Pigeon Forge TN continued, June 2012

   The past couple of weeks have been a little laid back.  Linda had a toe that was bothering her for a couple of weeks. It looked like an ingrown toenail to me. Finially she said I have to do something. We went to the local Urgent care center. After a two hour wait we finally got to see the doctor. He took one look and said"how attacthed are you to that nail". Well duh, "its attacthed to me". He said he would have to remove part of the nail. Linda said ok. I said I'm going out of the room. Linda said, you are going to leave me alone. I said,ok, I'll stay. I did and held her hand thru the whole procedure, but closed my eyes. We were both very brave. The numbing took about 15 minutes, the procedure took about 3 minutes. I did peek a little. After 3 days she said it is feeling much better. Now she is back up to speed. Linda did have to miss one day of work, not a problem. But, this passed week we had started new jobs working in catering. She was reluctant to call our new boss. But no problem, she is very nice. It is nice working in air conditioning with these 90+ degree days. We do enjoy working in catering. It is a great group of people, and we usually will only work one or two days a week. This passed week we had "The Coster Car" convention, a group of about 1700 attending to ride the new Eagle coster here at Dollywood. It was a busy weekend. The following week we had 900 girlscouts.
    Last week the employees at Dollywood had a special preview show. It was The Wonder Dog Show. What a super show. All the dogs in the show were rescued. About half were either Border Collies or Australian Cattle/sheep dogs. It was amazing how great they were. Of course one of the border collies reminded us of our Blazer. After the show we did get to talk to the trainer. He also just lost his 10 year old border collie. The show is dedicated to him. At the start of the show, they show some slides of him, as he was the star of the show. We all had tears in our eyes talking about our lost friends. And here is a guy with 15 other dogs to help ease the pain of his loss. Unfortunately our photo's are limited because of the lighting and the super fast movement of the dogs. The show will continue for several more weeks for all Dollywood guests.  See www.stuntdog.com

Almost all of our dogs over the passed 47 years have been adopted. We support pet adoption.

This dog just jumped 5 foot.

This guy reminded us of our Blazer.

That is two dogs jumping rope at the same time.

     While Linda was recovering we did a road trip through an area of Smoky Mountain Nat. Pk. we hadn't toured before. It is called the "Roaring Fork Motor Natural Trail". It is a beautifl ride and the rhododendron are in full bloom. In some areas when you look in the woods it looks like its snowing. There are many small streams along the road. The road is narrow and has some very steep dropoffs. There are also 5 or 6 old homesteads. I did a few quick and short walks, mostly around the homesteads and along the streams while Linda sat in the car. It felt strange without her. We took so many pictures it is hard to decide which to include here. So click on this link and it will take you to our photo's    http://community.webshots.com/user/101ontheroad?vhost=community
   
       The next week Linda's toe was feeling much better, so we drove to the Museum of Appalachia in Clinten TN, about 55 miles from here. This is one of the best museums we ever visited. You could spend several days looking and reading all the description of all the artifacts. The museum is both indoors and outdoors. There are 36 buildings, moved here from the surrounding area. The museum tells  the stories and resourcefulness of the Appalachian people. We took many, many photo's. and this link   will take you to them
http://community.webshots.com/user/101ontheroad?vhost=community . You can also see our  older albums.  We tried to pick what we thought were better pictures. Its one of those things, you have to be there to appreciate this museum. This is the website of the museum  www.museumofappalachia.org
   
      Then we went to the American Museum of Science and Energy" It is also about 50 miles from here. It is in Oak Ridge, TN. We did remember a little about the "Manhattan Project". But very little did we know.  We remember very little about it or the "Screat City". A very interesting story about the developement of the Atomic Bomb and all the history of how this facility was developed See more here  www.amse.org  .    See a lot more here, wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Ridge,_Tennessee copy the link and paste it in google and do a search. Very interesting.   You can have a hair rasing experience. here. 

A very important date for me.

Linda trying to keep the ball going.

A hair rasing experience.

This is near our hometown. Bethlehem Mine Corp was part of Bethlehem Steel.

    One evening we went to the "Cirque de Chine" show. An amazing  chinese acrobatic troupe. The show is about two hours of continued excitement. See  www.smokymountainpalace.com  .It is one of those things, "you have to see it to believe it".

Pictures weren't allowd, so there are very few.

A beatiful theater, the largest in the area.

After the show, see the steel cage in the background. There were 4 guys on motorcycles riding around at the same time in the cage.

See how young some of the preformers are.

     Another evening we went to Gatlinburg to the "Sweat Fanny Adams Theather".  The preformance was "The Incredible Adventures of Mary Bright".  The actors are know as "The Great Victorian Amusement Compaany". We laughed till our sides hurt.  There is a lot of audience participation.  There was a lot of vaudeville style comedy mixed  in the show and after the main show. See www.sweetfannyadams.com

 The villians

 Mary Bright in white and her friend Miss Goodheart.

 The villians

 This was after the Mary Bright part of the show. This part comedy, part vaudeville. They also did the famous Abbot and Costello act "Who's on First". It was great, the "Paper Dance" was hilarious, see below.

       This week our team leader brought in some cucumbers for us to share. She also said she had a super easy recipe for microwave bread and butter pickles, and it is super good. Well Linda knows how much I like sweet pickles so she ask her for the recipe. Linda made some the other day, and I tell you they are grrrrrrreat. If anybody would like the recipe, just emails us and we will gladly share it with you.
      Also great news. We got gas this week for $2.89 a gallon. Never thought I'd do the happy dance for gas at $2.89 a gallon. But in view of the passed couple of years $2.89 in something to celerbrate.