I’ve done Ober Gatlinburg. The Alpine Slide is fun. I’ve done the ice skating and tubing. I haven’t done their coaster though. I did do the Moonshine Roller Coaster. It was fun. Hillbilly golf is a good thing. They have moonshine tasting but IMO think hard alcohol Boones Farm. Ripleys aquarium is good. Dollywood is pretty good. Has a good mix of rides. Besides Islands of Adventure it’s right up there. Cades Cove is pretty cool and scenic. I still can’t imagine building a cabin by hand and while getting food. And with logs that size…it would be 4’ tall at best. I’d have to dig the floor out to stand up. If you’re lucky you’ll see black bears. I’ve seen them a couple of times up close. Be careful because they go in town frequently. I was walking the dog last time when 4 juvenile bears came up 15’ away. My dog was clueless - thankfully. So overall if you’ve never been it’s worth it but the traffic is again horrific. Learn the loop around. It’s makes it bearable but it’s the worst part of the vacation.
North Rim csb: The Park was doing an extensive prescribed burn up there and I was helping out for two weeks. Because visibility is one of the key components of the park, they had a smoke monitor who in addition to looking at computers got to take two flights a day to aerial photo points throughout the park. She was sick for a few days and they asked me to take the photos. Let me tell you, there aren't many jobs better than hanging out of an open door hovering helicopter taking photos of the Grand Canyon from about 20 spots. That was also the fire where we discovered you couldn't leave portable water tanks alone on the North Rim. Damn condors thought they were bird baths and would just shred them when they landed. We ended up stationing a firefighter next to each one to ward off the condors--and they are huge. One flew over me about 20 feet above and the shadow was enormous. For the first time I knew the fear a rabbit felt.
