A coach trip requires that the tour find things to do while getting to a from their destination. On our way to Tennessee, we stayed in Kentucky at the historic Boone Tavern Hotel where we had a wonderful dinner while being entertained by a delightful group singing bluegrass tunes while playing fiddle, mandolin, guitar and bass.

A journey into the Great Smoky Mountains to Pigeon Forge, TN. Here we discovered an assortment of options along the Parkway, and here, we too, explored various attractions, shows, and more. This mountain adventure had us experiencing four live shows including the Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Feud Show and Dolly Parton’s Stampede & Pirates Voyage. Visits to Dollywood and the Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery.

As a younger man, like 60’s or thereabouts, I said I would never care to join an Over-the-Road Coach Tour. This was my third. I don’t have to plan my trip. I don’t have to choose the places to stay. And I don’t have to decide on the wonderful things I will do.
Would I plan to experience a Dolly Pardon Hokey Hatfield & McCoy musical? I’m sure not. But ‘they’ did and, other than the corniness of the skits, the music, singing and the athletic dance routines were excellent. As this, and the other similar ones, were all dinner shows, the food was rather repetitive, but in keeping with our southern expectations, filling and quite good.
During our visit we spent some time in the Smoky Mountains with a wonderful guide who was very knowledgeable about the mountains and the Cherokee Americans that once occupied that territory. I could have spent the entire day, or more, with him but, instead we wasted far too much of our time wandering the tourist trap streets of Gatlinburg. Here we could taste test a varieties of flavored Moon Shine at the Smoky Mountains Moon Shine distillery and pay much more for a jar of the same stuff we could buy back home. I, at least, when we got back home, learned that Moon Shine can be purchased in my neck of the woods.

On our return from Tennessee, we visited a Bourbon Distillery (a must while in Kentucky), and Churchel Downs where we were treated to a tour of the process that the horse owners go through to prepare their horses for major races.
We also visited the Kentucky Horse Park where well known racing horses retire and later buried.

Only eight days long, the journey was filled with experiences that I would, otherwise, not have participated in. Glad I did.
Relatively inexpensive, relaxing, good companions, it was a nice getaway.