On Thursday we had a 6 hour orientation. Then we were fitted for our costumes. Our costume is a white short sleeve shirt with black pants and a black cap. We are working the Festival Of Nations food areas. We had OJT training starting on Friday. Linda trained in a baked potato kiosk. I trained in a kiosk were we had orange chicken over rice and kangaroo stew, plus a few other things. We had to taste what we served, so I got to taste kangaroo. Taste like beef, just a little tough. The next day we were off so we went to the park to familiarize ourselves with it, so we could answer guess questions as to were is...whatever they are looking for. There are a number of show from other countries during the festival. So we got to attend a few of them. We saw a super show called "Paper" from the Ukraine. Hard to describe,. It was 4 clowns doing a hour show with paper. I tried to Google them but came up empty. We also saw Los Pampas Gauchos from Argentina. Another super show of Gauchos dancing and doing tricks. A very high energy show. Then we saw the Russian Academic Band. Did I say super again. They played a few Russian folk songs, but mostly Dixieland music. And we saw a few others. There are about 17-18 different shows. We hope to get to see them all.
On Sunday we took a long drive through Smoky Mountain National Park. We are about 5 or 6 miles from the entrance to the park. It was a beautiful sunny day about 75 degrees. On the top of old smokey it was about 60 degrees with a slight breeze. The air was clear and the views just great. We drove up to Clingmens Dome. We started the half mile hike up to the top of the dome. It is very very steep. About half way we stopped to rest on one of the benches along the trail. Linda decided to stop at this point. I started up the rest of the way and found myself puffing after another quarter of a mile up and found another bench to rest on. Then after a few minutes I got up and made it to the top. We were here two other times and I don't remember the climb being so hard. I guess I'm out of shape. Going down was a lot easier, but I think I wore out my breaks. After I got back to the car we had a nice picnic lunch looking out over the vast beauty of the smokies. We then took a long drive around the park and took a different road back to the RV. What a great day.
One of the perks for working here is our ID card gets us into over 40 different shows and attractions in the area for free or a greatly reduced price. There are also many things out of the area. For instance, Callaway Gardens we just visited. It cost us $40. Hershey Park is another attraction we can get into with our ID's. On Tuesday we went to the "Country Tonight" show. Move over Bronson and Las Vegas. The show was very well produced. Voted the number one show in the Smokies from 2001-2012. The price of the tickets were $27.50, for us $0. We had seats in the 9th row center. Perfect seats. Rows one to about six you would be looking up for the whole show. The show lasted about two hours. It was a wonderful show. Since it was voted the number one show we hope the other shows we can attend measure up. Maybe we should have save this show for later.
We're at a campground in Townsend now. After our Saturday experience driving through the Rod Run snarl, I think ... no I know ... we're going to skip Pigeon Forge and focus on the national park instead. Have fun at Dollywood.
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