Posted in Baby Boomers -Travel , Journey With Kileen , Travel in the US | Tagged autumn foliage , ba

The latest Value tour for my company, Mayflower Tours, is The Sea Islands, including Beaufort, Savannah and Charleston.  I have already talked about those areas in a previous article but on the way home we spend two nights in Pigeon Forge.
The whole area is very commercial and touristy but the scenery is outstanding and it is definitely a fun area to visit.  My brother recently retired from the Army after 40 years, and he is seriously thinking of relocating to this area.
Coming into Pigeon Forge by way of the backroads, I was amazed to discover the Bush Baked Beans factory.  There was a very nice general store and museum so on my last tour, we stopped.  It turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip.
The museum is only a couple of years and was very nice with a movie (which we didn't have time to see).  And, everyone got their picture cheap concert tickets taken free with the dog, Duke (only celluloid).  I had no idea the many different varieties of Bush products and my travelers all bought something.
Then it was on to Pigeon Forge. cheap concert tickets The town's population is just under 6,000 and I thought the name came from the river that runs through the town.  But I was wrong!  Passenger pigeons ate the nuts that fell from the beech trees along the banks of the river and that is where the town got its name.
Of course, this is where Dollywood is located and Dolly Parton saved the town which she invested in this 150 acre theme park.  But now there are also theaters and museums there.  On another tour, I saw a show at the Smith Family cheap concert tickets Theater and saw a great Elvis. cheap concert tickets On this Value tour, depending on which hotel we stay at, we offered our travelers an optional show of either "Country cheap concert tickets Tonight" or "Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede."  For our last night we went to the included Hatfield/McCoy dinner show.  There are several other shows, an outlet mall, and my brother went to the Titanic museum and said it was awesome.  The museum recreates as historically possible the ship's atmosphere with 20 interactive exhibit galleries. He said it was well worth the admission charged.
cheap concert tickets If you continue driving towards the park, the next town about 4 miles away is Gatlinburg, population 4,000.  It is nestled in the mountains and is also commercial but it doesn't have a lot of room to spread out so feels more rustic.  The hotels are smaller but many with balconies overlooking the river so you can hear the water rushing by.
There is Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Ripley's Aquarium (which my brother gives a huge thumbs up), a Moonshine store, lots of little shops and an aerial tram that takes you to the top of the mountain to ski or just look around for about $10.00.
Finally, the best part of the trip.  Smoky Mountain National cheap concert tickets Park, the most visited national park in the country (mainly due to its location) and free!  If you are into hiking, biking or just driving through in your car, this park is wonderful.  Stop first at the Sugarland Visitor Center for a brochure, as well as to support the gift shop, browse the little museum and most important see the twenty minute movie that runs on the hour and a half.  There are rangers cheap concert tickets there to answer any questions.
The Appalachian Mountain chain is the oldest in the U.S. and because of that has eroded down.  That is why when you look out at the mountains they are mostly cheap concert tickets well rounded and don't have the peaks you see out west.  But even though there are only 16 peaks that rise over 6,000 feet, they are very beautiful. cheap concert tickets When the clouds hang over the mountains, there is sometimes a bluish haze and that is where their name came from by the Cherokee Indians.
Cades Cove road does an eleven mile loop.  Or you can go from the Visitor Center over the other side to Cherokee, N.C.  We never have enough cheap concert tickets time to do that.  But my favorite drive is to the top to Newfound Gap (gap means a mountain pass) which has an elevation of 5,046, the highest cheap concert tickets point on a road in the park.  When you get there, you can see the plaque and area where FDR dedicated the park in 1940, walk a little bit of the Appalachian Trail, or just have your picture taken at the sign that says you have one foot in Tennessee and one in North Carolina.
After the serene beauty of these mountains, it's back to the commercial towns below. cheap concert tickets But what a great way to spend your summer vacation or even the fall when the leaves change colors.  Just watch out for the bears…..
Posted in Baby Boomers -Travel , Journey With Kileen , Travel in the US | Tagged autumn foliage , baby boomers-travel , bus tours , Bush Baked Beans , Dollywood , fall vacations , Gatlinburg , Journey with Kileen , National Parks , Pigeon Forge , Smoky Mountain National Park , Smoky Mountains , Sugarland Visitor Center , Tennessee , touring US , travel , vacations | Leave a Comment