Hillbillies on the Titanic

This morning we were heading back to a classic attraction in Gatlinburg, one I remember going to when I was a kid.  Mom and I went there early on in our adventures before Maddie, and now Maddie gets to go to Hillbilly Mini Golf, one of the more iconic mini-golf locations on the map.  There was a huge line to get to this place, but we stood in that line in order to hop aboard the funicular, a fancy way of saying an inclined railway.  

It was a perfect morning for mini-golf.  We got our score card, and wrote down our hillbilly names:  Mee-Maw, Clem, and Mad Dog.  There was actually a bear sighting on the course earlier that day, but we were bear-free on our adventure.  We rode the train up the mountain, and had a neck-and-neck battle to the very last hole - we were all playing pretty good.  In fact, both Maddie and Mom had two hole-in-ones!  That's right, each got two hole-in-ones this morning, which was crazy!  As always, I was snapping a few pictures along the green, which you'll see below.  It was a nice time, with no stress or worries about people waiting behind us or anything - the funicular sort of divides folks up in such a way that you don't have to worry so much.  And the course is perfect, right there on the mountainside with all kinds of hillbilly props here and there, some you can interact with.  It's fun!

Mom wound up winning by one, then Maddie and I was third.  But we all had a great time, when all was said and done.  We got back to the hotel to rest for a bit, this after getting to the Titanic to discover we had to wait until later to arrive.  

We went to Wendy's to grab a bite to eat, and headed back to the hotel to look over the balcony, feed the ducks and geese some more, and rest up before going aboard the greatest ship on the seas.

After a good bit of time at the hotel, we headed back to the Titanic and boarded at around 6:30pm with many other passengers.  The staff there are dressed up as officers and crew of the boat, and as you enter, of course you're given an identity, or at least the name of a passenger that rode the Titanic those fateful last days.  You spend the time wondering if you'll survive or not! 

We got a few pressed pennies as we waited to board, but once we were in there, the journey began!  We weren't permitted to take photos on the first floor, which consisted of items like a deck chair from the Titanic, or tools used to create the mighty ships.  There was a photo gallery - it turns out one of the early passengers was an avid photographer, and he disembarked in Ireland, surviving along with his photos.  They were a great look at the ordinary experience on board the mighty ship.  At the time, it was the largest manmade thing that moves.

So here we were on the second floor, and that came after going up the Grand Staircase, which oddly enough only got that name after the ship sank.  Maddie was super excited to come aboard the Titanic, and really interested in all the details and parts of the story.  We had to wait until a clearing here, and it turns out that this was a pretty remarkable moment (because clearings like this are super rare), but here's a photo of the Grand Staircase with no one one it.  Maddie did one of those panoramic shots from top to bottom so we could see the glass ceiling as well.

Those phone cameras have some amazing features!  Anyway, the layout of the museum has you coming back to this location after looking around further, so we'll be back as we exit.

This first location is a stateroom for the very, very wealthy.  I think in modern cost it would be like $150,000 to stay here for the trip.  A drop in the bucket for these passengers.  I can't believe their rooms actually had a fireplace!

Next, we walked down some hallways with mirrors that gave you the impression that you were on a much longer ship.  We've been on a few cruises, so we know the general length - these passageways were really nice.

Ah, Major Archibald Butt.  His name has been the butt of many jokes, but this guy was a hero here and a significant player in White House history.  He was from Augusta, and there's a bridge named after him there.  Once you read up about this man's life, and how he gave his life to help others, you really look up to him.

This room had images of the musicians aboard the ship, and of course a piano, which you can see Maddie seated at.

This is a letter from the captain to his daughter, telling her he'd be back soon, God willing.  Below are more pictures from the room dedicated to the musicians.

We left that room, and walked into the disaster.  We had small radio players that gave us bits of story and dialogue along the way, and of course it didn't go well from here on out.  The bridge was super crowded, but amazingly we had this one small moment to snap a few pictures of Maddie and Mom at the wheel of the ship.

And then we were outside in the cool night air.  The iceberg was looming, and there was a place to put your hands into water that was twenty-eight degrees, the temperature of the ocean water that night.  Here's Maddie doing just that.

It is super cold!  It's something we couldn't do for too long at all.

There was a room with information about the children aboard, and other groupings too.  This artifact below was a cross carved from wood found amongst the wreckage.  A lot of the wreckage was floating on the surface of the sea.  The ship of course is famously in two pieces at the bottom of the Atlantic.  The back half of the ship landed in such a way that the damage wasn't as bad to the structure.  The front half did not fair so well.

Here below are a few of the angles the ship took on as it began its descent into the sea, and you can see us attempting to stay aboard as the angle increases!

This area was pretty crowded, but there were individual stories being told that maybe when the room wasn't so crowded you could actually hear.  There was a chest and items retrieved from the boat like purses, bracelets and jewelry.  There was an interactive table where you follow a boat down as it submerges to the bottom of the sea.

And then there was this below - a replica of the Titanic, entirely made from LEGO bricks.  It is over twenty-six feet long, and pretty astounding!

And so the moment of truth came.  Did we survive?  At the end of the journey there were walls that listed the names of those who survived, and those who perished.  Maddie was a first-class passenger, so her odds were greater of survival as you can see below.  Mom was a third-class passenger, so her chances were 26%.  I was a crewman, and my chances were 24%!

Amazingly, all three of us survived!  There were a lot of people at this wall, looking up to see if they made it to a lifeboat.  Also nearby were individual pictures and biographies, which we snapped pictures of.

My guy was at the wheel that night.

Maddie's passenger actually also witnessed the 1906 earthquake!

Mom's passenger lost her family, but lived a long life afterwards.

So back to the Grand Staircase we went, and this is the wrap-up to the journey.  Normally there's someone there to take photos, but I guess the crowds were such that it wasn't happening today.  We took our photos first from above, and then below. 

And so we arrived safely after our journey, and it was a tremendous journey.  There's a walk outside where you can see the exterior of the ship somewhat better, although it is much smaller than the real version.  Still, it's fairly big and makes for great photo opportunities.  The fountain in front makes the ship look as if it is moving forward, and the iceberg looms there to the starboard side, just like that fateful night.  Maddie, Mom and Joey the Porg stopped for some pictures there.

And the gift shop too, of course.  It was a good experience overall, though a little crowded - the Titanic is still a popular destination, and a story that captivates us all like no other disaster story.  There's a story beneath this story, a metaphor of sorts, and I suppose that's what draws us in even more.  Maddie enjoyed the evening very much, as did Mom and I.  We headed back home after this, or at least to the hotel, and we got to sleep early.  We did read, and we prayed, and soon enough the three of us were ready for bed.