Surprises at Dollywood!

One of the best things about living where we do is being so close to the legendary Smokies, Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge. Chris and I happen to LOVE Dollywood (an amusement park in Pigeon Forge) and usually get a chance to go on occasional evenings and weekends. It makes for the perfect date night! We got season passes for this year and always have a fabulous time when we go.

We had an unexpected, but a really fun time this past Saturday. We went to one the mid-morning shows and heard them talking about what a fun time they had with Dolly in their earlier show. Chris and I looked at each other like, "Are you serious? She's really here?" They said that she was there that weekend with her god-daughter Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Kenny Rogers trying to raise money for a fund she started for the flood relief in Nashville. So naturally, we kept our ears open to hear if anyone was talking about where she'd be next. We didn't really hear anything promising, and by that time we realized that she was just making surprise appearances in different shows all day. We eventually just picked a show and kept our fingers crossed! We sat through the whole thing, and had almost given up hope, when at the end of the show when the cast was doing their encore, the announcer came over the speaker and announced Dolly Parton. Chris looked at me and said as she was coming on stage, "My goodness, that's really her!" We really had a great time getting to see her and she seems like a real sweetheart. At a later show, we got much better seats and were able to get much closer. We were able to hear her sing with her aunts, uncles, and cousins, and that was definitely cool. It was a memory-makin' day!