Thursday 13 #3/ Day 8 of our Spring Vacation.

Today for the Thursday 13. I'll show you 13 photos from Dolly Parton's Dollywood parade that she has every year on the opening weekend of her amusement park Dollywood.
I have heard of this parade before but never been to it. It is a really big deal down there in Pigeon Forge TN, but I had never been inclined to drive south 8 hours to attend it. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. I'm not even a fan of Dolly(lol) but don't tell my IL's that ;P. You see this spring they made plans to go down to TN for a few days just to see this parade.

If you read my post from yesterday or any of my other spring vacation post.. you know we spent 3 days in Pigeon Forge before heading to Florida. Day #7 was our last day in Florida it was April 12, 2007. On Friday April 13, 07 we woke up at 4am and headed for home. After about 7 hours on the road we knew we needed a break.. and we knew we were a few hours from TN and where my IL's were in a hotel waiting to watch this big parade That was going to start at 6pm that night.. So we thought we would head that way just a tad bit out of the way but still in the same direction as we were heading(which would be North) So around 2pm We made it to Gatlinburg TN and then from there went to Pigeon Forge and meet up with DH's mom and dad and his Sister in-law(DH's younger brothers wife, younger brother had to work so he wasn't with them) OH my.. you know I think it was 2pm.. but maybe it was 3pm i don't recall, but in any case we had alot of time to rest before it started.

Here are 13 of the photos we took after it did start.
#1
#2 is a shot of my mother in law and princess, they were watching from up on there hotel balcony.

#3 - #5 are shots of Dolly herself.



#6 is looking back up at MIL and Princess. Mother in Law standing up to get a better view I guess.

#7 is Dolly looking down at Little Man, Sweet Pea, and Mr Man.. :) Ok who know if that is what she was really looking at, but she was right in front of us looking down towards us.

#8 one last pix of Dolly
#9 Mr, Little Man and Sweet Pea.. forgive what a mess we were, we did get up at 4am and did drive 9 1/2 hours that day. So we didn't look all that pretty and dolled up LOL.
#10 is one of the floats, it was the Comedy Barn float. This is one of Mr Man's favorite places to go and visit while in TN.. I'll do a post about that next week or maybe over the weekend as to why. The girl in far left corner of this shot waving is my younger Brother in laws wife. AKA. Aunt Shannon :)


#11 the photo above is of Mr Man standing next to aunt Shannon waving to the comedy barn crew.

The Parade was really long and except for Me, Sweet Pea and Mr Man. The rest of the group with us moved around from down on the street to up in the room, at different times. Me and the middle 2 kids stayed put on the street till it was over.

#12 is Princess and Aunt Shannon up on the balcony watching from up there. DH had little man and the camera up there at this point.#13 is a pretty view when it was over.. IT being not only the parade but our vacation.. ... We had planned on getting back on the road and driving the rest of the 8 hours home that night, but DH was so worn out from our 9 1/2 hour drive earlier that day.. that we got a room there in Pigeon Forge for one more night added to our trip.. So we had planned on just 5 nights in hotels on this trip and ended up staying 8 nights in them 4 in TN and 4 in Florida.

After the traffic let up from the Parade that night, we headed off and got a late super,(late as in around 8:30 or 9pm). After dinner 5 of the 6 of us went back to our room and just went to sleep. Princess spent the night with grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Shannon in there room.. They dropped her off to us at 9am on Saturday morning.. I think I'll try to do one last spring vacation post on Friday.. just telling what we did that Saturday and about our trip home. Then I'll be all done with my Spring vacation post.

If you are just joining the adventures of our spring vacation you can get all caught up by clicking on the day/days you missed. Day #1 , Day #2, Day#3(1) Day#3(2) Day #3(3) Day #4, Day #5, Day #6 Day #7

To view all the photos I took on this 8th day of our spring vacation you can view them here.

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