This past weekend my fiance and another couple went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee! If you have never been to Pigeon Forge I highly recommend it. There is so much stuff to do there for both adults and families. I didn’t get to bring my daughter on this trip because it was the weekend for her to be with her father but I kept thinking about how much fun she would have there too! We took her the last couple of times we went and she had a blast. I’m going to talk specifically about a place called The Island at Pigeon Forge although there were so may other places outside of this one area that looked like a lot of fun and we definitely plan on putting on out literary for next time!
The Island was right beside our hotel so it was within walking distance which was great because the traffic there was crazy this past weekend. I don’t remember it being as many people in the past years we were there but maybe I am just more aware of it now because of the global pandemic. Don’t worry, most everyone wore masks and we kept our distance and practice hand-washing regularly.
The last time we came to Pigeon Forge I wasn’t old enough to drink but this time I was so I was excited to try the moonshine and be able to do the alcohol tastings. But before we started the day of tastings we wanted to grab something to eat. We had just driven almost 5 hours to get there and we starving, unfortunately my food tasted awful and I ended up losing my appetite. I never like doing bad reviews on places buuut the place we ended up eating at was Dick’s Last Resort. If you have never been to Dick’s you pretty much pay for the bad service and a condom on your head. Dick’s is known for it’s intentionally humor based rude waiters/waitresses, good drinks, and they make these funny hats that look like condoms on your head with witty/vulgar sayings like “I wear glasses so it doesn’t get in my eyes”
The boy’s hats say “Woke up with peanut butter all over my a**” and “Woke up with peanut butter all over my mouth” and mine says “Not the first paper bag I’ve had on my head (and probably not the last)”
I do believe that everyone else’s food was good but mine looked and tasted horrible. I, of course, got the crybaby burger which is a vegan burger that I didn’t end up paying for because I couldn’t even take a bite out of it. It was so mushy and undercooked and the consistency was just.. Not good. Everyone else cleaned their plates though so as long as you’re not vegan you should be okay!You actually go there to be insulted anyway.
Our first tasting destination was of course the Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery where they make legal moonshine. Most of the flavored moonshine has like 20% alcohol with great flavors like butterscotch, apple pie, pumpkin, strawberry-mango margarita, lemon teashine or some with fruits in it like cherries, peaches and pickles. Yes, PICKLES. We had a guy doing our tasting named cousin jeff and he was amazing and hilarious. You try 7 different moonshines. Then you can browse the distillery and decide if you want to buy any moonshines. They had a promotion going that if you buy a box (that can hold 6 different jars) then you get a promo gift like a cooler, blanket or cookbook.
Next door they had a place called Yeehaw Brewery where they did beer tasting by the flight. I’m just going to tell you right now, I don’t like beer. I haven’t really acquired the taste for it at all but I was willing to try it because I didn’t really care for wine that much until I went to a winery and tried it a different variety of wines. I requested the flavors that didn’t really have much of a beer flavor and I got to try two slushies out of it so that was exciting! I didn’t even know they made beer slushies. I liked this place becasue they were all local beers but some of them tasted very poppy and earthy if they makes sense. Kind of like IPAs, I think. But I was excited to try the slushies even though the beer wasn’t my forte.
After this we spent a couple of hours, yes HOURS in the arcade and way too much money on the claw machine. “It’s the challenge for me”. We then walked around to all these cute little shops and decided we wanted to try to play the escape game which was by reservation only. While we waited we went a got a few more drinks and I ate something at Margaritaville which was beautiful. We sat right beside the river and started to plan for our next day in Gatlinburg which I’ll talk about in another post. I had never done an escape game but it was honestly one of the best times I’ve had. I sobered up so quick trying to tap into my problem solving mode. It really taps into tactical thinking and problem solving. I really felt like I was an astronaut and my oxygen was depleting. They had five or six different story lines that you could do and we wanted to do prison break but the next reservation wasn’t until 11 that night so we decided to do something that was sooner and we love outer space so that fit all of us.
Margaritaville, TN. Sweater from Marshall’s. Pullover from Rural King. Hat from Amazon. 
My handsome future husband.
As for the mission itself, I don’t want to get too much into it and ruin it but if you have ever played the game Among Us, I felt like I was a real character in that game minus the imposters and the deception. It was really neat and I recommend someone doing it at least once in their life!
By this time we were pretty worn out so we headed back to the hotel and ordered pizza and just chatted. It was a wonderful day and this doesn’t even begin to dive in to all of the wonderful things Pigeon Forge or even The Island has to offer. Until next time, Tennessee.
with love,
c.p
with love, c.p 