpkins and doing something like this with them.  It turned out amazing, as did the other stuff.  Here's the spider they made - this one moved to a new location this year.

Notice the carved spider designs below.  Every area had pumpkins carved with things to go with that theme nearby, such as owls or eagles or even wacky prescriptions from traveling medicinal salespeople.

The other areas were similar to last year, with scarecrow pumpkins, gravestones and musical notes.  The music playing in the area added to the spooky atmosphere without giving anyone a serious chill.  And speaking of which, you can see the weather was perfect for a moonlight stroll through the pumpkins.

On display were many pumpkins that were sculpted by an artist during the day.  You could watch him work throughout the day, and at night the pumpkins were lit up in amazing ways.

Here below you can see one that says, "Dollywood," which I"m guessing had to be done with a stencil first.

 It was an actual pumpkin though, so the shelf-life of this one is pretty limited.  That's what makes the art so great is the temporary nature of it, and how intricate all the work is.  It's a fun thing to return to year after year.  We can't wait to start carving our own again!  And look at these below here, set up like a waterfall.  The pumpkins beneath the waterfall have carvings of fish, and even one with an otter!

There were so many displays, it would be an enormous undertaking to put them all here.  I'm showing our favorites of the night - you can tell we had a great time walking through!

At the end of it all, the scarecrows waved goodbye - they were here to greet us the last time.  But this time, things went in reverse, and that was okay.  We saw quite a bit along our path, including the coffin where Madison insisted on another photo op:

She has that pose just right, a very grave look about her.  But she was enjoying the sights as much as we were, all the pumpkins hanging high or low.  There were pumpkin owls dangling overhead with leafy material flowing in the wind, and there were large pumpkin bats nearby the old mine car ride.

And yes, there were pumpkins on lily pads.  This one you should keep an eye on.  Don't turn away from him, because he looks ready to pounce!

This is my favorite picture of the night, showing the forty foot tower of pumpkins once more, in front of the moonlight above.  It was a very nice evening, and again just perfect for people of all ages.  Nothing scary or gory here, which is just the way we like our Octobers.

Ah the butterfly again, this time from a different angle.  You can see all the effort put into each of these sculptures, and they're worth the drive alone.  The rest of the park is fantastic, but this little bit of October fun was just amazing to see.

And that was our night, but there was much more to the day.  We arrived at Dollywood at opening, in fact, by the way.

We started at the cars that race around the track, and Madison was happy to get the one with flames on it as she and Mommy rode around.  Daddy rode in a car behind, as fifties music played from each car's radio.  Of course we went to the bumper cars after this!

The lines were a bit longer this time than last, but I believe that is because there was a home game in Tennessee this weekend.  Regardless, the lines weren't too bad - we got to do the bumper cars twice, in fact.

Madison had a lot of fun driving around, and yes, she got to hit Daddy.  And that's what is important, right?  It was a last minute bump, one of those she talked about later on, repeatedly.  Remember that time you were sitting there and didn't see me coming, and I hit you from behind?

But here's her favorite ride for the day, a new one she enjoyed.  She was a little daring today, trying out some new ones.  This sidewinder was a favorite of Daddy's growing up, and he didn't do so bad on this one.  At least, not as bad as the picture suggests.  The one neither of us liked was the swing ride.  You know, this one here?

You can see us if you look very closely, just on the extreme right.  Yeah, this one made Daddy pretty sickish the rest of the day.  Madison didn't like it because she didn't feel safe.  So despite the nostalgia of "Under the Table and Dreaming," and "hey, this is a classic ride," we both gave it a big thumbs down.

There were other rides, of course.  The quick-drop ride was fun again, something like a free-fall, but not so tall up there.  The Lemon Twist ride was so amazingly slow - did they slow it down this year?  We decided to skip that one, once we saw how fast it moved.  Daddy was secretly glad, because he was ready to stop his head from spinning.

That's why Mommy and Madison did the flying elephants next.  Again, these are not "Dumbo" elephants, but actually some other flying elephants.  Apparently, they're more common than the movie "Dumbo" implies!  Seriously, this is such a blatant copy of a Magic Kingdom ride, but at the same time, we're not complaining.  This is such a happy ride for us, something we did first ten years ago in Hong Kong Disney when Madison was just two.  And to this day, Mommy and Madison ride the flying elephants together, and Daddy smiles at the memories.  And we'll smile at this memory too!

