Pandemic Dollywood

We were back at the park today, and a little earlier today as well.  There were more people here, which makes sense as it is a Saturday.  We were with the huddled masses in the parking lot, waiting a bit longer for the trains because they only let so many people on now due to the social distancing rules in place.  That took a while, our longest line of the day really.  They took our temperatures, just like yesterday, and we were a little more clear on the mask rules.  You wear them at all times, except in certain mask free zones, and on water rides. 

That picture you see above?  Madison took that one.  In fact, she took most of the pictures we're posting today with her phone as we went about the day's activities.  First and foremost, upon entering the park, we got Mommy a gluten-free blueberry muffin at the bakery nearby the entrance.  Madison and I had a little food delivered to us in the hotel room.  Rather than do the continental breakfast, the hotels actually deliver a breakfast to particular rooms at particular times.  A guy showed up at our door at 8:30 today with three styrofoam containers that had sausages, eggs and biscuits.  It wasn't exactly the most spectacular thing in the world, but it was still the best they could do, and we're okay with that.  

Anyway, after stopping to talk with the employee there at the bakery, we were on our way to the Demolition Derby, the bumper cars!  

Madison and I rode this about four times today, three times in a row to begin with, and then we came back for it a little later on and did it once more.  It was lots of fun, of course.  The red cars seem to handle better, by the way.  We were zooming around pretty quick, and Madison got a few good hits on me, and vice versa. 

We did the sidewinder after that, or what they call the Scrambler at the park.  This ride gets me a bit dizzy, but I do it for Madison.  You hear me, Madison?  I DID THAT FOR YOU!!!!  No, seriously, it was a fun ride.  We just did it once, but I think I'm doomed destined to do it again before the end of this weekend.

Next came this up and down nightmare ride which looks so pleasant and small and cute, but don't be deceived!  I opted out of this one, and besides, this is one Mommy likes.  She and Madison went up... and down... and up... and down... and up... and... okay, I'm getting sick just typing this.

After a small break in the mask-free zone, we were over for one more tradition:  Dumbo!  Or, NOT Dumbo!  It's just flying elephants that LOOK LIKE Dumbo!  But they're NOT Dumbo!

Madison took this selfie with Mommy.  They're smiling in this picture.  No, really!  That's one of the weird things about amusement parks and masks.  Everyone's having a good time, but you can't tell by their facial reactions!

Anyway, we went for a flight on NOT Dumbo, just some other random flying elephants.  And of course, that's a big tradition for us that goes back to our first trip to Hong Kong Disney when Madison was two years old.  I feel super old typing that.  But it was fun, and the girls had a good time.  They're smiling under those masks!

We made our way over to a new experience for Madison, a log flume.  Yes, it was her first log flume!  She enjoyed it so much that it was also her second log flume!  It's called Daredevil Falls, and it's a super fun log flume ride.  No line at all today for it, so we did it twice.  The two of us got there to the logging facility, and chose a log to ride up to the abandoned sawmill up the Lost River there.  Of course, the falls were pretty steep at the end!  Madison was super nervous at the top, but she enjoyed it quite a bit!

From there we went down the hill a bit, stopping at a few of the crafting shops along the way.  We stopped at the witch's woodcarver's place, and that was where we found a beautiful cross ornament that we purchased for our tree.  We like to get ornaments from places we've been as a commemoration of the trip we took, and even though this was a quick getaway, this was a nice memento to remind us of the fun this weekend.

There were some candles nearby, and yes, that's what these are above.  Madison took this picture of these delicious looking candles.  She just had to try and touch one - they look so much like ice cream!  She was taking pictures of a lot of the items in the stores as we looking around.

She was enjoying the browsing as much as we were, and we wound up picking up a few things today from this area.  These stores are always pretty nice, and the air conditioning is also a big plus!

Soon after, we continued our walk downhill, and that's when we passed by the church, and saw another place that Mommy likes to visit.  This one wound up being a slightly longer visit though!

We also stopped by the pottery place there, Stone-Penland Pottery, and got something for Nana's upcoming birthday there.  While there, we found out the potter that has been working there used to live in Forsyth County not far from us, and from there we had a nice conversation with her about all sorts of things we had in common from that point on.

Madison was taking pictures there, while Mommy and this other lady were hitting it off.  The church is right there, so I snapped this picture as well.

We're actually planning on attending church here tomorrow morning, which will be pretty cool.  We haven't physically been to a church service in quite some time, so it will be a special morning.  We spoke with a few people today and they told us the details about service times and so forth, so we'll be up and ready to go!

Madison also took this picture here of the water feature/piano over by the chapel.  You can see the pottery place behind the piano there.  I'm not sure if there is any meaning behind this piano, but it always grabs your attention when passing by.  

Speaking of grabbing your attention, we met this lady here - I think her name is Mrs. Lillian.  We spent a few minutes talking with her, and it was pretty fun.  She was quite animated, and after asking what Madison's name was, she made up a song right there on the spot, singing it for us to great applause. 

We were on our way to get some pizza, and as you can see here, we finally made it there.  It's a place called Victoria's, and they have gluten-free pizza there as well.  It was nice and cool in there, so we could sit down for a bit and enjoy a pizza together.

