Gatlinburg- Dixie Stampede

Yeee Haw! We spent Tuesday morning around the campground, and then we donned our boots and headed to Pigeon Forge for Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede! The Dixie Stampede is a type of dinner theater, but the entertaining is done in a dirt arena on horseback! This was one of our favorite outings, hands down!

The fun began in the Carriage House Room... a type of triage/holding area while everyone arrived. We were entertained for about an hour by a bluegrass-ish type band called Mountain Ruckus. They were great! They asserted that ANY song could be played in Bluegrass... and proved it by performing "Smoke on the Water," a ZZ Top song, and something by Guns N Roses. This part was SOO funny!
When the hour was up, we all entered the big arena. Imagine a dirt horse arena circled by bleachers. Now, turn those bleachers into padded ones, and add a table going around the front of each bleacher row. When asked, we picked to be on the South's side (of course), and our seats were on the FRONT ROW!!!

dad, mom, me, Hannah, Josh, Will, scott, Sarah, Adam, Evelyn, Levi, and Hillary

As we were getting settled, our waitress informed us that the menu was written on our napkin: a whole small rotisserie chicken, pork loin, potato wedge, cream of vegtable soup, biscuit, and apple fritter. She pointed out that we didn't have silverware because it was all right on the ends of our FANGERS!!! She also asked if the boys would like to be part of the show at a later point... they eagerly agreed!

The show began, and it was staged as a "friendly" competition between the north pole and south pole. The horse riders did all kinds of tricks as part of the performance... and one lady jumped through a ring of fire standing on two different horses! There were several different competitions between the north and south, and some of them involved the crowd. This is where Josh and Will came in... Their job was to represent the South in the "Chicken Chasing Race!"

Boys getting ready to herd chickens

It really wasn't fair... the poor yankee kids had probably never been around chickens in their lives, and Josh and Will outweighed them by 40lbs... we're corn fed down here! Will and Josh worked together and herded those birds across the line in no time. For their efforts, they got a Dixie Stampede medal and a Dolly Parton autograph and book! (She has some kind of free literature for young kids program.)

I can't mention the show without mentioning Skeeter... he was the reindeer hunting goofball who kept us all cracking up the entire time!

Josh and Skeeter

The food was delicious, the show was great, and we will remember that for a long, long time!