Mr. Bichler: Saturday, August 17~Deer Park~

Arriving at Dollywood, bright and early!

Our first and most favorite ride, The Rampage! No wait so the kids rode 3Xs

I could not tell if Evie liked this ride since I could only see her eyes!!

Meet Hello "Lily" Kitty

End of day, waiting on Grandma to take pics of Dolly

Willie Geist of NBC and MSNBC doing an interview with Dolly at Dollywood.

She is really tiny, well most of her is tiny!! She appeared so friendly! Wish she would have sung for us.

Yesterday was a great day at Dollywood. We all had so much fun beginning with the Rampage where we all got soaked to the bone. Lily giggled the entire time all 3 times they rode. Next stop was Pop Pop's favorite the Slidewinder. He walked all the way to the top of the hill to ride it. Luke really liked it and we took Trish on the second trip. Pop Pop said he would stay with the girls and Sara. Then we went on Dare Devil Falls and my feet got soaked all the way through. Wish I would have worn my water shoes! Then it was on to the Blazing Fury, an indoor roller coaster. This was the first ride that we actually had to wait in line for. After all those rides we walked to the smaller rides so the girls could ride and we had lunch while we were there. Pop Pop and I took Luke and Lily on the Dollywood Express, a narrow gauge steam engine that was used during WWII in Alaska. They both fell asleep. Must have been that gentle rocking motion. As we were leaving we caught wind that Dolly was on grounds and would be doing an interview at 4. I decided that I wanted to stay and try to get a picture of her. It was after 5 before she finally arrived with NBC's Willie Geist. We couldn't hear anything they were saying but I can say I saw her at Dollywood. Andy and I did see her in concert at the Palace Theater years ago and it was the best concert I have ever been too with Peter, Paul and Mary coming in at a very close second!

I got this photo from Willie Geist's twitter page, but no info as to when the interview would air

Saturday morning
We slept in this morning since everyone was a little tired from Dollywood. After breakfast we headed up to Sevierville to an Exotic Deer Farm that we had seen in a brochure. I'm always a little leary about such farms but this one appeared to be very nice and the kids had a great time feeding the goats, Fallow deer, camels, Zebras and donkeys and the crossbred Zonkey. They also had elk, some cows from Scotland and Africa, reindeer, Vietnamese pot-bellied pig and Sika deer. After our $4 cup of grain was gone we went back to Pigeon Forge and had lunch at The Old Mill downtown. It was the best meal yet. (Well, Andy liked his breakfast at the Log Cabin Pancake House better with his salt cured ham) but the rest of us liked the Old Mill. After lunch we went across the street to the Old Mill Creamery for ice cream. We were going to leave and go to Gatlinburg but the car battery was as dead as a door nail. We got some jumper cables from the Trolley Station but no luck jump starting so we had to call AAA. After AAA got us going we went to Auto Zone and Trish bought a new battery. We lost about 3 hours but went to Gatlinburg anyway. It was so busy that by the time we drove down the main street we decided that we were just going to go back to the cabin. We had pizza at Big Daddy's, the kids really liked it because there was an arcade in the back. After pizza we played some putt putt before we putt putted back home. Tomorrow we head back home!