A Work Day at Dollywood

Wednesday thunderstorms woke us up at around 6 am. The wind was whipping around our bedroom which made it difficult to go back to sleep, however, eventually the storm abated, and we finally woke up at 9:47! I had to check the clocks everywhere because it was so dark outside I was sure there was something wrong with my clock.

Well, we didn’t need to be anywhere this morning except Dollywood wardrobe to pick up our costumes. The rain stopped and the sun peeked out, but the wind was still up to 20 mph – no awning out yet. One good thing about the heavy rain is that the Jeep got washed for free! Yep, all that bird poop was washed off her shiny black paint.

I threw in some wash and after lunch we headed out. We were on the way to get our costumes, but Gary stopped at Workshop Tools, a place similar to Harbor Freight (one of our favorite stores). Such fun things! They had wooden slingshots carved into bears, deer heads and eagles for 3.99. I’ve always wanted a slingshot. I don’t know if I’d hit a dang thing, but it looks like fun. We did need some rare earth magnets to help hold up the tire covers and they had those for a great price, and Gary found a cool illuminated, collapsible, measuring hiking stick. It has a 90 degree rotating LED flashlight and a ‘pick-like’ handle with an adjustable wrist strap. A hard plastic grip and a foam rubber grip below that on a red aluminum shock-absorbing spring shaft that telescopes up to 58”and collapses to 22”. It has two different feet: one with a rubber tip like a cane, and if you remove that, there is a strong tiny tip for rock crevices and then there is a snow and dirt guard over those. All for $9.97! Love this place!

I finally hauled him out of there and we went to pick up our costumes. Tomorrow work starts at 9:30. Nice. Our last stop was our favorite store (Walmart) to put in Gary’s prescription and grab some tortillas for tacos tonight. It’s thundering again, but it’s supposed to be a perfectly wonderful Easter weekend.

We didn’t want to be late, so we set that alarm thing again and got to work in plenty of time. John was a great team leader and we filled out some more forms. Then we met our Assistant Leader, Tom. He went over some more forms and headed over to sausage and peppers. They told us we could watch and learn, but we jumped in making sandwiches and potato ribbons. The crowd picked up and we really moved. Finally at 12:35 we got lunch for 45 minutes, then it was back to work. We get lunch at any number of food places in Dollywood, but the host restaurant has a fixed menu for $2.50 and today it was chicken fingers, mac and cheese and cole slaw. It was constant moving, shelving, cutting potatoes and sausage and cleaning up. But it was very relaxed. The people we work with are great.

Anyhow we have tomorrow off, work on Saturday, off Sunday and who knows after that. Unfortunately, we were so happy to take off our smelly clothes that I forgot to get a shot of our costumes. I’ll try to remember on Saturday.

A goldfinch was munching on the birdseeder I put up yesterday, so I got a shot of him.

I was too tired to cook,
so I made a little fire and we had s’mores for supper. We ran out of grahams, so we stuck the chocolate chips right into the marshmallows. Look at that, will ya! MMMMMMM


Well, because we’re off tomorrow, and we’re not positive it will be a non-rainy day, we will probably choose some inside things to do. We’ll let you know!