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Pigeon Forge RV Resort (March 18-April 1) 2025
We moved to Pigeon Forge RV Resort and got a nice corner site. The campground is very nice, it is large and has concrete pads with gravel ‘yards’. It is more of a parking lot campground which is a compromise that we make in these more touristy areas. Having a large rig limits places we are able to stay and we do prefer to have sewer for longer stays, as this is our home, so we do like to have the luxury of a connected sewer. It’s all about balance. We would stay here again as it is centrally located and had all the conveniences we were looking for.
We love the Pigeon Forge area. We enjoy the ‘vacation’ vibe that we fall into here. Having the Smoky Mountain National Park right here provides a good yin/yang for us; we can enjoy the park and it’s beauty with long drives and hikes and also enjoy the entertainment/food/fun that the tourist area provides.
We did a good variety of things. We drove through the park several times and I realize now, that since I am the driver, I don’t take many photos. Ed is not much of a photo taker, so I can always tell when I have fully immersed myself in what we are doing, as there are very few, if any photos. So I don’t have many of when we were enjoying nature and the park.
We saw Dolly’s Pirate Dinner Show while in town, it was really fun and the food was good. We have always enjoyed the Dixie Stampede, so we had a good indication that we would enjoy this show also. The show was engaging, the actors seemed to be immersed in their roles and the food was quite good.
We spent a few days wandering around “The Island” area of Pigeon Forge, downtown Gatlinburg and generally just exploring the area shops and venues.
I thought this shirt was funny, being from the land of Buc-ees.
Being Guy Fieri watchers, we had to check out Flavortown. We didn’t eat there, as we had already eaten, but Ed did play a game and won a prize that landed him on the Flavortown Facebook page! Ed is a pro at the claw games.
We went to the Lumberjack Feud dinner and show. The food was HORRIBLE, like shockingly bad. We go to many dinner shows and honestly, we don’t usually expect much from the food, as most of them are pretty mediocre at best. This was bad. The show was cute and fun. We had read reviews about the food, but wanted to see the show and there was no option for a show with no dinner. They really need to consider dropping the dinner and just sticking to the show, as the show was quite enjoyable.
We drove out to Bryson City, NC to take the Smoky Mountain Railway train ride. We have done this one before and enjoyed it, so we were looking forward to it. The bonus for this is the drive is beautiful to get there and back, so it’s like a two for one! We had a great time. Saw these guys along the route.
Did my obligatory hiking the entire width of the Appalachian Trail.
I have to get better about trying to get photos of Ed and I both during our adventures. I love looking back on these.
Saw an eagle fishing on our return train trip.
Here is a shot from the drive back to camp. I love the mountains.
We spent two days at Dollywood. We had a great time. I made a grave error and ate a corn dog. I know that hot dogs hate me, but man oh man do I love them! I suffered with sour stomach for DAYS after that darn corn dog!
Did I catch an elusive Ed grin/smile??
We also went to the Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Show. We have been to this one before and enjoyed it, this time was no different. Fun show and good food.
I don’t think we’ve ever been to Pigeon Forge that we didn’t go to Dixie Stampede. It is classically entertaining and the food is always on point. I could live on the vegetable soup!
We tried breakfast at a new restaurant while we were here, called Five Oaks. It was GREAT! I wish we had tried it earlier in our stay, as we would have gone for supper. This will be a priority on our next visit. Ed got a cinnamon roll that was enormous and I had a skillet that was huge, both were delicious.
We rode the Alpine coaster, but were too cheap to pay for the photos. LOL I snapped these as a reminder. The coaster was a blast! However, when I got home and was reading about it, I found that several folks had experienced bears along their ride in the past! I may have been a bit more hesitant if I had known that. C’est la vie!
We went to this store called Country Barn and they have a “photo park” out back where they have all these fun areas where you can take ‘selfies’. Ed tolerated my antics and indulged my “Instagram modeling”. LOL! He is such a champ, he even posed for one!
We also visited a place called Beyond the Lens. We went there for a ‘fly over’ ride, which was the most pitiful excuse for a fly over ever. 100% DO NOT RECOMMEND, it was awful. The other part of the experience was somewhat fun. We got some fun photos.
We had a great time here, it’s hard not to. There is so much to do and so many options for any type of activity. We look forward to returning in a few years.
Next stop…Kentucky
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Watsadler Campground in Hartwell, Georgia (March 14-18) 2025
We moved to Watsadler Campground in Hartwell, Georgia. We initially got a site that was way too tight for our rig. I am pretty darn good at backing this thing up nowadays, but I also know my limits. We were given a much more spacious site and really ended up enjoying where we ended up. The campground is very quiet and peaceful. Lots of area to walk and it is well maintained. We would certainly stay here again if in the area.
