Vacation: Part 2

Thursday was Dollywood day. It started out like every other day...breakfast at the hotel, then feeding the ducks.




Dollywood wasn't crowded, and Savy got to ride over and over without any waiting in most cases. The antique cars were first. Savy got to drive Papi around the track.


Then came the first of many carousel rides.


Mimi and Papi both got to ride the elephants



And the teacups.




Savy was tall enough to ride the scrambler this year as long as she was riding with an adult. She was so disappointed last year that she couldn't ride it, so this was a treat. That's her and Mimi facing this way.



We took a break to ride the train. Savy napped on this trip.


Then it was back to the carousel. Savy had been trying to ride the dragon all day, but someone always beat her to it. Papi finally got in the front of the line with her, and when the gate opened, he took off straight for the dragon...he actually knocked a boy down in the process who was trying to run around them to get to it. Savy was so happy she finally got it!


Savy kept saying on the way to Dollywood that she wanted to ride "the pickle", but we couldn't figure out what she was talking about. We noticed there's a pickle on the sign for the kiddie roller coaster....could she have possibly remembered that from last year?


The roller coaster turned out to be the "it" ride. I lost count of how many times she rode this thing. She'd say "do it again" immediately after getting off it, and right back on they'd go....Mimi and Papi were exhausted by the time she got tired of this. Here's Savy and Papi in the first car.


Then Mimi and Savy in the third car from the end.



The last thing they rode before the park closed was a boat ride where you sit and shoot a stream of water from a gun, and the targets (and also onlookers) shoot back. I wish I'd gotten a pick of that, but I was resting in the shade after a long walk across the park. They were absolutely soaked when it finished.

Friday morning we went to the flea market, then we rode the trolley to Gatlinburg that afternoon. Savy was fascinated by the big marble ball rotating on water in fron of Ripley's.


It was so hot that day! We stopped at the Happy Days Diner for ice cream on the way back to the room.