Dollywood

It was the longest drive of our road trip - from Hilton Head Island, SC through North Carolina to Pigeon Forge, TN, but we did it in 3 legs - a 3 hour drive followed by two 2 hour spells. We arrived at the Dreammore Resort mid/late afternoon, in time to take in the surroundings, have a drink and dinner (buffet) and a relax by the fire pit.

Tuesday was the day we planned to "do" Dollywood. It's a theme park, but there was no way I was going to get Jo to go on any of the rides, so we planned our day on doing all the shows instead - and there were plenty of them. We made a prompt start and were in the park before 10 am, only to find that there was virtually nothing open at that time - thankfully with the exception of the Grist Mill, where they bake the apparently "famous" cinnamon bread - so we had to have one.

Our first show was a gospel one - the Kingdom Heirs (https://www.kingdomheirs.com/). The band were good and the 4 vocalists excellent - especially the bass singer - Johnny Cash eat your heart out. I was a bit fearful that it might get a bit "preachy" - and there was some of that, but thankfully not too much. I got picked on by the compere/drummer - "where are you from"? He couldn't understand my answer at first. We were in the front row, sitting next to a couple of locals who had seen the group many times before. He kept yelling "yeah, yeay" all the time and he seemed to take a shine to me, even swapping seats with his wife so he could sit right next to me and tell me some stories about the group. Creepy. Notably, not a black face to be seen - the complete opposite of our experience in Atlanta at the Juke Joint.

The Smoky Mountain String Band gave us some bluegrass and we got all of Dolly's hits at My People, which featured Dolly's brother and other members of her family. Country Crossroads was good - like Country's greatest hits all condensed in to an active half hour show:

We heard the GemTones, a street corner acapella group featuring mostly 50's music and we did the self guided tours of The Dolly Parton Story and the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame. We even squeezed in a ride on the steam train, the Dollywood Express - a misnomer if ever there was one. We had a burger and shake at Red's Drive-In. Soon it was time to return to Dreammore:

We toyed with having a swim in the evening, but the pool was busy so we opted for a simple relax and read until the nightly fireworks show, which we viewed from the lobby area:

We enjoyed Dollywood - a little twee in places, but the day went quickly and I just love the sound of banjos!

On Wednesday we travelled across Tennessee to Nashville. It looked like a two and a half hour journey, but we overlooked the change to Central Time, so it took an hour more, but we were still at our hotel by lunchtime. We took a taxi downtown - short ride - and walked up and down Broadway. There were bands playing in every bar - no wonder it's dubbed the Music Capital. We managed a couple of brewpubs in the Gulch area but the best place to go - no music - is the rooftop bar at the Acme (http://theacmenashville.com/) overlooking the Cumberland River. It's on a corner site and you can see all the way up Broadway:

By sheer coincidence - and luck - James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt were playing that evening and we managed to get tickets.

Hilton Head - day 4

It was our 3rd - and last - day with the bikes so we rode out to South Beach and found a spot with a little shade (not much) to sit and read for a while:

We couldn't quite settle there so we rode on to the Sea Pines Beach Club - a much better option. It was now lunchtime and the bar looked tempting so we stopped for a while for some nibbles and beer:

We then moved over to the beach where we hired a couple of deckchairs and a parasol for a very relaxing afternoon:

The sea was warmer than the pool at our hotel - and way warmer than any sea we'd experienced before, incluing Newport Coast, CA.

That was about it for Saturday. We had no more bottled beer left in our apartment so we crossed the road and had a couple of draft beers at Harbourside Burgers and Beer, listening to some live music, to while away the time until 6 pm when the workers stopped at our resort and we could safely return to a more peaceful environment.

It was a case of leftover pizza, pasta and ice cream for our meal tonight. Our last full day here is tomorrow (Sunday) and our plan is to get a relatively early start on Monday morning for the six and a half hour drive to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and Dollywood!