austin_dern

Driving to Dollywood was a couple of reasonable normal-type intercity highways, with one spot where I turned sharper than bunnyhugger wanted because the satellite navigator confused me about which left was the next left. We got there safe enough, though, pulling up to the huge lit sign with Dollywood there in cursive. And onto the four- or five-lane road leading in, just like you get at Great Adventure or other big parks that command special attention off the county roads leading to it. The very twisty road that kept splitting exits off to lead other places. The catch with Dollywood is that its location in the Great Smokey Mountains means there's a lot of mountains around. (Am I losing you?) So things that want to be level, like roads and parking lots, need to twist around a lot, and there's not always lines of sight to see whether you're going the wrong way. Michigan's Adventure is a snap in comparison.

So when we got to the gate for paying parking lot admission the attendant asked what we were there for, the park or the (something) or the resort or what, and I got the direction to follow the people in the high-visibility jackets. Good rule of thumb. Down a half-mile or so they waved me into one of the many parking lots on the side and I grabbed the first spot we saw, there to put on sunscreen and, in bunnyhugger's case, clean contact lenses and to realize just how very hot and muggy it was and how far we were from the park entrance either by the walkway at the edge of the parking lot or even from the tram stations. Also this is a park with a tram, a couple long buses running every couple minutes. Haven't been to one like that since ... well, 2015, I guess, when we first went to Kentucky Kingdom and the parking lot was full up because of a National Gun Nuts conference in the expo center. But for general just plain amusement park purposes ... I guess one time Kennywood gave us a little shuttle ride to the outermost parking lots. But a tram like this, you have to go back to the 80s and Great Adventure for my experience. It was made by Chance, like, the fiberglass carousel people. Who knew they didn't just do amusement park rides but also the rides to take you to the amusement park?

Dollywood, like most parks, doesn't really have Starlite admissions anymore, and it was already past 6 pm on a day the park was closing at 9 or 10. How could this be worth our while, then? And the answer is: deals. Dollywood was offering a package where you could buy a two-day pass for something like $25 more than a one-day pass, and if you think of it as paying $25 for four hours at the park? That's not bad at all, not these days. This was all very close in price to what we might have gotten had we bought season passes, a fancy we keep figuring we'll get to do someday. Had there been a reasonable season pass that could get us into Kentucky Kingdom as well as Dollywood it might have paid out, but here it was not quite.

Anyway we realized we had quite a long hike down the walkway at the edge of the parking lot, and I could see there were empty spaces in the lot closer to the park, the result of people who'd already left. Also, many cars were parked over the edge of the pedestrian walkway, which is guarded only by a white line on the pavement and that's not going to stop someone with one of those SUVs taller than Robot Mode Optimus Prime. So we went back and moved the car, getting as close as possible to the border between the C lot (where we started) and the A-B lot (which we couldn't get to, as it was blocked off by a creek, and a cute little bridge over that).

And now, finally, we were at the gate of an amusement park that every person in the world told us we would love.

Let's continue wandering the Frontier Trail, to see what there is to see.

Sign outside the Candle Shoppe revealing (not to our surprise) that Rose Stein, the woman running the shop, had died in 2021. It doesn't make explicit why the candle shop hasn't had anything good since her old stock ran out or why the space has been merged with the woodworking shop but now you understand it all.

Sign explaining what the candle shop/now-the-woodworking-shop used to be. I don't know how a building constructed by Adam Rensch became known as the Hessenauer Cabin. Probably not much of a story there.

Peeking in the candle-and-woodworking shop and catching a nice play of light and shadow.

The buildings along the Frontier Trail offer little neglected paths like this that give you neat views that feel like secrets.

bunnyhugger getting a picture of a statue erected just for Halloweekends as part of a fake small graveyard.

Here's the statue, looking all ready to come to life and eat your head. Enjoy!

Trivia: STS-41D's launch of the space shuttle Discovery --- its maiden flight --- the 26th of June, 1984, was shut down when the main fuel actuator for Space Shuttle Main Engine #3 failed. This was the first pad abort in the shuttle program, and NASA's first since Gemini VI in October 1965. Source: NASA's First Space Shuttle Astronaut Selection: Redefining the Right Stuff, David J Shayler, Colin Burgess. I assume they mean pad aborts of crewed vehicles, but the book is not explicit.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Volume 34: The Ice Man From Iceland, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

PS: What's Going On In Mary Worth? Does Mary Worth want us to like Wilbur? Why? April - July 2024 I have to suppose the answers are ``yes'' and ``because Wilbur sells''.