Date:11/20/2020-11/22/2020
Destination: Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Goal: An RMC Christmas at Dollywood
Distance: 347 Miles
Means of Travel: Driving
Potential Credits: 0
If you've traveled as much as I have, you know that not every trip goes the same. Sometimes there's a nice, by the book run to the parks to get the credits, everything falls into place, your scheduling becomes the trip report, it's open and shut. Other times, nothing goes quite according to planned, it's chaotic as shit, and you wouldn't have it any other way. This was one of those times.
So for RMC Connoisseurs, which my good buddy Ben and I run, we had teamed up with The Coaster Crew to put on an event at Dollywood that would feature ERT on Lightning Rod a few months back. Obviously, Lightning Rod is currently receiving a quick tune up, so none of that, and ERT was moved to something else. As the event crept closer, we made more detailed plans in something that would be one of the most complicated travel arrangements Ben and I have ever cooked up: a two-party trip that would meet in the middle. Ben's childhood friend Leilani wanted to tag along, so with me going the same direction, I told him that if she could make it to Dayton I could run her down to the event with me. Meanwhile Ben, Tim (Coaster Crew president), and Ben's friend and former Dollywood employee Adam, all were to hit the road from a different direction, swing by Fun Spot Atlanta on the way, drop Tim at his hotel, and meet us all at our hotel to cram four people in a hotel room. We would all go to the event together as a party, the four of us, meet up with a few other people there throughout the day, and then head back the same way we came up, with Ben's Florida party swinging by Six Flags Over Georgia on the way.
I had met Adam briefly before at Dollywood when he was working his beloved Lightning Rod but Ben had managed to become really good friends with him since we went in June. I've known of Leilani pretty much ever since I'd been friends with Ben but never met her. We had a group chat the four of us to plan the trip, but I still did feel to some extent like I was getting on the road with strangers.
Day 0
I got up at the hairy asscrack of dawn to head into work early, planning to go in and leave an hour early to give the Ohio party a head start on the road, knowing there was no stopping halfway this time since we needed to be there early for the event. I headed into work with the assignment to clean some shit around my workspace so I did that and spent the rest of the day helping my boss with an odd job. Finally, 3:25 rolled around and I bolted. Checking my phone on the way out, Leilani has posted this in the group chat.
I recognized this photo instantly with no need to ask, this was the view of Dayton International Airport, probably from the Dairy Queen where we had agreed to meet. I mentally shifted gears from pissed off industrial worker to friendly dude about to meet a longtime friend of my own close friend, and floored it across town to Dairy Queen.
Ever see The Amazing Race during seasons where they assign individual players teammates at random that they just met and then just send them on a trip around the world right that moment? It was kind of like that. I had talked to Leilani briefly in our chat, she was kind of quiet in there, messages were pretty short from her, and I knew she was a pretty hard worker in both her personal and professional lives, so I was expecting a somewhat quiet, burnt out, reserved individual that I would sort of have to warm up to. Well...that read was really fucking wrong! I roll into the parking lot, she's waving enthusiastically from her sister's shotgun seat, say hi to her and her sister, loaded her luggage into my car, and drove us around the corner to my apartment so I could change out of my dirty work clothes and get a few things from my place. So I went in, did what I needed to do, meanwhile Leilani got to meet my fish, and we got on the road.
Flashback to two years ago. Texas 2018, the first region trip I did with Ben. The trip where he forgot his ID at his parents', his phone in his dad's car, and thought he left his charger back at home only to find it in his backpack later on the trip. Yeah, I could tell Leilani was his friend when she forgot socks and had to get them at Family Dollar while I was driving out, and then went on to forget her medication and forced her sister to drive back, eating up 20 minutes of time. Good thing we planned for that!
