My first stop after leaving Nashville to resume my odyssey was Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  I found a lovely little camping spot by the Little Pigeon River, with adorable little ducks swimming by and quacking quietly.  Unfortunately, they kept up the freaking quacking for half the night, but oh well, ducks will be ducks.

It seemed to me that in recent days I had been taking life a bit too seriously.  Whether it was the stress of the presidential election, or other life plans and projects, I needed to remember that I’m on vacation here, I’m taking a break from the serious side of life!  So I set out to lighten myself up a bit!  So the next day I spent almost the whole morning in Christmas Place, the largest Christmas store I’ve ever seen!  Considering that I’ve had some lonely Christmases in recent years, it was a lot of fun to see all the decorations, hear the Christmas carols, and see everyone getting excited for the holidays… even if it was still early November!

Look at all the Christmas trees and the lights!!

And there were so many villages set up, some with trains going around them, and others with skaters twirling on the ice!

I pretty much just wandered around and played with everything for a few hours, and in the end only bought myself some mistletoe… you know… just in case!

Just before I left I looked up… and there was Santa!

Well, the Christmas store definitely got me in a lighthearted mood, but I hadn’t quite reached the level of chuckle-headedness that I aspired to yet, so I kept going… to the Outdoor Gravity Park!  In case you’ve never heard of such a place, what they do here is seal you inside a huge inflatable ball and throw you down a hill.  No kidding.  Here’s the main fast track, and there are curvy tracks on both sides.

So I thought… why not?  It’s not like you can take yourself too seriously while bouncing around inside a bouncy ball, right?  Here are the balls being prepped at the top of the hill..

And here’s the view from inside the ball.  I’ll say here that, yes, I took video the whole way down, but basically it’s just my feet flying all over the place while I embarrass myself with hysterical giggling.  Yeah, I’m not going to show you that!  But it was good fun, and I highly recommend it as a way of knocking the silly back into yourself when you’re being too serious.  It worked for me.

While in Pigeon Forge I also wandered around a place called The Island, which was mostly shops, with a few amusement rides, and a beautiful fountain in the middle.  The shops reminded me of a Christmas village, but that may have been a carry-over association from my morning!

Although I didn’t go on any, this looked like the most interesting of the amusements… it’s like a huge gerbil maze for humans, both adults and kids.  Wearing a safety harness, of course, people were sliding across flying foxes, walking tightropes, climbing open ladders, and balancing on swinging bridges, all above the main shopping area!  It was really rather wild to watch!

And just as I was leaving, guess who showed up?!  This all seems a bit too early to me, but… oh, well!

Leaving Tennessee the next day, I drove south through the Great Smokey Mountains toward Georgia.  The mountains were living up to their name, and were beautifully hazy in the morning sunlight.

I went for a bit of a hike to enjoy the morning, and came across this beautiful view.  Yep.  I think I’ll be coming back here, just to get lost in those mountains…