Bloomin’ Barbeque & Bluegrass 2013 – Sevierville May 17-18

Posted on by

This Friday and Saturday, join the street fair in downtown Sevierville and revel in two days of world-class bluegrass music. Mix that up with a barbecue competition that draws experts and cook teams from across the region and the country, competing for cash and the state champion title with their best recipes and award-winning barbecue dishes.

It’s the 9th Annual Bloomin’ BBQ & Bluegrass festival, the largest event in Sevierville and celebrated as a star performer in the town’s Smoky Mountain Springfest. The event draws many thousands of attendees and has been named Festival of the Year by the Southeast Tourism Society. This free festival is family oriented and also features children’s activities and arts & crafts.

On Friday and Saturday let the aromas drive you nicely crazy as competitors get down to business and the vendors bring out their finest treats (ice cream counts as barbecue, right?). If you ever thought barbecue was ordinary food, you need to taste your way through this festival!

It’s a place to learn too, as both the American Grillmaster Experience and the Great American BBQ Tour will be sharing tips and tricks for the rest of us to, uh, beef up our own cook-outs this summer.

This year the legendary bluegrass supergroup Bluegrass Album Band joins with a host of other great pickers and players performing for all to hear for free. The music starts on Friday evening and runs all day Saturday, culminating in the Bluegrass Album Band’s free concert Saturday night. Check the great lineup and schedule here.

The festival offers even more variety in music with the Hard Rock Cafe Community Stage in the eating tent and a dance contest Friday night.

image courtesy of BBB

And the ever popular Mountain Soul Vocal Competition hosts contestants from around the nation performing their choice of the more than 3,000 songs written by Dolly Parton (one of the country’s most prolific songwriters, as well as a Sevierville native).

This is a festival to catch for two delicious days of fun, and if your mouth is already watering, you won’t be disappointed. For more information check the event web site.

 

RiverRush at Splash Country Mother’s Day 2013 – First Water Coaster comes to TN

Posted on by

image courtesy of Splash Country

Dollywood’s Splash Country water park launches its most ambitious new water ride this Mother’s Day. It’s RiverRush, one of the country’s few water coasters and a first for Tennessee. It promises to be a fantastic ride!

What’s a water coaster and why is it such a big deal in a place like Splash Country, which already has a couple of dozen great water adventures?

RiverRush is new technology that uses magnetic induction motors to move its 4-passenger boats uphill as well as down, propelling riders through the kind of action you expect from a roller coaster. That’s why it’s a water coaster – it combines the thrills of the roller coaster with the rush of a water slide.

The ride lasts a lot longer than the standard water slide, clocking in at around 1 minute and 20 seconds from start to finish. RvierRush picks passengers up and drops them off at the same point too – no line of riders climbing to the top of the water slide – nice!

The water tube track is a total of 1,175 feet in length, laid out over more than an acre, between Big Bear Plunge and Bear Mountain Fire Tower. The RiverRush experience starts with a conveyor trip lifting the toboggan-style boats to the top of the ride, 4 stories in height.

The action begins with a 45-degree drop of 25 feet, followed by HydroMagnetic magic carrying riders through tunnels, up hills, round hairpin curves and through 3 more drops. It’s a high-adventure ride but don’t be afraid to take Mom on Mother’s day – the magnetic propulsion makes it a smooth ride too, one for all the family with no age requirements (just be taller than 42 inches).

This one is going to be fun! Trust Dolly and the folks at Dollywood to continue their innovation streak. Last year they brought us the nation’s very first wing coaster ride, and now they’re bringing us the water coaster. What a summer it’s going to be!

Splash Country, and River Rush, open for the season on May 11, with an early opening on May 10 for season pass holders. For more information see the Splash Country web site.

 

Dolly Parade 2013 – Dolly Parton in Pigeon Forge Friday, May 10

Posted on by

Last year’s parade with Dolly and her Wild Eagle float.

Tennessee’s favorite daughter Dolly Parton is coming home to the Smoky Mountains again this Friday, in time to be Grand Marshal of the 28th Annual Dolly Parade in Pigeon Forge.

The parade starts at 6 pm at River Road near Traffic Light #7 and travels north along Parkway to Light #3.

Dolly’s homecoming parade is a great tradition drawing lots of fantastic floats – as well as 50,000 spectators – so get there early with your lawn chairs to find a good spot where you can wave to Dolly as her float comes by. Expect marching bands, costumed characters, local celebrities, entertainers and of course, some outlandish floats.

Last year Dolly rode a huge Eagle on a float, and the year before that was an aeroplane. What will it be this year? Maybe something to do with the new Water Coaster ride at Splash Country? We’ll see.

Dolly will be at Dollywood Friday and Saturday, May 10 and 11. And Splash Country water park opens for the season on Saturday, with a special opening Friday for season pass holders. It should be a fantastic Mother’s Day weekend, with the greatly anticipated launch of River Rush, Tennessee’s first HydroMagnetic water coaster.

Stay tuned for more stories of the Dollywood goings-on soon!