Drive starts, I charge right into Dayton rush hour traffic as Leilani throws her music on. I sometimes have trouble focusing while I drive in chaotic situations, so here I am weaving through traffic on the Dayton-Cincinnati byway during rush hour with Katy Perry blasting and this person I literally just met casually telling me her life story. I did my best to keep conversation going with this very extroverted individual, but being an ambivert I don't usually connect with people that quickly. But somewhere halfway in between Dayton and Cincinnati, the ice broke when Leilani spilled that she has ADHD, just like me. This opened up some great discussion we could both relate to, having to live with it, struggles that people without it don't usually realize we deal with, stuff I don't usually get to discuss with other people. From there it got a lot less awkward and we found out we shared a few interests, I wasn't expecting us to get along as well as we did, and I think that helped the drive go a lot smoother than it could have gone.
Not saying it was smooth by any means...
Cincinnati, my least favorite Ohio city partially for all the infrastructure problems that plague their drivers, had recently had a bit of a boo-boo when a truck basically exploded on the Bent-Spence bridge that carries both I-71 and I-75, two major highways, over the Ohio river. This put the bridge out of commission until 2021, sending all the traffic on the 275 bypass around the city. This hit us with a fifteen minute delay sitting in traffic trying to get off the bypass in Kentucky, okay, not too bad.
Meanwhile, Adam and Ben allegedly had a crazy time at Fun Spot Atlanta on the way...
Then the trouble really kicked into high gear. After a relatively effortless glide through Kentucky, we hit a huge, and I mean HUGE block of traffic Waze didn't pick up. Like, standstill bumper-to-bumper parking lot traffic. Over construction. Because Kentucky drivers can't mentally grasp the concept of reducing traffic as quickly as possible and not running to the very end of the merge and forcing their way in. So here we are sitting in standstill traffic watching our hour lead fade into the night when things get even worse. Leilani sees a message from Ben on her phone, a message you never want to see on a road trip from the other travel party: they were in an accident. They were okay but Ben's beautiful new Honda Insight he drove off the lot two weeks ago was not drivable. As pissed off as I was in this totally unnecessary traffic, I realized it could be a lot worse. So I called my mom and dad just to tell them that we were still safe and that I loved them and just normal parent-son stuff. Finally, Kentucky figured out how to get from three lanes down to one and we pressed on, doing everything in my power not to let anymore time slip away. Ben then called us and said that they managed to get the car drivable but the white pickup truck, which would go onto become the main inside joke of the trip, ran off and didn't give him insurance info.
But their car was drivable and they would be in at 3 am. And then, after by far the most chaotic drive I've ever had down here, Leilani and I rolled into Pigeon Forge to the tune of tired, rambling, scatter-brained, nonsensical conversation just 20 minutes to midnight. We went upstairs, set our shit up, and basically kept to ourselves on our phones the rest of the night. I was answering messages from friends and family, explaining that I was crashing in a hotel with someone I had just met waiting on our mutual friend that I was super worried about getting in safely. Eventually I just sort of passed out and fell asleep, I have a bit of memory of Ben and Adam getting in in the wee hours of the night but not much.
Day 1
After not getting nearly enough sleep, Ben rolled out of bed and formally said hi to both Leilani and I. Adam was not far behind but claimed he had no memory of last night. We rolled out of bed and headed to Dollywood!
"Don't gasp when you see the damage to my car," Ben asked us as he showed Leilani and I the damage on the way out. So we just flipped it off instead.
It's been a hot minute since I last did a coaster event of any kind so getting there and seeing everyone line up and get lanyards and socialize was kind of intimidating, but I knew I was in good hands with my party full of people with much better social skills than my own. My friend Jenny and her brother were also here from Ohio as well, so that was great to see them as well!
Our first order of business was a cinnamon roll breakfast followed by ERT on Blazing Fury, not a ride I was used to marathoning but it was fun. On the scene with the burning bridge, it might have been too soon, but I pointed and yelled, "hey guys we're in Cincinnati!" We also got to ride with the lights on which was super cool, I never realized how tight some of those corridors were.
Park opened, running of the bulls commenced, and we all made our round riding all the good stuff. Wasn't much narrative here so I'm just going to lazy it and post individual reviews, considering I've ridden all this stuff before.
Wild Eagle- This wing coaster was my first and the highlight of my 2012 season way early on in my enthusiast days, you never hear much about it but it'll always hold a special place in my heart for really impressing me at a critical point in my life. It's a gorgeous machine in a gorgeous location and the whole package is amazing. It really lacks a standout element but it doesn't need one, this sleeper hit is my number two wing coaster behind Thunderbird and has the best visuals of any B&M I can think of.
