Saturday October 3rd and Sunday October 4th

Friday night we had to pre-pack the car because Saturday we had to get up early and head over to Newport, so that my Dad could make his dialysis appointment. The people at the center were nice enough to schedule my Dad early for his treatment. This worked out well because we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us as we made our way back home. It was still dark when we left our cabin for the final time, on Saturday morning. My Dad did not get out of his treatment until 12:30-1:00 in the afternoon. We mainly waited in the parking lot for my Dad to get finished with his dialysis treatment. Between that and the drive, it made for a long day. On Sunday morning, we got up early, stopped for breakfast and proceeded on our journey home. We got home at a decent hour...around 1:00 PM. After unpacking our suitcases, we relaxed and unwound a bit. With this our week long vacation was finished and now it is time to prepare for our next journey...Las Vegas. More to follow on that destination.

Friday October 2nd

Due to the high volume of photographs in this entry, please be patient while everything loads up. It may take a minute or so.
Today we spent our last day of vacation in Dollywood.

This photo should have been with the others from the wood carvers store that we went to on Tuesday.

Here is a photograph of the old grist mill. It is a real working mill and they grind corn and other things here. They then sell the ground products in a store, that is inside of this mill.

These wax candles were in a specialty store. Some of them looked real.

This display was really cool. It was an actual chuck wagon that was set up and had a working cowboy crew working it. They gave us some biscuits that they had made on the wood burning fire. Those biscuit sure were tasty and they were denser than your normal oven cooked biscuit. They were also serving coffee cooked on the open fire and later on in the day, they were going to be serving beans and corn bread....all made on this chuck wagon and open fire.

Replica of an old school house

They had a really big wooden barn where they made and housed wooden carriages/buggies liked the ones used in the old west. The prices of these carriages were a lot higher that what they might have sold for back in the day.

Veronica with another one of her friends that she made on her vacation.

Veronica and I rode on this train that did a loop around Dollywood. The train was really cool to photograph. It was a coal fired steam engine. It sure threw a lot of black/gray smoke into the air plus if I leaned out of the protective cover of the "car" that I was sitting in, I would get pelted with bits and small pieces of coal and soot. By the time we got off of the train, we were covered with coal grit. Coal sure isn't a clean burning fuel...at least not on trains like this one.

Dollywood was getting all decked out for the Fall season.

Another one of Veronica's friends that she made.

No takee my pikture meester...

Nothing like a chunk of fresh homemade cardboard pie to satisfy ones hunger!

Below are various videos taken while at Dollywood

Here we have the Gem Tones...a rather enjoyable ground that we had fun watching and listening to.

I wanted to take a picture of this log flume ride. There was this mist/fog that was around the water and bottom of the drop on this ride. I thought it looked cool and would make a nice video but I forgot all about the impending splash at the end of the ride...as can be seen by my quickly moving camera...must save the equipment above all else

The old grist mill in action

Thursday October 1st

Today my Dad had another dialysis appointment in Newport. Veronica and I got up early and drove him there. After dropping him off at the dialysis center, we went out for a leisurely breakfast and tried to figure out what we were going to do to pass the 4-5 hour wait until my Dad was finished. We decided to drive back to the Sevierville area so that Veronica could return to a discounted craft supply store that they have there in town. On the way back, we stopped along the way so that I could take several photographs.

This place might explain why Dolly still looks good after all of these years. Is it possible that this is where she gets all of her body work done??? Just kidding Dolly!!!!

During this trip, I found myself getting more and more interested in taking photos of old barns and wooden buildings, including houses. The worst shape they were in, the more excited I was in photographing them. Each has so much history and stories to tell. I think that it would be great to take a week or so and just drive the backwood roads in TN, to locate and photograph these treasures. Each one is unique.

I thought that this was a rather cool business advertisement.

TN definitely has more than their fair share of these....flea markets

Tonight we ended up eating at a really fun and interesting place...Applewood Restaurant. Actually there is a complex of buildings that included the family restaurant, another grille restaurant, Christmas Store that was in a big barn, a bakery, an ice cream shop, a winery store that had free wine tasting, a gift shop and a candy store. This whole business was all about apples. Many of the meals in the restaurant had something to do with apples in one form or another. The fritters with apple butter were delicious. For more information about this place, click here..... The Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant

This farmhouse kitchen display was set up in the big red barn that housed a gift shop.