We visited a place I discovered online called Hart County Botanical Gardens. It is a great place located behind a large park of baseball fields. There was a tournament going on at the fields so there was lots of people around and the parking lot was jammed. The gardens were very peaceful and nobody around but us really. They had this great area that was a tiny house with a covered porch area with rocking chairs. They had a bird feeding area that you could sit and watch the birds from the porch. I could have stayed there for hours. It really was a cool place!
The garden also had lots of carved art along the walking paths. It was really a lovely place that if I lived in the area, I would certainly visit often.
The next day, my cousin, Vickie, drove from Atlanta to see us! I always enjoy a Vickie Visit! We were going to eat downtown, however, we discovered that on Sunday, there is nothing open downtown! So, we hit up Bojangles and headed back to the campground. We spent the day in what Ed likes to call a “Yack Attack”. Catching up and just enjoying the beautiful weather!
The campground is on a lake and I enjoyed walking it.
We had a cardinal that decided my truck was his enemy. He could see himself in the mirror and just battled the truck every day we were there. Poor guy, I am sure he wore himself out!
We visited Ana Ruby Falls, Vickie recommended it, she had taken James there a few years back. It was beautiful.
We visited Helen, GA. It was a cute town, but not quite as nice as others we have been to. They do have a cool tradition of putting ‘love’ locks on the bridge. They even built a sculpture for people to put there locks on so as to not damage the bridge.
We also went to Babyland General Hospital!! My inner child was ecstatic! I allllllmost bought a CPK, but decided it was silly.
After watching a ‘birth’, we visited Toccoa Falls. It is located on a college campus, which was a bit different. It is a beautiful falls.
Next we head to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee!
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Parris Island (March 2-14) 2025
We moved to Parris Island FamCamp on March 2 and got settled into our site. I flew to DFW the next day for the week. The FamCamp is small but nice. No frills, but that is what we prefer usually. We spent most of the time here walking the beach and just chilling out. I didn’t get any photos of the site or campground. I did take a few at the ‘beach’ on base. The entire beach was oyster shells.
We did go to Hunting Island State Park while here. We saw dolphins and a bald eagle at the beach. It was a great area and we had a nice time.
We didn’t do much else while here. We did enjoy our stay and will likely stay here again. Now we are headed inland to Hartwell, Georgia!
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Blythe Island State Park (Feb 9-March 2) 2025
We arrived at the park and were assigned a site that I was not thrilled with. One of the big draws of this park for me is the trees and seclusion. Unfortunately, this site was in a space that was not as wide as most, it also had a lot of the foliage removed/downed. Fortunately for me, Ed is a miracle worker and got us moved to a much better site. I adore this man!
I have been lusting over these CLAM shelters that I have seen at many campgrounds. Ed purchased one for us and I love it! It provides us shelter from bugs and weather when we are outside. It is going to be a great outside crafting area, I hope.
This is right at the top of my favorite campgrounds in the south. As I said before, I love the seclusion and I enjoy walking around the area. It has lots of space to walk and has a trail at the back that is super secluded. Of course, I also love the bunnies! I won’t post the tons of photos I took, but I have to post at ONE at leastl
We spent the majority of our time here just chilling. We needed the break from our busy time at Disney. We did go to Savannah for our anniversary, had a late lunch at Ruth’s Chris and then took a haunted tour of Savannah. Our guide was excellent and we really enjoyed the tour.
We visited Jeckyll Island, Amelia Island, Ft Clinch beach, took a couple of shuttle bus tours (Jeckyll Island and St Simons Island) and really enjoyed just being in the area.
We drove out to the Okefenokee Swamp Park, as I have heard of the Okefenokee all my life and wanted to check it out. Highly disappointed in the park, we thought it was the actual state park area, however, this is a quite rundown and very disorganized park. We purchased tickets to take a boat tour and never got to actually take it, as they never had room for us on a boat. They didn’t have enough qualified boat captains to run the tours that they sold. The park has great potential, but the upkeep is poor, the buildings are empty and there are no staff available to provide any guidance or information. We were really bummed as it was quite a long drive for nothing. We have seen more ‘wildlife’ at the campground.
As I mentioned, we didn’t ‘do’ much on this visit to Blythe Island, it was more of a recovery stay. Scooby had surgery while we were here to remove a tumor from his side. He did really well and the vet here was great. Our vet at home retired and I miss her greatly. It is hard to trust just any vet with our Scooby-Doo. He will be rocking a crazy haircut for a while. I must admit, the thought of completely shaving him did cross my mind (this dog sheds like MAD).
Next stop, Parris Island…
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Fort Wilderness at Walt Disney World, Florida (Jan 19-Feb 9) 2025
Just a disclaimer, in case you are new here; We are Disney Adults. NO apologies, NO shame and don’t have a drop of concern regarding what anyone thinks about it. We love it here, we will always love it here and we will likely never stop coming here. Fort Wilderness is fantastic and I love staying here. This, I must admit was my favorite time here, as I really immersed myself in the joy and activities. I could live here!
