Pigeon Forge: Epicenter of the Hillbilly Universe

By Bob Wire, 7-15-08

	Caption: Yes, here's yours truly, piloting a 30-mph death trap in Pigeon Forge. In this photo you can't quite make it out, but I'm shitting my pants.

As I stared intently into the stainless steel mirror in the campground bathroom, trimming my nose hairs with a Leatherman, I let my mind wander back to the tourist-trap run-up to Mount Rushmore. I had been taken aback by the parasitic cottage industry that grew up around the popular tourist destination. But as I snipped away with the Leatherman’s tiny scissors, trying not to deviate my own septum, I was blissfully unaware that the roadside attractions of South Dakota would soon be dwarfed by the only stretch of American highway that can be seen from outer space: Pigeon Forge, Kentucky.

If you’ve never been, I hope you never have to go. It’s along the highway on the way Gatlinburg, the gateway to Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Traffic suddenly thickens as you enter Pigeon Forge, then slows to a crawl while all the tourists (including us) rubberneck at the unending barrage of neon-wrapped arcades, LED video billboards, immense go-kart tracks, t-shirt shops, souvenir shacks, and hundreds of other distractions vying for your attention like a crack whore on a New York sidewalk.

The whole thing bursts so incongruously out of the rolling Kentucky hills that the sensory overload is disturbingly surreal. With all the cowboy boot outlet stores, NASCAR memorabilia stands and endless pancake houses, it’s as if some cracker-ass hillbilly suddenly struck it rich, then poured millions back into his hometown to transform it into this hideous testament to white trash glitter and grease.

Oh wait—that’s exactly what DID happen. Pigeon Forge is the hometown of Dolly Parton, whose idea of “giving back” was to build a theme park here. Dollywood is her way of ensuring that teenagers and twenty-somethings for generations to come will no longer have to travel with carnivals in order to work minimum-wage service jobs for a thankless public.

We had hoped to camp that night, our last before reaching our destination near Murphy, North Carolina. But we entered Pigeon Forge around dinner time, and there was no way we’d make it through the stop-and-go traffic to a campground beyond Gatlinburg before dark. We resigned ourselves to getting a hotel room in this neon jungle, and chose a Days Inn next to one of the many funplex arcade behemoths. Speaker and Rusty were chattering with excitement, and we decided that they could choose one activity to do in the morning before we left. I find that a little hypocrisy is essential to effective parenting.

As it worked out, I accompanied them to the funplex in the morning while Barb stayed in the room to pack. This happened to be two-for-one day, so the kids picked Alien Black Light Mini Golf and a run on the four-story go-kart track. The mini golf was okay—Speaker got two hole-in-ones—but the go-kart run was over the top. I mean, literally (see accompanying photo).

Speaker rode in a two-seater with me, but Rusty was tall enough to solo. The track was similar to a parking garage, where you drive up a spiraling ramp to the top, then race down a series of steep ramps and tight curves all the way to the bottom. We hadn’t even finished our first lap, when one of the attendants hit the master kill button, stopping all the cars so they could straighten out an accident. Of course it was Rusty, who’d traded paint with some fat teenager trying to pass on the inside, sending my boy’s ride pinwheeling across the track. The attendant simply picked up the front end of Rusty’s kart, pointed him in the right direction, and hit the go button.

The violent thunderstorms of the previous night had left the track wet, so I was able to break free for some controlled drifts through the bigger turns. The air was pierced by the high-pitched screams of a terrified little girl, and I soon realized they were coming from me.

When we got back to the hotel, it was check-out time. Barb had gotten the truck completely packed, and after an idiot check of the room we melded into traffic and made our way to Gatlinburg. It was a smaller, slightly more upscale version of Pigeon Forge (the go-karts had chrome rims and leather seats), but still was pretty impressive in its aggressive white trashiness. But the NASCAR-worshipping Southerners were eating it up, swarming in and out of the Ripley’s Museum and Cooter’s Hazzard County Restaurant like ants on a chicken wing. Even on a Sunday when they should have been in church.

We stopped for two short hikes as we drove through the Park, and each hike was crowded with hundreds of people. Seriously. And I hated every one of them. I know that the Eastern U.S. is more densely populated than the West, but still, I couldn’t lose my resentment at having to deal with these huge crowds in the middle of a National Park. I may as well have been walking though Wal-Mart.

Some of my resentment and animosity was a direct result of my road-weariness. This was our ninth day of travel, and when we finally reached the beautiful wooded sanctuary of Barb’s parents at 8:30 that evening, I got down on all fours and kissed the ground. For the next five days, we could sleep in. We wouldn’t have to worry about getting our shit packed and hitting the road. I wouldn’t have to buy ice. I could forget the five-pound Rand McNally Atlas that had been on my lap for several hours a day. I could ignore the kids for hours on end.

My bitching and petty complaints notwithstanding, the first half of the trip has been a tremendous success. Our two kids actually get along better than any siblings I know of, which makes traveling with them truly a pleasure. They’re old enough to appreciate the many wondrous discoveries we make every day, but they haven’t yet hit adolescence, when everything is a colossal bore. They’ve seen some things they’ll never forget, and they’re really getting a first-hand look at this crazy-ass country of ours.

Saturday morning we’ll leave here to do it all over again, but we’ll be taking a more southerly route on our return to Missoula. My only must-see on the way back is Graceland in Memphis. I want to see it before it gets too commercialized.

[Next: hey, we’re only halfway. Give it a rest already.]

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