The train is right across from the pizza place, but you have to get in line pretty early to get on that train.  It's the social distancing that keeps the amount of people that can ride the train down lower.  We'll try again over the next couple days, and may have to just do the stand in line thing.  Thus far, we haven't had to stand in line much here.  We did go over to the River Rampage, but for similar reasons, the line was pretty long for that.  We decided to save that one for later as well.  We did do that ride yesterday, and had fun.  We'll try again soon!

So we were pretty much on our way out of the park at that point, and something odd happened to me over by the train.  

A praying mantis landed on me!  Those are rare enough, and we sort of always have thought them as special insects, almost nearly a mascot of sorts.  So how odd that one would fly up and land on me, amongst all the other people and things around.  Furthermore, it climbed up my leg, up my arm and then over my shoulder, up the side of my head, and onto the top of my hat!

There is a flowerbed of impatiens nearby, and so perched atop my head, the praying mantis had a express ride through Dollywood straight to the flower garden, where you can see him above.

We stopped at two more shops on the way back, and there was the one at the mill there.  Here's a picture of the water wheel inside the shop.

It's interesting to see a working water wheel inside the store, especially one this size.  Madison was busy taking pictures inside this shop, seeing things she liked here or there.  For example, this picture below of some lighting turned out nicely:

That's an interesting chandelier!  She also saw some flowers there at the counter, and took a picture of those as well.  We were at the counter, because that's where we were on line to purchase yet another ornament.  This one was a picture of the church at Dollywood, one printed on an ornament that looked very nice.  But these flowers below were nearby, so she pulled out the cellphone and took a photo.

These flowers were nearby - they looked nice!  This is the sort of petal on the cross ornament we got today.  This particular store has a lot of home goodies in it and general souvenirs.  In fact, I'm thinking it's more of a "general store" than some of the other places.

Just outside is a small bridge, and if you look down there are usually ducks.  We spotted this little family of ducks together in the water.  We saw several ducklings huddled together yesterday, and today they were going for a swim in the shallow waters of the river that goes through Dollywood.  Nearby that bridge is a little pond area stocked with large carp and we saw a soft shell turtle as well.  You used to be able to feed them, but I'm guessing this was another casualty of the pandemic.  The feeder must not have been compliant.  That's another thing about this pandemic:  the voices overhead asking for masks and social distancing.  It is such a dystopian thing.  We kept turning to each other after hearing some guy on the tram ride today demand that a person in the second car wear his mask up to his nose.  We'd say, "YOUR COMPLIANCE WILL BE REWARDED."

Anyway, back to the pictures.  Again, most of these are Madison's, and they turned out nicely.  You can see the fountain in the small lake here behind the general store.  We were on our way out by now, with just one more stop really. 

Okay, two.  We had to get the car fixed.  Okay, not really - this is a bit of scenery nearby a bathroom in 50's land.  We were on our way to a particular store and spotted the bathrooms.  They created this entire garage, and it's just sitting there in the background with 50's music playing and all kinds of little posters and signs and memorabilia there from that era.  It was just a nice touch.  Anyway, next we were off to our last stop, really.

It's not the car.  It was the building behind it, Dolly's Closet.  Madison and Mommy were here yesterday when they saw a blouse on sale.  So Madison was in there, trying it on and looking at a few other things.  In the end, we did get the clothing she wanted, and we also got - again - our season pass discount.  With these season passes, we get discounts on food, souvenirs, and of course parking.  We don't pay for parking.  So we've been saving a lot here and there.

My turn.  This is a picture I took of a building near Dolly's Closet, one I took while I was waiting for the girls.  It's a pleasant area, quiet and with a bit of scenery around it, one of those bits of scenery being the Dolly Parton Museum, which is called "Chasing Rainbows."  

It's right there, along with the bus. We've been inside the museum a few times, and the bus once or twice as well, but today it was closed, along with many of the other indoor activities.  Madison came out of Dolly's Closet with a new piece for her wardrobe, and all was well.  We made our way towards the exit, and stopped to listen to a band with a banjo play a few tunes, including "I'll Fly Away."

Here's one last picture from Madison, a photo of the colorful reflections of prisms on the concrete nearby.  After that, it was back to the emporium, and the exit.  We made it back to the hotel, and there was enough time to do something else, so for some reason we got the bright idea of getting tubes and going down the river behind us.  The thinking was that this is probably as simple as it is to tube down the Chattahoochee River in Helen.  It was not.  We had some major class rapids there, ones I wouldn't be sure of even if we were in kayaks!  Nevertheless, Madison made it through by the grace of God, and I eventually made it through, though my sneakers were lost at one point.  A Good Samaritan threw them upstream to me, and I made an amazing catch, which was the only thing amazing I did on the river today.  We can say we did it though - we tubed down the Little Pigeon River and survived to tell the tale.  I don't think we'll do the entire bit of the river ever again though.  Nope!

So we instead retreated to the swimming pool, where we swam for a good bit, happy there were no rapids. Just good ol' chlorine!  

Tonight we watched "WALL-E" in our hotel room, and after that "BURN-E" just because.  And after that, it was reading and prayers and a good night.  We were fairly tired, of course, and sleep came a bit quicker tonight.  It was a very nice day today!