You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Gatlinburg Tennessee. It’s the home of Dollywood Theme Park and so many restaurants you couldn’t possibly eat at them all.
It’s a tourist trap at the end of the Volunteer state that is sure to empty your wallet by the end of the day.
DATELINE: Great Smoky Mountain National Park
I have just pulled off I-40 where I averaged 80 mph. Now I am traveling in a bucket of molasses.
The landscape is urban concrete accentuated with strip mall. In the distance is the great Smoky Mountains, but it’s hard to see the mountains through the commerce lining both sides of the road.
Highway 66 is a misnomer. It’s a four lane of frustration. It’s stop and go and stop again traffic. It’s tap the gas then mash the brake insanity. 35 is the suggested speed limit, not the time in minutes it takes to go a mile.
The street is a menagerie of economic viability. There is the Discount Christian Book Store where nobody, even Jesus is getting a better deal on the good book.
There is a pancake house next to a flap-jack house which is next to a Waffel house. I have never seen so many batter oriented restaurants in all my life.
“Mountain air makes people want to grill pancakes,” my son says.
Huh?
And so we drive, ever so slowly through a never ending traffic jam toward the base of the mountains and the bear skin lodge at the end of the road.
There is an upside down house. I’m not sure why, but it is a full scale building completely upside down. It’s hard not to plow into the car in front of me as we all stare at this monstrosity in awe.
Then there’s the Titanic exhibit. A full scale boat, sinking on an ice berg. Water is spraying and tourists are taking pictures. Not sure what Gatlinburg has to do with the Titanic, but here we are.
SCREECH. WOOPS. ALMOST REAR ENDED A GUY FROM MISSISSIPPI.
There are T shirt shops galore. 3 for 8 dollars. 8 for 15 dollars. 12 for 25 dollars. You need a calculator and a slide rule just to add up all the shirts you could buy for a small country in the Pacific.
There are miniature golf courses as far as the eye can see. You can putt through a pirates booty and sink a putt from the edge of Egypt. Gatlinburg must be the unofficial miniature golf capitol of the world.
There is a Ripley’s Believe it or not museum. I am all ready having trouble believing that there is so much insanity crammed into one zip code. If there is crap that can be sold, it is surely for sale here. This reminds me of the border between Tijuana and San Diego where hundreds of street vendors bang on your window trying to sell you everything from Chicklets gum to a pirate ship made out of yarn.
This place is like Santa’s Workshop on acid.
There’s a haunted house next to a zip line facility which is next to a bungee jump platform by the rib place which is next to a place that sells ribs. Hmmm? So many options.
Then there’s the rock shop. Just a simple building that sells rocks.
baskets of rocks and rocks that look like animals. There are shiny rocks and rocks that look prehistoric.
By the end of the evening, I have purchased my kids 68 dollars worth of rocks. Who would have thought I would buy my kids something they can dig up outside the motel for free.
The Bear Skin Lodge is where we will reside for the next few days.
It boasts a Lazy River that is about 3 feet long. It boasts a work out room that is four exercise machines in a motel room. Oxygen and stench-free is extra.
But all in all it is perfect for Gatlinburg, a tourist trap of epic proportions.
Hello Dollywood here we come.
And that is crazy.