We did a few other rides down there, including the train ride that goes through the park.  We hopped right on that one, and took a nice leisurely ride up the hill and back again.  There is something wonderful about an old steam train like that, just chugging along with all those passengers.  It was a very pleasant ride, even with the bits of coal coming down.

We took to the carousel as well, with Madison hopping on her mighty steed, overlooking Mommy and Daddy on our bench.  Daddy usually rides a horse, but today opted to sit beside Mommy for a nice little ride around and around.

With Madison photobombing behind!  For a late lunch, we had pizza - gluten free - at a restaurant nearby, and we also went to see "Heartsong," which is a nice place to stop and rest and watch a movie with Dolly in it, one about the area we were visiting.  Madison just loves Tennessee, actually.  She likes Dolly now too - we got a CD of greatest hits to listen to on the way home, and she wanted to go back to the "Chasing Rainbows" museum.

This is the one that has all the items that tell Dolly's story, including the coat of many colors that you see above.  Madison loves that movie, and the song.  And so do we, really.  Here's Madison having a seat in the museum, and sprouting some wings too!

The park is a nice balance of places like the old church that you can go through, the one located further into the park.

It has services Sunday morning, gospel singing and a place to leave prayer requests.  We walked through this one, along with the other places - the old house, the old school, and all the places that took you back in time a bit in Tennessee.

By looking back at these recreations - and actual places - in Dolly's life, you sort of get a peek at what life used to be in this part of the mountains.  Here's Madison, for example, in a recreation of an old school room (this was inside the museum, and not the old schoolhouse).

So you had a lot of that, and meanwhile there was also a lot of this all around:

Daddy has done a few of the roller coasters before, but Madison was not interested in doing any of these this time.  And that was just fine - there's plenty to see and do outside of the roller coasters.  But there was that water ride that Madison wanted to do, and there was no getting around it!

We did the river rapids ride together, Madison and Daddy.  Mommy took a hard pass on that one, but we steamrolled ahead and got on board.  I'll never forget the distinct feeling of buyer's remorse and regret as the boat launched off into the rapids and I was thinking, "It's too late now."  To answer your question, yes we both got wet!  By no means did we get as wet as we did last time.  For one thing, we only rode the ride once.  We had a boat all to ourselves, and Madison got one side and Daddy got the other.  The idea is to see who got the most soaked.  Madison clearly got the most soaked on this one, and we both had a great time.  But it was a cool fall day in the mountains, so you can imagine it took a bit of time to get closer to that feeling of being dry again!

We did a lot at Dollywood, looking through shops like the Christmas shop, or the other places that made glassware or pottery.  We made it up to the bird show in time as well:

That's where we saw yet another eagle on the stage, although there are plenty of bald eagles in a sanctuary there for all to see.  'Murica!  The bird show was fascinating as always, with some unique birds flying very close overhead, including one very large vulture.

We had ice cream today, remembering the ice cream we had last year as part of a clue chasing game.  That was fun - but the ice cream this time was really good too.  We rested a bit, waiting until dusk, because that's when the pumpkins lit up.  But before then, we were able to take a good look around:

Here they are, their eyes not quite as piercing yet.  Things still looked very festive, even before the lights started to come on!

We walked along, seeing carvings and sculptures before the mist and fog started, and it was great to see all the hard work that went into this.  We really recommend it if you're in the area and are looking for some safe Halloween fun.  There were t-shirts and prizes, like pumpkin basketballs and oversized stuffed pumpkin dolls.  There was music and there were people all dressed up for the season, with Jack Skellington outfits or Great Pumpkin pajamas.  The atmosphere was festive, and the pumpkins were amazing.

We'll probably go back - I know Madison will make us, actually.  But it's fun, and it's a relaxing sort of day.  We might pace ourselves a little better next time, but as Madison gets older, it's obvious she's ready to try some newer and bigger rides, while others don't hold her attention as much.  She still loves the bumper cars, but the sidewinder was something she can't wait to do again.  Maybe roller coasters will be next!

Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy just love the decorations, the music and all of the atmosphere.  Time and again, we'd stop for a bit to hear gospel musicians performing, or country music or a banjo player entertaining the crowds.  It's a nice pleasant day, and a memorable one for all of us as a family together here at Dollywood.