We got a good site. We were right across from the Pluto Dog Park. I initially was not thrilled with the site, but we did enjoy it and it proved to be a good site for participating in the scavenger hunts. We were further from the docks than we hoped, but it turned out to be a nice walk.
I’m going to focus more on the campground this post, as I realize that Disney gets redundant. I discovered a couple of Fort Wilderness campground Facebook groups and found out about the scavenger hunt! The scavenger hunt is campground wide and people ‘hide’ various items around the park, leaving clues for others to ‘find’ the item. Items ranged from dollar store items to Loungefly backpacks! Some folks are super generous! I found a few things and I fell in love. It allowed me to craft and share my creations. Turned out my ornaments were very popular and I even was able to do some trades.
I had a blast creating and hiding my ornaments. I hung several at the dog park and on the back of our site, where I could sit at my desk and watch the finders locate them! It was fun. I didn’t keep track of how many I made, but over our stay, I made at least 50, probably closer to 75.
Ed was a sweetheart and accompanied me to the craft night. I desperately wanted to make a sign for our camper. It came out SO cute! I highly recommend any of the craft activities at The Fort, the staff is so welcoming and helpful. The community is, at large, very friendly and inclusive.
We did a lot of walking and exploring the campground. We saw this gorgeous hawk on our first day there.
We discovered that while they are super cute, the squirrels are quite aggressive and destructive! They chewed through my string lights, not once but twice! I was feeling like my mom, ready to go to war with the little jerks!!!
The Fort beach is a great place to watch the electrical water parade! The Fort pipes the music through the entire campground every night when the parade passes. I loved it! We also watched the fireworks from the beach several nights. The music for the fireworks is piped onto the beach area only and during our stay, it was very low, but still enjoyable.
Ed surprised me by flying James in to spend a few days with us! I was completely shocked. I had really been reminiscing about the days when we came to Disney with the boys and it was such a sweet surprise to get a few days to enjoy the parks with James again.
My mama heart was so happy! I don’t know that this kid will ever understand how much joy he brings to me.
My heart is happiest when we are all together 🙂
Several evenings the horse drawn buggies and carriages went past our site. We might do a carriage ride next time we are here. The stables are a cool place to go and see the horses and learn about the history of the carriages and horses at Disney.
We went to the Hoop Dee-Doo Revue as it had been closed due to COVID during our last stay. It was a really fun time and we enjoyed the food and the show! The cornbread was so good and I am super picky about my cornbread.
We went to the Campfire Sing-A-Long, it is a cute show and fun time.
We spent a lot of time this visit doing things other than visiting the parks. We took the buses, boats and sky tram to the resorts to spend time looking around, shopping, snacking and people watching. This was a wonderfully relaxing way to ‘do’ Disney. The parks are a huge part of the reason we love Disney World, but we also really enjoy just immersing ourselves into the Disney Bubble. It is nice to really take the time to stroll around and see all the minute details that one misses when pushing themselves to ‘go/go/go’. It is a real blessing and privilege to have the time to really soak it all in.
The Fort Wilderness Campground is beautiful in and of itself. There are so many things to discover and places to explore. We had a wonderful time here. We also have NEVER been to Disneyworld when we had to wear coats! We had several nights that it was REALLY cold! Who knew Florida could be COLD! LOL!
The following are just a bunch of photos from the fort area. Enjoy!
Coats at Disney World!
Next stop…Blythe Island, Georgia! Until next time, Disney…
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MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL (Dec 22-Jan 19) 2025
We moved to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa and plan to stay a month. The FamCamp is quite large. We got a good site on a corner. Unfortunately, when we got here, we immediately got very sick. I’m pretty certain we had COVID and possibly the flu also. Ed got ill first, then on Christmas Eve, I went down like a ton of bricks. I am typing this update on Jan 4 and today is the first day I have felt ‘normal’. I’m still fighting some sinus issues and a cough. Ed is doing almost 100% better. We are hoping that the second half of our month here will be one in which we can do some exploring and sight-seeing.
St. Petersburg from the beach at the end of the FamCamp We were feeling somewhat human again on Feb 9th, so we ventured out to the TECO manatee viewing center. It is a place where the electric plant water is warm and the manatee gather. There were LOTS of manatee there. It is a super cool place and I really enjoyed it. We were able to be outdoors in the fresh air, but stay away from others enough to feel ok about going out. We were on the upswing and I think going out really helped us to feel better.
The next day, since we were back to healthy, we went to Three Sisters Springs at Crystal River. This is another place to view the manatee. It was a nice walk out to the area and the water was gorgeous. We really enjoyed the day there. I could have stayed there forever, watching the manatees go into the spring area from the river was so peaceful.