FireChaser Express- Another really cool, unique coaster here at Dollywood, and one of my favorite family coasters ever. Lots of kick on that backwards launch, shame some of the effects weren't working but it's still a great laugh regardless.
Mystery Mine- This is a fun, campy little coaster that isn't always the most comfortable but I did enjoy my ride on it. The theming is cool and the drop kicks some serious ass. That being said, the restraint brutally crushed my balls hitting the brakes so that sucked.
Dragonflyer- Vekoma needs to make more of these, this has got to be my favorite suspended family coaster. It has so much kick to it and it plays with its surroundings beautifully. It's super smooth too!
Thunderhead- My first #1 wood, all these years later and Dollywood still has my #1 wood in Lightning Rod until the I-box makes it steel. This coaster's had a lot of ups and downs in my rankings over the years as it gets rougher and gets fixed, as it runs faster and slower, but today it was running really well and I was a fan.
Our last stop on the upper part of the loop was Whistle Punk Chaser, which I wasn't about to suffer through again unless I absolutely had to. Ben decided to wait it out with me as Adam and Leilani in subjecting themselves to this for some reason.
After they got off, I ended up waiting with Adam while everyone else was in the restroom. I decided to ask him a bit about his time at Dollywood working Lightning Rod, a conversation that would end up being incredibly important for me. He described the job like any other job working with the public, some of the same stupid question over and over again, interesting hours, nothing I'd never heard before about working at a park. However, Adam said that the appeal to the job wasn't any of that, that what sets it apart is that you and everyone else on your crew is working on something that they're genuinely passionate about. That being able to be part of the history for such an amazing machine was why that job was so special to him, something I had never even considered when I made the decision not to work as a ride operator when I was in college. Do I hate my current job? No. Do I find the work challenging and sometimes fun? Yes. But could I ever speak about either job I've had in my life the way Adam spoke about Lightning Rod? Not at all. I'm not a boring guy, I've got plenty of interests, and not just roller coasters. Cooking, photography, history, traveling, space, there are so many things I'm passionate about and yet aside from my job that somewhat relates to my interest in manufacturing, I've never done anything to actually work in a field I genuinely cared about, and that conversation made me want to change that. Adam's a quiet dude but he's great conversation one on one, I can't say the same, and my social skills do limit the kind of work I can do at times. I can't enforce safety policies on a ride, I can't have my own employees working for me, but I think it's time I stop letting that keep me from doing something I love. Do I want to keep my day job? Yes. But I also want to branch out, take that leap, and do work in something I love on the side? Absolutely. Work in what? That's to be determined...
We went for Tennessee Tornado next, which was late to open but man was it worth the wait! I absolutely love this coaster, wish it was longer but Schilke really hit it out of the park with it.
We also swung by the Tennessee Mountain Home to see where Dolly crammed in with her giant family as a kid! Off on a tangent, if anyone hasn't seen the Dolly Parton Christmas movie I highly recommend it, it's amazing and works perfectly with the times we're in.
Sadly, Lightning Rod would not be a part of our Dollywood experience as it was closed for the balance of 2020 for I-box track to be added to the structure. We had confirmation a few weeks back that this is what was going on...
...but when we were here we had visual confirmation! Black I-box track was being added to the structure while we were here! This was so cool seeing RMC work on this right in front of me!
The work was being done on the turn out of the station into the lift, which isn't a high stress area. My theories for this are a bit all over the place. I've heard that the breathable qualities of the wood have messed with the tight clearance tolerances on the stators and sensors of the launch, maybe having steel there will tighten that tolerance and ensures everything slides in and picks up as it's supposed to. On the other hand, this could also suggest a full retrack with steel.
Just looking for something to do at Dollywood other than take photos of Thunderhead for the 3000th time, I offered my travel party to take headshots of them around the park if they wanted some nice photos they could use...
Lunch was next! We were treated to a wonderful Christmas dinner of ham, turkey, stuffing, taters, creamed corn, a biscuit, and some biscuit pie. I ate myself into a complete food coma, it was brutal. Worth it, but brutal.
