Gatlinburg, Tennessee: Good morning from the Great Smoky Mountains. Its time for another day of adventures in the mountains of East Tennessee. Today was we take a turn from exploring the mountains to exploring some of the attractions that the region has to offer. Today we are scheduled to visit Anakeesta in the heart of downtown Gatlinburg and then head outside the city for some tubing on the Little Pigeon River. After dinner and once the sun set over the mountains and the streets became clouded in darkness, it was time to explore the haunted side of Gatlinburg.
The morning kicked off with breakfast at Crockett's Breakfast Camp. This was a favorite we found during our 2016 trip to Gatlinburg. The restaurant is themed to look like a pioneer camp, even the menu comes in a pioneer newspaper. The have a bunch of delicious choices on the menu and it was really hard to narrow it down to one choice. So I ordered the postmaster special. But I failed to read the description because what I though was choice of, was actually includes. So needless to say I ended up with a lot of food. And I mean a lot. It included country fried steak, scrambled eggs, hash browns, grits, biscuit with gravy and a griddle cake. It was way more food than I could eat but boy was it delicious.
After breakfast we headed to Anakeesta. This 70 acre resort high above Gatlinburg is one of the newest attractions to open. It sits high atop Anakeesta Mountain with stunning views of the surrounding mountains as well as a birds eye view of downtown Gatlinburg from atop its peak.
A trip to Anakeesta begins at the base station on the Parkway in downtown. Here you board the Chondola for a scenic ride to the top of the mountain. You have two options for your tip up to the top, an open chair or an enclosed cabin. We chose the open chair and began our climb to the top. Along the way you are greeted with breathtaking views of the Smoky Mountains while you dangle your feet high above the mountainside.
At the top of the mountain, you disembark the Chondola in the middle of Firefly Village. This is the heart of Anakeesta and is filled with shops and a restaurant as well as plenty of places to sit and enjoy the beauty that is the Great Smoky Mountains. The village is also the gateway to your adventures with the Tree Canopy Walk, ziplines, or panning for gems.
As you climb the mountain towards the canopy walk, you enter the Memorial Forest Walk. Like much of the region, Anakeesta suffered damage during the wildfires of 2016. Although the park had not been completed yet, the property itself was damaged as well as impacts to early park employees. So to pay tribute to those effected by the devastating fire, the memorial walk tells the story of the fire as well as the heroes and family effected.
Once we reached the end of the memorial walk, it was time to take a stroll on the Tree Canopy Walk. What an amazing concept. A series of suspension bridges and platforms take you across the tree canopy of the park. Winding in and around old trees, you get a birds eye view of Anakeesta, Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains. I am a big fan of canopy walks, there is one back home that is very special to me so walking this one really brought back memories of the one back home I was missing. It was very, very hard to follow the no jumping rules on the suspension bridges as the kid in me really, really wanted to bounce people around.
At the end of the canopy walk, we attempted to go panning for gems however the credit card machines were not working so we took the Chondola back down to the Parkway to find an ATM for some cash. The ride down the Chondola was more stunning then the ride up. Afrer grabbing cash, we headed back up the mountain and to the mining where my son mined for gems and collected a bag full of shiny gems.
Took a journey over to the dueling zip lines. Here you got to race platform to platform on zip lines. It's a fast and exciting journey over the treetops. A cool feature to their zip lines is you even get to repel down the towers, who needs stairs when you can repel. Once you finish the last leg, you reboard the Chondola to return back to the top of the mountain.
We then walked through the Vista Garden, a colorful garden at the peak of the mountain with beautiful views of the Great Smoky Mountains and Mount LeConte. Afterwards we took another walk through the Tree Canopy Walk before taking the Chondola back down to town to continue our adventures.
Next we headed outside of town to do some tubing on the Little Pigeon River. We chose River Romp as our outfitter for the tubing adventure. Located a short drive outside of Pigeon Forge, they provided us tubes and access to the river for a good price and without the long drive that most of the other outfitters had. They have launches every 15 minutes to keep the river from being jammed with tubes so we picked our tubes and headed to the river rather quickly. That water was cold when you first got in. I'd like to say that you adjusted pretty quickly but it took a little while since you were under the canopy of the trees for much of the float. The float was a 2 1/2 mile trip down the river which took about three hours for us. The current was rather calm in some spots, slowing down the journey. There are a few sets of rapids along the way which made for a lot of fun and some excitement for the trip. Only problem was for some reason, I always ended up in the rocks afterwards, slowing down any momentum I picked up during the rapids. While the tubing was fun, it was just a little to slow for me so I think next time I would choose the kayak option instead.
After the kayaking, we headed into town for dinner. We headed over to the Old Mill Restaurant however after fighting to find a place to park, I went in and was greeted with a wait list over an hour long. No thanks, I don't wait that long for a restaurant so it was time to wing it and come up with something else. A quick check on TripAdvisor and I settled on a place called Mama's Farmhouse, just off the Parkway in Pigeon Forge. They serve an all-you-can-eat family style meal. Everyday they serve three meats, today was fried chicken, meatloaf and turkey with stuffing. You then choose four sides out out of the eight they serve, we chose mashed potatoes with gravy, mac and cheese, dumplins and green beans. You also get soup or salad and dessert. Then the food is brought you your table family style and you eat until you can't eat anymore. Its kinda like a buffet without the unnecessary calorie burn of walking back up to the buffet, its a fat kids dream. The food was pretty good, but the combination of the food killed me.
Once the sun went down, it was time to go on a ghost tour. For those of you who follow the adventures you will know that I will take a ghost tour in any city I travel too. I loved the show Ghosthunters when it was on tv and I became a fan of the story lines of the haunts. But I am still a skeptic and I guess until something happens to me, I will always doubt. But nevertheless, the storytelling is really what I am along for and the Ghost & Haunts tour did not disappoint. We hit the streets of Gatlinburg to listed to the tales of the dark history of the town equipped with ghost hunting equipment. While there were not experiences to change my mind, I did enjoy the couple hours of storytelling.
At the conclusion of the tour, we headed back to the hotel to end another day of adventures.
.JPG)
.jpg)
.JPG)
Comments
Post a Comment