Gatlinburg & Pigeon Forge

While in Gatlinburg we got to walk the streets between concerts. In my mind I thought Gatlinburg was like Niagara On The Lake or like a nice little town at the foot of the Smokies. To my surprise the main street is like Clifton Hill in Niagara Falls times ten. They have Ripley's and all the junk and trinket stores that go along with it.

We where there on Memorial Day weekend so it was really busy. After the concert at night we had to drive the main street to get back to our campsite at about 11 PM. The street was packed with people and all the stores were open. The next morning when we came back into town about 8:30 AM.(so we could get a parking spot for the day) the stores where open already or they hadn't closed at all.


The picture above is a mini put on the side of a very steep hill. You wouldn't know it was there until you walked down one of the lanes between the stores.

This is another store we discovered walking down one of the little villages as they are called that are placed between the junk stores. Some of these stores a very upscale and artsy.

Here is the entrance to one of the villages. They are very well done. This is what I thought Gatlinburg's main street should have looked like.

Our friends thought we should go out for supper and have a Catfish dinner at Pigeon Forge. My mind said NO! no! no! NOT me! But I didn't want to be a spoil sport, so I thought since I was in Tennessee I would do what the natives do and eat cat fish. Yikes!

We ordered and out comes white beans, coleslaw and deep fried bread.We also ordered sweet iced tea and that came to us in a very large Mason jar. I tried it all and it was very tasty, all the time thinking about the cat fish.

Then out comes the Catfish. I looked at it for a little while and watched the others dig into theirs.

They all had smiles on their faces like Sylvester had just eaten Tweetee Bird, so I guess it couldn't be that bad. Soooo I tried a small piece, mmmmmmm that was good. I tried a little bit more and before I new it I had it all gone. I don't know what my problem was. I guess I just had to get past the looks of cat fish.