We visited Bok Tower Gardens and it is a spectacular place! I really enjoyed it. We walked all around the gardens and caught a performance on the carillonneur. It was beautiful. This is another place I could have just stayed and wandered the entire day. We will revisit it when in the area, for sure.
We went on a boat to a place called “Shell Island” and gathered a few shells. It was a fun adventure!
We had a good time in Tampa. We will likely return, hopefully without COVID coming along to rob some of our time!
Next stop FORT WILDERNESS!!!
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TT Orlando in Clermont, FL (Dec 1-22)
We moved to TTO and got a good spot in the ‘new’ area. We got settled in and ready for Disney!
We spent the next two days at Disney World and had a great time!
#VC 
I flew to Dallas for an appointment and to spend a few days catching up with family. Michael and I had breakfast together and then went on a hike at his usual haunt. I love being able to spend one-on-one time with him.
I really need to get better at taking photos when I am in Dallas!
When I got back to Florida, we spent another day at Disney. This time we decided to pepper our park days throughout our 3 week stay. Ed had to fly to Dallas for a few days for a couple of doctor appointments.
I had been coveting this years Mickey’s Christmas Party Popcorn Bucket. Ed connected with a fellow camper and she was going to the party and she got this adorable bucket for me! I am so excited!!!
These shots are from Living with the Land. It is one of my favorite rides…at Christmas, they make it really cute. The last few are these Scentsy sponsored ornaments that are huge and they pipe out Scentsy scents…it was pretty neat.
I ADORE this ladies jacket! I told her that I loved it. Now I need to find one!
We made the rounds to see the gingerbread structures at each resort. They are always so intricate and cool!
The gingerbread carousel actually rotates and is always a favorite of mine.
Spaceship Earth Gingerbread at Epcot
The Contemporary Hotel has the gingerbread castle. The large gingerbread house is at the Grand Floridian. We wanted to get closer, but it was a madhouse in there, not worth the fight. They pipe the scent of gingerbread throughout the lobby, so it is pretty cool. We also went to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to see their gingerbread animals.
We had lunch at the Chef de France in Epcot and it was delicious! The desserts were scrumptious!
We attended the Candlelight Processional for the first time. It was beautiful! Pat Sajak was the host. He’s not exactly who I would have chosen to see, but it was still great.
We went to Disney Spring and visited Gideon’s for some cookies. We got there early, so the wait was minimal. The cookies are so worth it!
I got this wreath cake at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and it was delicious!
Also got my caramel apple fix! Isn’t she cute?!?
We had a wonderful time, as always. We even plan on returning next month to kick off the new year! LOL!
Next stop….Tampa!
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Blythe Island Campground in Brunswick, GA (Nov 28-Dec 1)
We moved to Blythe Island on Thanksgiving Day, our Thanksgiving meal was McDonald’s…such is life on the road! LOL! The bonus is no long hours of cooking and cleaning.
We went to Jekyll Island and walked the beach. This was our shortest stay here, but as always, it was a nice stay! A raccoon mama and her babies came to eat the popcorn we spilled. LOL!
We always enjoy the sunsets here and feeding the bunnies.
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TT The Oaks at South Point in Yemassee, SC (Nov 18-28)
We arrived in Yemassee and ended up in a site I was not happy with, but we were able to move to a better site after a day, so I ended up happy. We walked around the pond several times and each time we saw the local gators.
We went to Hilton Head and strolled around the Harbour Town area. We encountered a chittery squirrel and a hawk who was looking for his next meal, which perhaps was what made the squirrel so chittery!
The next day we started out the day with a bus tour of Beaufort, SC. It was nice because there was only 2 other tourists on the bus, so it felt like a personal tour! Then we visited Hunting Island State Park to see the lighthouse. Turns out the lighthouse is being painted, so we couldn’t really see it! We walked the beach and it was pretty chilly.
A few days later, we visited Charleston and took a bus tour. I would have to say that this tour was one of my favorite bus tours we have been on. Our tour guide was a local whose family has been in Charleston for many generations. He was overflowing with information/history of the city. After the tour, we went to see the USS Yorktown and to take a sunset cruise of the bay. We have seen the Yorktown before, it is huge and we probably still haven’t seen all of it! The sunset cruise was beautiful and we really enjoyed it.
Reece Witherspoon’s Charleston Home 
The next day, we spent the day in Charleston. We went to the South Carolina Aquarium, walked to City Market and walked all over Charleston. It is a really cool town and we enjoyed our time there.
Next stop is Georgia…
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Myrtle Beach KOA in Myrtle Beach, SC (Nov 17)
We spent one night at the KOA in Myrtle Beach, SC. We got there early and were able to have lunch, do some shopping at the boardwalk area and enjoy the sunset. The KOA is nice, but some of the sites are a bit tricky to get into due to trees
