Category — Ski

On the way down, I took Miss J and Mr. Z on the Aerial Tramway down the mountain. It was nice seeing the whole town from the bird’s eyes view. The ride was short but memorable.

The last day in Gatlinburg, we didn’t get to spend a lot of time there. Since we now knew that we would have to drive through the Smokey via the curvy road, we want to make sure we get through that part before dark. So we just had a couple quick stops in town. First, we headed to the Track in Pigeon Forge. It was a cool go-kart ride for the whole family. I rode with Miss J and Mr. Rojo rode with Mr. Z. The ride went up and down the wooden track which makes it so cool and so much fun. It took a while to convince Mr. Z to leave… Oh.. We even got discount by merely mentioned that we saw coupons for buy 2 get 1 free and she just gave us the discount without the coupon itself. Nice!!!

Then we headed downtown Gatlinburg for another stop for Miss J – Ripley’s Guinness World Records. It just happened that Miss J just checked out the Guinness Book from her library last week. So it’s something that she was really excited to see things from the book come to life. It wasn’t something I will write home about but for her it was really great experience..

After a quick stop to KFC for our lunch on the go, we headed out of town.. Bye bye.. Gatlinburg and see you soon.

The drive home was as much fun as the experience in town itself. We stoped at a few lookout to take pictures and check out the gorgeous view of the Smokey. I couldn’t imagine how much nicer it will be in Fall. We just have to come back and find out, huh? :)

All in all, we truly enjoyed our small trip there. We already think about next year. :)

This has been one of the request my daughter has been saying for a couple years now. She even asked if we can move to NJ so she can see snow. So now I’m in search of the nearby attraction within our low budget to grant her that wish.

Using my familiar tool (online search engine), I found this useful website for the Ski Resort in the South East area. And it’s easy to remember SkiSoutheast. It has a list of ski resorts in the area.

Here are my short lists from the site that we are considering.

1) Scaly Mountain : This is the snow tubing only resort. It seems perfect for our family since our skiing experience is zero. Plus it’s only about 2 hours drive from our house. The ticket runs around $20 and charges per person. Not bad at all.

2) Sapphire Valley : With about 2 and a half hour drive, not much further than Scaly mountain we will be able to experience real skiing. This is a bigger resort with skiing and snow boarding. Plus the ticket price is not bad for a weekend that comes to under $30.

3) Ober Gatlinburg : This will be more of a long weekend trip than a one day trip. Situated in Gatlinburg area allows us to explore not just skiing but other attractions in the area. The downside comes with price tag. Since being in the tourist area, the ticket is more expensive than most and the drive is longer at about 3 hours and 45 mins.

4) Cataloochee : This Ski area includes snow tubing world and skiing. It will take about 3 hours to get there and there is limitation on the height requirement for snow tubing. So it might be a while before we can visit this location.

Hopefully, one of this weekend we will make it up the mountain.