 

Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage 2013 – April 23-27

Posted on by

image courtesy of the Great Smoky Mountains Association

Spring means flowers, and in the Smoky Mountains it means a festival of color and beauty as a fantastic carpet of wildflowers springs up all around us. The 63rd Annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage is here!

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the greatest wildflower areas in the country, a world-renowned preserve of wildflower diversity that some like to call “Wildflower National Park.” People come from all over at this time of year to view the almost miraculous abundance and right now we’re in the predicted peak of the bloom.

Over 1,500 kinds of flowering plants can be found in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage is a five-day event that tries to see as many of them as possible! From mid-April to mid-May, rare and transient wildflowers bloom in a brief and glorious profusion until the trees catch up with their own leaves and cast a shade over the forest floor.

If you love wildflowers, now is the time to be in the Smoky Mountains!

The Pilgrimage consists of more than a hundred different wildflower, fauna and natural history walks, along with motorcades, photographic tours, art classes and indoor seminars. Most programs use the trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with indoor programs in Gatlinburg.

Of the 146 educational programs offered this year, 14 are conducted at Mills Conference Center or Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and 132 are conducted in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park
- Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage web site

The all-day events are $50 per day ($75 for 2 days), a bargain for the impressive wealth of knowledge offered to participants, many of whom are happy supporters and admirers of the Park – and the wildflower experience of course is priceless. Students get a break at $15 and kids under 12 can join in for free.

There are also some evening programs free and open to the public Wednesday through Friday, April 24-26. For details see the University of Tennessee page here, which also provides updates on some program cancellations and substitutions.

Crowning the event on Saturday evening, April 27, is the Great Smoky Mountains Salamander Ball, a masquerade ball and fundraiser for Discover Life in America, a non-profit focused on biodiversity and natural-resources research and education. The ball is 7-10 pm at the Gatlinburg Convention Center.

For the latest updates check the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage Facebook page.

And for a visual experience of the diversity you can expect this week check this short, and lovely, video clip:

Here’s just one of the beautiful scenes in the video above, courtesy of the Great Smoky Mountains Association:

 

Pigeon Forge Rod Run Spring 2013

Posted on by

one of the many cars from last year’s Rod Run

It’s the Rod Run in Pigeon Forge again, April 19-21, and the town is full of hot cars and custom rides!

The name is changed this year, no longer called the Grand Rod Run as the Grand Hotel is changing its name (and is closed for renovation currently), but the headquarters and central location for the event remains the same at Traffic Light #6.

Thousands of people are coming to the area for the Rod Run, a hugely popular event, and we’ll see cars cruising up and down Parkway and driving around town all weekend. One way to view the event …read more about the Rod Run →

Floyd Garrett’s Muscle Car Museum

Posted on by

image courtesy of Muscle Car Museum

If you love the old American muscle cars it’s worth taking a run to Sevierville just down the road from Pigeon Forge to visit Floyd Garrett’s Muscle Car Museum, one of the largest and best collections in the world of American cars from the golden era of muscle cars.

For a few years spanning the 50′s, 60′s and early 70′s a unique thing happened in America, when the love of styling teamed up with the pursuit of horsepower to create some of the most beautiful, outrageous and downright FAST race machines ever built.

Floyd Garrett had a dream to collect them all and in his museum he houses over 90 of the greatest legends to come out of Detroit, every one of them gleaming like new. It’s a step back in time to revisit a bygone age.

Even non-fanatics will catch their breath at the spectacular array of the cars, seeing design lines dreamed up by artists who were on a roll, beautiful automotive paint jobs, and lots of shining metal. And for gear heads, it’s pure heaven to find some of the rarest muscle cars ever collected in one place.

Floyd Garrett is usually on hand to answer people’s questions, and there seems to be nothing he doesn’t know about muscle cars. Beyond the amazing displays of cars and period setting artifacts, the museum has memorabilia and gift items in abundance. The price of admission is low and you are encouraged to bring your camera!

Floyd Garrett’s Muscle Car Museum is open 7 days a week except Thanksgiving and Christmas. For more information check the Muscle Car Museum web site.

NOTE: guests of Cabins of the Smoky Mountains receive One FREE Adult ticket to Floyd Garrett’s Muscle Car Museum. Find a cabin now.

Aquarium of the Smokies: Ripley’s Aquarium in Gatlinburg

Posted on by

Sharks at the Gatlinburg aquarium

Gatlinburg, Tennessee is remarkable for its countless attractions and entertainments, and high on the list is Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies.

Aquarium of the Smokies is the most visited aquarium in the country, and is voted #1 on TripAdvisor. Many people returning to Gatlinburg to vacation put the aquarium on their must-see list for a repeat visit, and it’s no wonder – the place is hard to forget.

Note: guests of Cabins of the Smoky Mountains receive One FREE Adult ticket to Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies.

Ripley’s aquarium in Gatlinburg creates several different marine environments, from deep ocean to shallow lagoon, to coral reef to shoreline, as well as an Amazon Rain Forest teeming with freshwater life and with all the colors of the rainbow on brilliant display.

