If you missed yesterday’s post, click here.
Welcome back to my tales from Spring Break!
Monday morning, the first thing we did was go to Paula Deen’s for breakfast. It’s the same type of meal as you would get for lunch or dinner, just with super tasty breakfast classics. I’m usually not much of a big breakfast person, but I love the breakfast at Paula Deen’s.
After a really nice breakfast, we drove up to Dollywood. It was the Festival of Nations, so there was a ton of super talented performing groups, delicious foreign cuisine, and culture to be discovered. We didn’t get to see all the shows, but my favorites were the National Dance Company of Siberia, JigJam, and the Shell Invaders Steel Orchestra. These three groups were incredible, and it was so nice to see such a burst of international culture. In terms of food, I decided to try Dollywood’s take on a strawberry Nutella crepe, which was really good.
After exploring the Festival of Nations entertainment, which was mainly towards the front of the park, we made a full loop of the park. I got a giant chocolate chip cookie from the Grist Mill (10/10 recommend). I also found this super cute little boutique that sold goat milk products from a local farm, so I bought a few soaps and a tinted lip balm. Wild Eagle didn’t have a long wait, so I got to ride that. As we were waking around, I discovered this new little area called The Plaza at Wilderness Pass, which was where a ride called River Battle used to be. It was such an adorable and relaxing area, and I can definitely see it being a great place to cool off over the summer. The whole at Dollywood was great, and the sun even came out for a little bit!
After walking around for a little more, we left and drove back into the National Park to go to a different area that my Dad heard about, called Laurel Falls. As we were driving, we saw the cutest bear family up on a hill that was a little distance away. There was a mama bear and 3 cubs, and the cubs were playing so much! They were knocking each other over and just having a great time, which was such a nice thing to watch, even if it was a little hard to see. We’ve been going to the Smokies since I was little, and it was the first time that we’ve actually seen live bears in the park. We then went on to the Laurel Falls trail, where we had to hike up the the waterfall. The trail had some great views, and the waterfall was a great picture spot, especially because the sun was just starting to set.
We hiked back down the trail, and drove back to Pigeon Forge. We wanted to go to Paula Deen’s for dinner because we don’t get to go that often (and we were quite hungry from our hike), but ended up going to Longhorn instead because Paula Deen’s (and almost every restaurant on the parkway) had a really long wait.
I hope you guys enjoyed reading about my fun Monday in the Smokies, check back tomorrow for another post!
See you later,
Toni
