Two weeks ago we spent a few days in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. If you missed the first part of our trip can see it here. On the second day of our trip we knew we wanted to go back to do one more thing in downtown Gatlinburg before heading to Pigeon Forge, and that was to visit the Sky Park Bridge. On the way to the bridge we saw a lot of fun signs like this one in front of on of their restaurants.
Right next to the Sky Park is this spooky building, the Mysterious Mansion. It is supposedly one of the oldest "haunted houses" in the area that you are able to walk around on your own self tour. I personally do not like haunted houses, so I was not to upset that it was closed on this day. I did think the outside looked pretty cool though.
To get to the Sky Park Bridge you have to ride a ski lift. While on the lift, it was not that far off the ground.
I found another giant chair!
Pretty much every where you look around Gatlinburg you will see black bear statues in various shapes and sizes. I think this one with a mama bear and her two cubs was my favorite. This was an area on one side of bridge that had pretty views of the main street below. A lot of this attraction was destroyed in the 2016 Gatlinburg fires. They had to replace the ski lift, and the upper terminal. They had plans to rebuild/upgrade the bridge, and it was supposed to be completed in October 2016, one month before the fires. They were not able to start it when planned though, so the timing worked out in their favor. They rebuilt everything after the fires.
The bridge is 680 feet long, and the longest pedestrian cable bridge in North America. While you could feel it moving a little bit, it was secured with giant cables and felt very safe.
This was the view near where the bear statues were located. Since we were there in early March, it was still early in the season for all the green grass and leaves to come back.
After a quick lunch, and a stop at a nearby Buc-ees, we drove around Pigeon Forge to check out the sites. Dollywood was a few days from opening, so most places were not very busy. While we were not ready to eat yet, we stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe to see the memorabilia. They had some fun items at this location, including a dress worn by a certain blond superstar who had the biggest tour in the world this year. :)
We drove by the Titanic Museum. I know there is also one in Branson, Mo which is not that far from where some of my family lives. It was already pretty late in the day, so we did not stop there on this trip.
Another cool place to visit is the Hollywood Wax Museum. We did not stop at this location this time, because we recently saw the one in Branson which you can read about here.
We did see a familiar face on the side of a building and decided to check it out. At Downtown Flavortown, you can play games in the arcade, bowl in a small bowling alley, and eat at Guy Fieri's Tiki Bar.
This giant Guy Fieri rubber duck is over 5 ft tall.
You can also see his red convertible from Diners, Drive Ins and Dives up close.
Downtown Flavortown is located in a cute little shopping area. We found a great gift shop there with affordable souvenirs. I bought a few T-shirts and sweatshirts for only $9.99 each. There was an area with a fire pit where you can sit and rest. While we were sitting there, a man was giving kids' rides on a colorful train around the shopping area. It looked like fun, but it was not big enough to grownups to ride. LOL
At this point it had started to rain, so we headed back to Gatlinburg a few miles away. We were starting to get hungry so we decided to eat a late dinner. It was already almost 8 pm, so we stopped by Jason Aldeen's Kitchen and Roof Top Bar.
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