Chooch: “What does ‘selfish’ mean?”
Me: “When you only think about yourself.”
Henry, at the same time as me: “Erin Kelly.”
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Apparently, we’ve only been doing what I want to do, but hello—if I left our itinerary up to Henry, I’d probably be in a tent right now, unable to update my blog.

Gross.

We did agree on one thing though—Clingman’s Dome. It’s an observation tower about a 45 minute drive up into the higher elevations of the Smokies. We decided to wake up early to do this in case Bill and Jessi had any plans for us in the afternoon.

This entailed waking Chooch up. When it comes to slumber, Chooch is a little divo. You let him wake up on his own, else you’ll have a snapping piranha on your hands.

Which we did yesterday morning. However, at least we made it to Thursday before our child to returned to his old ways of being a noncompliant asshole. What a great run we had.

The whole way up the mountain, he made his presence known in the backseat as he bucked and kicked at the back of my seat and allowed Satan himself to use Chooch’s mouth as a death threat portal. There were several times I had legitimate chills.

If you’ve ever seen Back to the Beach, think of Bobby in the backseat, only younger and way more sinister than sarcastic. Henry even turned around a few times a la Frankie Avalon and threatened to bust him in the mouth. IT WAS AN AWESOME JOYRIDE UP THE SIDE OF A FUCKING SCARY MOUNTAIN YOU GUYS. My nerves were not shot at all.

We saw another bear though!

“Oh shit, that’s a cub. Bye!” Henry yelled, flooring it.

It only got worse when we reached our destination and freed him from his cage. Thank god there was barely anyone there when we arrived because he was being so loud, so disrespectful, so spoiled-5-year-old that I came very close to making him a permanent fixture of the Smokies.

And this was before we realized it was a half-mile hike uphill from the parking lot to the tower. Oh, how he wept and shrieked, “MY LEGS HURT OMG IM DYING!” after taking two steps.

The elevation was 6600 feet and we quite literally had our heads in the clouds. It was so hard to breathe to begin with, and then you add in the accelerated heart rate that Chooch had given us and we both were sure we were going to go into cardiac arrest.

He finally stopped screaming near the top, only because two hikers emerged from the woods and Chooch is extremely vain just like me. But he refused to go all the way up to the tower because there were about 8 people there, opting instead to hang back on the curved ramp with his arms crossed and the surliest visage I think I have ever seen on him.

And of course we couldn’t see shit through the clouds, but despite that and the fact we have an asshole kid, it was still cool to be there, inhaling clouds.

Chooch was fine after that because we were leaving which is what he wanted.

Captain Surly-Sack.

This will probably be the only thing about this vacation that Chooch remembers when he grows up, creating a vitriolic aversion to Tennessee. I’ll be sure to blame it on Henry.

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Me: “Are the shows included with admission?” (As if I’d actually sit down for a blue grass show.)

Bill: “I should hope so. For $60, they better let us piss in the bushes if we want.”
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Dollywood was one of the few things I HAD to do while in Tennessee and there is no way can I do it justice by typing up a recap on my phone. So instead I’ll just share the photos I took with my phone and do it up proper-like from home.

Fuck yeah, country blouse things! All the Dollywood employees wore either checkered shirts or pioneer dresses. I should also note that the average age of these fine laborers was about 65. It’s good to know I’ll have a place to work when I’m old.

Get high on the Beatitudes, Dollywood’s premiere Twilight-mocking establishment. There was a shirt for sale that used the exact Twilight font, except upon closet inspection it actually said TheLight with a tiny “Jesus is” above it. Amazing.

So I really shouldn’t have been surprised that there was an actual chapel (offering Sunday mass!) nestled into the forestry of Dollywood’s simulated mining towns.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Henry said when he saw me lurking near the prayer request book. What? I was only going to write “Please God, bring Dance Gavin Dance back to Pittsburgh.” And for my forged entry for Henry, “Please provide me with the courage to find a hairstyle that suits my molester ‘stache, differentiate between ‘to’ and ‘too,’ & block the entire decade of the 90s from my mind.”

Thank God Dollywood has a random hillbilly graveyard.

Old people sitting in front of us on the Dollywood Express, poring over the daily schedule of shows.

“If we go to this one, we’ll miss that one,” the old wife sighed, dragging her finger along the schedule. “But we make the 5:00 show and leave a few minutes early to catch this other one,” she strategized, and it reminded me so much of agonizing over the Warped Tour set list.

Except this lady’s husband actually gave a shit.

Henry, Chooch, Bill and I were there from about 11:00 until the park closed at 7:00, and we were sincerely dragging by the end. Except for Chooch, who went on to be a hyper son-of-a-bitch back at the room until he finally passed out at 10:30.

Dollywood fucking ruled except that I didn’t hear “Jolene” once all day. We did, however, hear a very worthless Dolly cover of an equally worthless Collective Soul joint.

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