Bears! and Dollywood

Tuesday morning we headed out early. We wanted to drive Cade's Cove before it got too busy. It was cool to see, but the other people driving it were driving us crazy. They would stop in the middle of the road to look at things, even though there were pull offs and signs posted to not stop. We did get to hike another nature trail which Brooks was happy to do. On the way out of Cade's Cove, traffic was stopped and everyone was looking into the woods. I didn't see it, but Ryan saw a black bear. He tried to get a picture of it, but missed it.

We hiked another trail and then had a picnic lunch before we headed back to our hotel for a little rest that didn't happen. Ryan put the boys down for a nap and I got a Frappe from the coffee house and headed out back to read. It was obvious that the boys weren't going to take a nap. So we headed out to Dollywood! Of course, they feel asleep on the way there and Brooks was pretty grumpy when he had to get out of the car.

Dollywood has a deal where if you enter after 3pm the next day is free, so we happily took advantage of the offer, especially since the tickets are pricey. At least the kids still get in free! We headed directly to Thunderhead. What a great ride! Nonstop fun! We walked around a bit, the boys rode the Carousel and we found some dinner. We had yummy grilled Italian sausage with peppers and onions. At Dollywood, they cook a lot of the food in huge skillets that tempt you as you walk by.

We headed back to the back of the park. They have a play area for kids with a playground and a water play area, it was conveniently located next to Thunderhead! So we took turns riding while the kids got soaked. They loved floating the floats down the water. The line for Mystery Mine cleared out so we were able to take a ride on that. It was a ride like no other we've been on. It had a 95 degree drop! Flames shooting at you! It was crazy!

The park was closing so we headed out. We thought we would take the tram back to our car, but the line was too long so we hiked it out to parking lot DE. We were really confused when we parked the car, we didn't know where the actual entrance was to the park, so we could have parked closer. Oh well, it wasn't too bad.