At Shark Lagoon, an underwater glass tunnel immerses humans deeply into ocean life as well as bringing them face-to-face with a lot of large sharks of different types. Visitors can ride a 340 ft. moving glide-path that travels the tunnel in this largest and most popular of the aquarium’s environments.

Penguin Playhouse

Penguin Playhouse offers more glass tunnels, for crawling this time, below the water with a colony of African penguins in their own habitat. Visitors can break surface to join the birds topside on their private beach for some nose-to-beak interaction. It’s a guaranteed smile-maker.

The Gatlinburg aquarium offers spellbinding fun for all ages, and children are especially well catered for, with many opportunities to touch and explore the world of sea and shore.

Stingray Bay offers the chance to pet the rays as they glide by in the shallows, a safe and harmless practice. Less harmless is the exhibit of deadly but beautiful creatures living in the Gallery of the Seas area. But more petting is allowed with the horseshoe crabs in the Discovery Center, where kids also learn fun facts and can make use of classroom time, as well as play in an interactive playground and solve puzzles.

While Aquarium of the Smokies is a feast for the eyes and a dazzle of movement and color, it’s also a breathtaking educational experience and caters to learning with instructors on hand at each exhibit. The aquarium welcomes school groups and offers a homeschool rate also.

There are opportunities for group events at the aquarium such as weddings and parties. Many special experiences such as swimming with the stingrays or taking a tour of the impressive engineering system can be arranged by reservation. Visitors can even sleep at the aquarium, either setting up Family Camp in Penguin Playhouse for the night, or dropping the kids off for the sharks to babysit (!) in the Sleep With the Sharks group kids adventure and sleepover.

Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies is open 365 days a year, from 9 am to 11 pm through summer and closing only slightly earlier through winter. Located at Traffic Light #5 in Gatlinburg, the aquarium offers so many activities that it’s best to study the web site beforehand. You can also book tickets online. Call 888-40-1358 for more information.

Here’s a taste of Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies:

Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies from Ripley’s Believe It or Not! on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Here’s a recent shot of the seahorses:

 

Smoky Mountain Tunes and Tales 2013: Now Beginning Early in April

Posted on by

One of the most engaging attractions of summer in Gatlinburg is the annual street-performing Tunes & Tales event, which runs for several months and features musicians and performers at large on the streets of Gatlinburg, entertaining downtown Parkway strollers Appalachian-style for free every evening.

Music and street theater combine in varying locations throughout the downtown as storytellers and musicians, in period costumes ranging from the 1800s to today, arrive by horse-drawn wagon at 6 pm. Spreading out in small groups the performers engage audiences with a dozen different acts performing simultaneously throughout the evening until 11 pm.

The world becomes a stage everywhere you walk along downtown Parkway during Tunes & Tales, with its signature promise of entertainment surprises and enchantments for young and old alike. Watch for cloggers keeping an old tradition alive and young (and offering impromptu lessons if you’re lucky), and don’t miss a bear hug from Zeno the Gatlinburg bear, appearing frequently during the festivities.

Tunes & Tales usually runs June through August, but this year by popular demand the event starts even earlier, offering performances every Friday and Saturday evening in April and May. The transition to every evening may happen earlier than June, we’ll have to wait and see. Either way, the fun on the streets of Gatlinburg will continue through August 10.

Here’s a taste of Tunes & Tales:

Festival of Nations 2013 at Dollywood

Posted on by

The 2013 annual Festival of Nations opens tomorrow at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge Saturday, March 23 and lasts through April 22. It’s One World Party as the cultures of more than 25 countries come together in a month-long festival of music, dance, costume and foods from around the world.

image courtesy of Dollywood

From China this year comes the award-winning Cirque Shanghai, combining traditional and modern Chinese acrobatics in amazing displays of physical strength and incredible feats of balance, in a heart-pounding, visual feast of costume and sheer stunts that will leave you breathless and awed.

India gives us 25 dancers and hundreds of costumes served up in a stunning performance fusing dance, theatre and visual effects in an explosion of color and energy by Mystic India, a troupe distilling all the lavish glamor of the Bollywood film industry into a spectacular show.

Original acts from around the world bring us haunting French folk music from traditional to modern, unique concert-music innovations from Poland using glass instruments, the drums of Africa and the evocative sound of Ugandan children’s choirs, the complex harmonies and African rhythms of Zambia, and the pipes of South American music from the Andes.

image courtesy of Dollywood

Not to be left out of the world party, Australia offers us a blend of theatre, dance, comedy and circus in a unique act that bends and sways atop 15-foot poles – be sure to bring your camera. And while you’re on the streets of Dollywood, look for the Bavarian stilt dancers at loose throughout the festival, a gift from Germany.

Experience the diversity of Dollywood’s Festival of Nations in the most simple way at World Passport to Food, an international menu of the world’s authentic cuisine. Food is how we travel the world, and the Festival makes it easy by bringing the feast to us.

A month of colorful bedazzlement, sights and sounds, smells and flavors, starts tomorrow right here in the Smoky Mountains, reminding us, as the Festival of Nations says, that we all smile in the same language.

For more information and the entertainment schedule visit Dollywood Festival of Nations