Free Day for Exploring

Yesterday dawned bright, but cool at 48 degrees. That didn’t stop the robins from singing, though. I still remember my kindergarten song about spring robins. Wanna hear it? OK. Robin, Robin singing in the rain, Robin, Robin spring has come again. Robin Robin, sing a song to me. Happy little robin in the apple tree. Sorry there’s no music. It’s weird what one remembers. Can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night – oh, yes I can! It was pot luck night. Everything was delicious!

We chatted with people around our site and found out there was a classic car show all this weekend. Yup. Gary and I drove down to the Visitors Center and we must have passed hundreds of vehicles of all kinds. Here are some of the more unusual ones and ones that Gary really liked: A '61 Chevy Biscayne? These guys were from Florida!
An old Buick:
And my old car: the Chevy Nova



An attraction called The Titanic is also on this main drag (which consists pretty much of hotel, restaurant, attraction, hotel, restaurant, attraction – not necessarily in that order). It is a replica of the Titanic and its iceberg with real artifacts and a full scale Grand Staircase.



We also took a few pictures of friends with their rigs. Phil took our picture. Thanks, Phil.


Friday was a free day. Everyone had different plans, but we needed to check out our campground for the summer and see where we needed to report to work on Tuesday. First we headed to Dollywood for a little tour of the park. We have never been to Dollywood but our friends, Donna and Ron assured us that we’d like it. Well, it is adorable. We talked to several employees (or hosts) and everyone was very friendly and helpful. It’s quite a bit smaller than the Magic Kingdom, I can assure you. We found out where we were assigned to work. There is a little Frozen Lemonade stand just inside the entrance that I think I will be manning, and Gary is right up the street in the sausage and pepper stand at Market Street. We walked the whole park (which is all up hill) and then down a little back road to the exit gate. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera in the Jeep, so we have no photos yet.

We love our campground – Eagle’s Nest – on Wears Valley Road. We’re across the street from the gal, Ann, who works in the office and her husband who works at Dollywood. Our next door neighbors work at Dollywood, too. We tested the run (it’s about 15 minutes) and because of the mess on the Parkway, we will be taking back roads for sure. On the way out of the parking lot, I noticed this Tiger Swallowtail under a car. I picked her up and she flew to my shoulder and stayed there all the way home. Here she is in our coach. Talk about a maintenance-free pet. I tried to let her fly away, but she fell to the ground.
So she is still hanging on the valence. Pretty little thing, eh?

We signed up for as show called America’s Hit Parade at the Grand Majestic theater. All singing and dancing to music from the 50’s, through 80’s. What fun! The salute to our armed forces was a particularly poignant act and I had to force myself to contain the tears. Gary did too. The rest was just plain fun, with two video screens to bring back some memories in between the decades, and a DJ who changed his outfit and name according to the year. Just plain fun for all of us RV Dreamers (of course).

Storms tonight (that just turned out to be rain) and windy even to tomorrow. So we had to tuck in all of our outside furniture and firewood.

Tomorrow we hear about Alaska – our (not final, I hope) frontier. Maybe we can get Howard and Linda to lead us all up there?!?!