Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Tennesseeing is Believing. Maybe.

Jon and I have left the building: Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel, that is.

We arrived there late last night after a long drive from Pigeon Forge (and a brief stop in Nashville for dinner.) And, as you know, we got to Pigeon Forge, TN after a long drive from Creepotown, USA; Population: Nightmare.

I know we've covered the Fear-inducing Parade Float Museum and the pee-your-pants-scary Nightmare on Main Street... but I just want to be clear: Those things are so frightening, even my computer is barely holding its shit together. I know it feels like I'm beating a dead horse here, but I didn't want to talk about it until we were at least a thousand miles away. When we were leaving that awful place, Jon and I literally had to don masks in order to make our escape...



...somehow reasoning that if we ALSO looked creepy, we'd blend in and be allowed to leave.

I'm hoping that we're now far enough away, and that I can start to rebuild my shattered life. (And by "life," I mean "iPhoto Library" which shit the bed pretty much the second I imported those demon pics. Luckily, my 19,000+ pictures are backed up in LA. And unless the The Evil Army makes it there before me...

...I should be fine.)

Anyway, after a fine day in Dollywood...


...Jon and I explored some of what the nightlife in Pigeon Forge had to offer.

There's the Comedy Barn...


...and the Hoot-N-Holler...


...which are rival family musical comedy romps whose casts of zany characters are sure to bring laughter and joy to all those who are dead inside post-Dollywood. Apparently, the Pigeon Forgers love their bearded men dressing in drag!

For some reason, Jon and I decided to skip the dinner theater, choosing instead for a quiet restaurant called Bullfish, about a mile from our hotel.



While there, we discovered that the kind folks of Pigeon Forge really like their salt. They actually put a giant pat of extra-salted butter in the middle of their spinach/artichoke dip. Seriously. Then they gave Jon a dinner salad covered with bacon and cheese:


But the food was good (I'm saying that because they gave me extra wine. Apparently, I looked thirsty. I wonder why.)

On our way back to the hotel, I couldn't resist forcing Jon to stop inside the Magic Quest...
...which boasted four (4!) unique fun games including mini-golf, a hall of mirrors and, best of all... THE VAULT!
The Vault is, of course, a laser-maze! Having learned excellent techniques on spying from the Spy Museum in DC, I felt that Jon and I were up to this challenge.

Jon did pretty well--attacking the lasers with precision force.

I didn't fare quite as well, and am clearly too fat to be this kind of spy...

...though I bet I could kick ass if they made some kind of a life-sized Q-Bert floor game.

On our way back to the hotel, we passed by one of several (and seriously, there are maybe a dozen of them) Christmas-themed stores. These stores are open all year long because the Forgerse really love their Christmas. They have several--SEVERAL--Christmas Clearance Stores.

And, as we've already learned... they love their Knives...

...like, a lot:


Before hitting our hotel, I sat down to ask Santa if he could make me a sveltspy... and maybe give me a set of steak knives...
...but that ended pretty poorly as well.

And so, the next day (yesterday) we said goodbye to Pigeon Forge and headed for Memphis and got All Shook Up!

More on this... next time!

2 comments:

  1. The laser thingy looks fun, and you are not at all fat Jeff!
    I have a sneaky feeling it was a good idea to pass up the comedy club by the way.
    You know, all the time we hear from American tourists how "quaint" our country is when it really isnt at all, it is shaped by thousands of years of war..however... all the things you have discovered on this trip strike me as supremely kitschy and quaint.. ironic really

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  2. Is "mask play" a thing people do? --Anonymous Ra

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