Pigeon Forge Day 3- Gatlinburg and The Island

We woke up Monday to sunshine!!!  I realize we had only been there a day and a half but it had been raining since we got there and with all the rain we had at home the week before, I was ready for some sunshine.  

With the nice weather we headed into Gatlinburg to see if we could make it into the Pancake Pantry.

I'm sure all the pancake houses down there are good but this one is apparently famous.  We were lucky and only had a 30 minute wait. Don't try this on a weekend though or anytime after 9, by then the line was wrapped around the building.

It did not disappoint.  Chocolate chip pancakes will never be the same.

We walked the strip looking to what we could get ourselves into.

So serious.

We decided on taking the aerial tramway up to Ober Gatlinburg, which I believe is a ski resort in the winter.  I just wanted to see the views.

Here we go.

Beautiful.

Breathtaking.

They had a few shops and a carousel, which of course Cameron wanted to ride.  It was $3.50/ride and if Cameron rode you know Cooper would want to.  I wasn't spending almost $10 for a 30 second ride.  I was thrilled when I found this thing while walking around, it was .25.  Score!!!!

We headed back to the cabin had some lunch and rested.  Steve's parents and brother decided to stay in and grill out, I didn't want to waste the good weather we were having so we took the kids to The Island.

They had an arcade, had we been closer to town and the weather been nicer, we probably would have hung out here every night.  We had a card we loaded money on and it kept track of tickets.  Do you know how good it felt not to pack around coins or tickets.  Chuck E Cheese needs to take a lesson from this place.

They had a couple of rides for kids, my kids however wanted to do The Wheel.

I scored major mommy points for this.

 More beautiful views.

See that guy down there in the blue shirt?  That's Steve who stayed on the ground.

What's The Wheel?  This is The Wheel.   It's all enclosed or I wouldn't have gotten on with the kids by myself.  It really wasn't bad and totally worth it for the views.

This is out of order but it's too cute not to share, Steve trying to teach his mom how to play pool.  We all agreed it was just a front, we think she's a closet pool shark, how else did they pay for the cabin?

It was getting dark when we left The Island so our trip back up the mountain was in the dark.  Luckily there were a few lights and our driveway had two lights outlining it.  We had been home about 30 minutes or so when all the lights went out.  People, it was pitch black!!! Make that no cell service and now no electricity.  Then we realized the water was pumped up the mountain so after a quick brushing of our teeth our water ran out.  Talk about roughing it.  Amazingly they got it back on sometime after 11.  I was expecting a whole night and half the morning.

It turned out to be one of the best night. We put the kids to bed and the adults just hung out by candlelight. Fun times!