Pigeon Forge Trip

Well, I did it! Survived a week long stay in Pigeon Forge, but it sure was a journey. It started off before the trip began, the car that the family usually uses had a broken headlight, so we ended up getting a rental car (specifically a Tesla) but the rental car they gave us was pretty much straight off a salvage auction because for one, the thing had the writing for an auction code still on the window, the steering wheel was all tapped up, and a bunch of other broken crap, but it ran and drove so that's all that matters. So pretty much drove it there to the first hotel and got settled. Stayed one night at this hotel which had an indoor waterpark kind of like Great Wolf Lodge but not. We had some fun there, had some icee creem then went in the waterpark. Then left that hotel the next day and headed to the second hotel, nothing too fancy but it was a decent hotel I stay at a lot that has a pool and hot tub as well as a nice room to stay in. While I was there just walking around the hotel, I got to see and pet a lot of dogs since the hotel is pet friendly and I probably saw the most amount of dogs I had seen all year within the week at that hotel. Their owners were very friendly people and most of the dogs were all over me wanting me to pet them in which I did. Other than hanging around the hotel in the pool and stuff, we hit the town sorta, went to the mall and got some stuff, also went to Top Jump and some places in Gatlinburg such as the arcade and had lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp (yes from the movie), then went back towards the hotel to go hang out in the pool for the last little bit of the year. The pool wasn't too crowded considering its 24 hours, but it did give some room to play with our new RC Speedboat which was pretty cool and at midnight when the clock rolled over to 2026, I took a big "dive" in the pool and it kind of felt like being baptized but just changing to a new year at least the way I did it. I was seriously in the pool until 2:00 in the morning, everyone else gave up and went to the room to go to sleep. On new years day, we did some more things in the town such as going to lunch at a diner that was 50's themed but it was expen$ive as hell, then went to "The Island" which has shops and rides but we didn't do too much there other than going into a few shops. And for dinner, for my first time in 10 years, I went to Five Guys with the family which kind of felt big for me I guess because it was the first time in forever... literally. And that's pretty much all that we did in Pigeon Forge so on Friday, after a chaotic morning of packing, we headed towards home but ended up spending an extra night in Cherokee at the Casino Gamble House as I call it. Nothing interesting happened there at all, there wasn't much for me to do considering I can't gamble, so pretty much just an extra night. Then headed home stopped at a few places to do stuff like stopping at Papa's And Beer for lunch as well as the mall next door. Made it home to a mess due to the cats but luckily it wasn't that bad so that was good. And that's all that happened really, I had a good time chilled back with some root beer and got to enjoy life for a bit, but it's back to reality on Monday as I start my second semester of the year.