{"id":5598,"date":"2017-09-27T17:28:23","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T21:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cgm13.net\/wordpress\/?p=5598"},"modified":"2017-09-28T14:19:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T18:19:22","slug":"tourist-trap-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/?p=5598","title":{"rendered":"Tourist Trap Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

In other news … the Boyfriend and I went for a\u00a0 Tourist Trap Weekend in everyone’s favorites place(s) … Pigeon Forge<\/strong><\/a> and Gatlinburg, TN<\/strong><\/a>. I have never been a huge fan of Pigeon Forge as it’s just a big tacky strip of touristy shops and activities. But, I have always had a soft spot for Gatlinburg (no less tacky or touristy but somehow more charming).<\/p>\n

We took off Friday after work and drove through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park<\/a><\/strong> to get there. The Tennessee side is still recovering from the Chimney Tops II Fire<\/strong><\/a> that ravaged the park (and ultimately the Gatlinburg\/Pigeon Forge area) last November.<\/p>\n

Some of the things we did while in Gatlinburg:
\n– Breakfast at the Log Cabin Pancake House<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Moonshine at Sugarlands Distilling Company<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Moonshine at Doc Collier Moonshine<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Food and Drinks at Smoky Mountain Brewery<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Rode the Skylift<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Toured Ripley’s Haunted Adventure<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Survived Gatlinburg’s Mysterious Mansion<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Window Shopped<\/p>\n

Some things we did in Pigeon Forge:
\n– Saw an Alligator at a Tacky Gift Shop
\n– Ate at The Old Mill Restaurant<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Moonshine at Old Forge Distillery<\/strong><\/a>
\n– Drove Around to See the Sights
\n– Dipped in the Hotel Hot Tub and Pool<\/p>\n

Then it was back to North Carolina via a Deliverance<\/em>-style backwoods Tennessee trip courtesy of the GPS.<\/p>\n

******
\nAs you can probably guess by the activities list, we did end up spending too much money on moonshine. I ended up with Coffee and Oatmeal Cookie moonshine from Old Forge AND Root Beer Float moonshine from Doc Collier’s. We did window shop in Ole Smoky<\/strong><\/a> but somehow managed to not do any tasting or purchasing. Such will power!<\/p>\n

We can report that Gatlinburg’s Mysterious Mansion was more fun than Ripley’s Haunted Adventure (at least we thought so). It’s more maze-like with rooms that you have to figure out how to get out of while people are running around scaring the crap out of you. It’s super fun!<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>
\nHere we are before getting the pants scared off of us in the Mysterious Mansion.<\/p>\n

AND … we stumbled into Gamer’s Link<\/strong><\/a>, a really sweet board and card game store in Gatlinburg. They have a great selection of games and I would recommend checking them out if you visit the area.<\/p>\n

I was just tipsy enough after our moonshine tasting at Doc Collier’s that I pulled the trigger on Arkham Horror<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. It’s a massive (and expensive) cooperative game based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft<\/strong><\/a>.
\n
\n<\/a>\"Arkham<\/a>
\nI can’t wait to get some friends over and try this beast out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In other news … the Boyfriend and I went for a\u00a0 Tourist Trap Weekend in everyone’s favorites place(s) … Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN. I have never been a huge fan of Pigeon Forge as it’s just a big tacky strip of touristy shops and activities. But, I have always had a soft spot for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily","category-photos"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8EnCu-1si","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5598"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5610,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5598\/revisions\/5610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theboywonder.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}