Gatlinburg Getaway

Last week, Josh had a work conference in Pigeon Forge that his family was allowed to tag along for - what a treat!  Free hotel stay and free little hotel water park to pass the time.  The Brown children approve!  We splashed during the day and then we all hit up Dollywood with our passes after Josh got off work.  This time through the park, Noah rode his first loop-de-loop ride and lived to love it.  Lasa was forced to ride a couple rides she wasn't tall enough for in March and she loved them, too.  Anna didn't back down from a single roller coaster - she's fearless. Josh was seconds from riding the Wild Eagle when the rides got shut down our last day for severe weather.  Next time!  He did so many coasters still - finally trying Lightening Rod, one that scared me to death on the last trip. He liked it just fine.  Anna rode it again with him - like I said, fearless.  Also super fun was checking out the newly opened expansion at Dollywood - Wildwood Grove.  Great big kid rides!

Josh's last day of conference, it was raining and we had to check out anyway, so the kids and I wandered on up to check in early to the second portion of our getaway - Imagination Mountain Camp Resort in Gatlinburg.  It ended up not being exactly what we pictured (less remote than we'd hoped), but we had a great time regardless.  We were glad we booked a little cabin instead of an RV.  And the campground had a lot to offer - putt-putt and hammock hollow being the faves! We played at camp a bunch and did another Dollywood run Friday before the weekend crowd hit.  The air was wonderful and cool with some sprinkles here and there the whole weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

View from our porch.

 

Beyond all this, Imagination Mountain also had a game room, a gift shoppe, a pool, outdoor movies and karaoke, an ice-cream parlor, and they hosted kids camps and activities each day.  Nice!  That Saturday was really rainy intermittently, so we played and swam at camp some more, built a fire and made smores, and then we headed out to wander a little ways into Great Smokey Mountain National Park to stomp around in the Little Pigeon River.  It was so much fun. (a couple of these watery shots are from the back porch of the hotel in Pigeon Forge, too, which sat on the Little Pigeon River as well)

Some other fave pics from the getaway...

Worn the heck out after all the swimming! And after being up at 4:00 am.

 

 

Handsdown, all of our's favorite ride at Dollywood still.

Putt-putt at the campground got a lot of Brown action.  Since this was a summer bucket list item, I loved that it was free.  

Thrilled after a ride where Noah was able to take Lasa himself. 

 

 

 

 

 

Love the raindrops spotting the water as Josh and Lasa waded their way across.

Anna in her happy place.

 

 

 

Noah is always less excited about getting his feet wet in the creek spots, but he threw a million rocks from the sides - ha!

You know me and clouds and leaves.  This time, leaves.  Anna helped spot them too.

One other fun getaway mentionable was how much fun we had playing board games each night.  We played Monopoly (on Ipad),  Phase 10, Uno, and taught Lasa to play Go Fish.  Looking forward to our next Gatlinburg run at Fall Break.  Hoping to try an alpine coaster at one of the places around town while there and also do some driving in the mountains to take in some views!