WOW! It’s been a while since we left the travel trailer behind and camped with the kids in a tent. Our last tent camping adventure with them was in Outer Banks West KOA a few years ago and ended with a last minute pack-up during torrential rains and driving home a night early before getting washed away (more to come on that adventure). Kristen and I did a night of tent camping on the Appalachian Trail earlier this year, but it had been a while for the kids. While the trip to Pigeon Forge was much less eventful than our OBX camping, it turned out to be a great weekend with amazing weather. This drive was about as long as our drive to Jekyll Island, GA last year, but that one was more tiring since we were towing the camper. We’ve decided 8.5 hours drive time, which works out to about 10 hours total time with stops, is our absolute longest for a long weekend. I had a busy day at work on Thursday so Kristen started out driving around 5pm and I kept working on my laptop until about 7:30. I did discover on this drive that you can change the voice on Waze maps, which ended up with a very funny zombie telling us which way to turn. Due to our late start, we didn’t arrive at Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg KOA until 3am! Luckily Kristen’s parents arrived earlier in the day and were super kind in setting up our small tent for us. So when we arrived with the kids we were able to let them sleep in the car and Kristen and I crashed in the tent. My in-laws have been to this KOA several times and they love the area, the main reason for going back this time of year was to see the Fall – Rod Run car show. The KOA at Pigeon Forge also has great amenities so we wanted to stay there as well; they have a river walk cement path that leads to town and local shops, a heated swimming pool with lazy river that the kids loved, a hot tub, and a community gas fire pit that was nice to dry out next to after the pool. Overall the playground was top notch with a jump pad and a long roller coaster swing.
After getting a few hours sleep, we were awake and setting up the bigger family tent by 8am. Once we got the tent set-up and all of our camping gear arranged, we had a quick breakfast of apple and cereal for the kids and sausage on the electric burner for Kristen and I. After several camping trips, Kristen is a pro at packing the right gear for the weekend and thinking through everything we all need to have fun and stay prepared. She covers everything from cooking utensils, food and drinks, toiletries for everyone, games and tablets for rainy days and for outside, plus all the extra clothes and bathing suits and goggles and everything else that the kids and I would probably forget. We also have a pretty sweet tent set-up, one large tent that holds a cot for Hope, a bump-out where Autumn sets up sleeping pads and her toys, and a queen blowup mattress for Kristen and I (that may be cheating and not considered real tent camping?!?)
We managed to leave the campground around 11am and start walking down to the convention center. Pigeon Forge has a great trolley system for getting around town but on Rod Run weekend it is useless since traffic is terrible everywhere, so we decided to walk the mile and a half to the car show. While the entry was a little expensive at $20/person, it ended up being reasonable because kids 12 and under were free. The cars in the convention center were all show room quality, a lot of ’50’s and ’60’s era and some that looked like they had never been driven. There were also a ton of vendors which we weren’t expecting. After seeing the few amount of cars inside we found out that there were more cars in the outdoor parking lot. All in all it was a fun time walking around and seeing all of the classic cars plus ones that had been modified or had crazy paint jobs. We walked down to The Island at Pigeon Forge for lunch at Timberwood Grill (the chili and salads were good but the kids chicken tenders were tough to get down and the fried bologna sandwich was loaded with onions). After lunch we did some shopping and the kids got a few new squishmellows. On the walk back to the KOA we realized that tickets to the car show were probably unnecessary since the entire downtown area of Pigeon Forge had old cars everywhere!!! Every parking lot was an impromptu car show with hoods up and people walking around, and the main road was a rolling car show. It was a lot fun! We also stopped at the “Old Mill” area for some shopping and coffee as we got closer to the campground, “Espresso Yourself” was delicious and the caramel macchiato was a good size but a little pricey. Friday night we decided to stay in for dinner at the campground and play in the pool/lazy river/hot tub and have a campfire…overall a great relaxing end to a busy day. We also started planning our adventures for Saturday. We had already ruled out Dollywood since we figured it would be so busy with everyone in town, we also found out that the jeep tours were already sold out for the weekend. Since we didn’t have time to drive into the Smoky’s and go hiking, we decided to visit Anakeesta for the day. Hope and I were also able to book zip lining tickets which she was very excited about.
For anyone that hasn’t been, Anakeesta is a mountain top village located in Gatlinburg, after parking at the bottom you get to the top by a safari truck or the ski lift (there are also gondolas for anyone that wants to stay in an enclosed area for the ride up but these are just spaced out on the ski lift). Autumn wanted to the ride the gondola so it was a little longer wait, but we arrived around 9:45 and were parked and up the mountain within 15-20 minutes. Also, huge bonus, people were leaving the parking lot as we arrived and offered to give us their unused tickets for the Bear-Varian beer tasting event….Hooray free beer! Anakeesta was incredible, the views from the top of the mountain was what I pictured the Smoky’s to be like with lush forests and rolling mountain tops. It is also really cool the way they have the village set-up, Octoberfest is a great time to visit with all of the Halloween and fall decorations, I’m also sure the end of year with holiday lights everywhere would be magical. The town has a variety of shops and eateries but the best part was the playgrounds for the kids. There was a small playground with cargo nets and a larger walkway with suspended bridges between the treetops (reminded us of Mistico hanging bridges in Costa Rica). While Hope and I raced each other on the dueling zip lines; Kristen, her mom, and Autumn continued to explore the village and play on other playgrounds. The zip line staff was incredible, very friendly and engaging! It was fun going side by side with Hope and racing from one platform to the next. The zip line experience also included a couple of repels which were a lot of fun. On the last platform we saw a few bears in a nearby tree which was a great surprise and an incredible way to end the experience.
This is Hope and I loved the ziplining so much it was so much fun. The staff was very fun, they were so playful and engaging, The staff also called me chicken nugget (it just happened to be their code word for a kid and I loved it). The ziplines were so fast it was fun and then we did two repels. The staff also try to scare you but don’t worry they are just playing. You also get to race your friends on the ziplines, you can go upside down, and do what ever you want when you are on the zipline. I loved seeing the bears in the tree, I just wanted to hold the cubs, they were so cute. Overall it was a really good experience I would recommend it very much.
After we got back to the top of the mountain, Autumn wanted to show us the amazing bird house playground they had found. We got lunch (the only disappointing part was that Kephart Cafe told us the pizzas were personal size but one of them could have easily fed two to three people, so we ended up wasting a whole pizza) then played on the slides, bouldering rocks, and trampoline for a while. To finish off the day we went on Hellbender mountain coaster and then the Rail Runner mountain coaster. Hope and I liked Rail Runner even though it had a longer wait, Kristen, Autumn and Denise preferred Hellbender. We grabbed ice cream for dessert and made our way back down the “chondola” to head back to the campground. We finished the night on Saturday with more swimming and hanging out by the fire pit. Sunday was a quick stop for breakfast at Waffle House and then a long drive home. It was cool seeing the classic cars driving out of town along the highway as we were leaving. We got home around 7pm on Sunday which gave the kids time to unwind and get ready for school the next day…a lot of driving for a short weekend but a really fun time. We are already planning our next trip to the Smoky’s to explore more wilderness and the kids want to get to Dollywood; however, we’ve also decided that we would stay away from the crowds of the car show weekends…it was hard to get to sleep on Saturday night between the loud cars, sirens, and burnouts!