Remember that headshot offer I made earlier? Yeah the sun was going down and I wanted to do that.
So I'm here with a standard lens, sunlight slipping away by the minute, and the flash built into my camera. So I did my thing, got headshots of everyone, Ben's turned out out of focus but the ones I got for Adam and Leilani weren't bad at all and they loved them!
My party then went over to the wildest ride in the woods: Thunderhead! We nabbed the front rows, at night, after it's had all day to warm up...holy shit! Old school Thunder head is back, it throws you so aggressively, it's smooth, it's violent, and I genuinely feared for my life around some of those sharp dives it was just plunging right down without giving a shit. It was my first GCI and it's now my favorite GCI once again after all those years, Gold Striker can suck it if Thunderhead's gonna do this on the regular! The best coaster ride on this trip!
Next on the event itinerary was the cinnamon bread social with Coaster Crew, so we grabbed a ride on Mystery Mine up on the way to Wildwood Grove. There's just something about a good indoor-outdoor coaster at night, expecting to get dropped out into the daylight and instead staying in darkness. Also no nut shot on this lap so that was a plus.
Cinnamon bread social was...cinnamon breadless. We ended up sitting around and eating but it took them too long to get our cinnamon bread out, and we had a train time to meet. So we just hung out. Ben and I toasted to being able to do this.
Also, I was looking through my camera and edited a few of the photos on my phone, namely the headshots and the Thunderhead photo. Up until now, I only did photography to make me happy. I got into it in high school when I started taking my camera to social events and taking photos to post on social media, something that eventually led to a stint as the yearbook photographer my senior year. Since then I've gone through cameras, taught myself, gotten better, the like. So yeah, have I taken a photo of someone and see them excited to see a good photo of them? Yeah, it's happened a few times over the years. But could this potentially be a talent of mine? Something I'm passionate about that I could do work with for myself and for others? I think it might! Talking to Adam, I made the decision here that I want to maybe pick up a few photography jobs on the side every now and then just to get that experience doing something I'm passionate about. I want to do something. Take classes, get good enough at it, read that photography book I've had sitting around, something.
Wildwood Grove, why are you so beautiful at night?
We caught the show on the Wildwood tree and grabbed a ride on Dragonflyer before heading over to our train time. Man, this tree is so beautiful at night, and the show changes which I was not aware of.
Ben lost his mother a little over a month ago and it's been understandably very hard on him, and on the Florida trip he told me that doing these trips was helping him through the grieving process. So when this show wrapped up, he had teared up a bit. When I asked him what was wrong, he explained that when they were kids, him and Leilani used to play together in this park, and when his mother would go pick them up, they would hide up in this big tree that was there. So being there, in front of this beautiful tree, with the same person that shared that memory hit him really hard. We were all good friends, gave him a hug, and moved on down the hill to the restrooms by Thunderhead. Well on the way, we're walking by Mystery Mine when we hear a sharp clink! I thought nothing of it until Leilani called out, "Ben it's your mom!" Surely enough, as a symbol for a recently departed individual saying hi, a penny had fallen out of Mystery Mine and landed face up moments after Ben and Leilani shared that memory of her. You can't write that shit, it was incredibly bittersweet.
On the way down the hill, Ben and Adam needed to run to the restroom, when this heart made out of logs caught Leilani's eye as a photo op. She liked her headshot so much she asked me to get this, and I love how it turned out! Not a fan of the plank fence background but I think I've got the composition itself nailed!
We headed over to the train next, something I had done before. However, the social distancing dividers are the perfect solution for cinders in your eye! Sometimes you'd get a hot coal that would fly out and strike you in the eye, and it HURTS! However, now you have a pane of plexiglass right in front of you and it protects you from both cinders and the 'rona! The train ride itself was beautiful as always at night at Christmastime, a little cold but worth it.
The fireworks were starting soon, the rest of the party headed up to see them, I volunteered to stay back a bit to grab a package pickup for one of them. I got there shortly after it started, it was cool, but the speaker blew out and started screeching in everyones' ears halfway through! So that was interesting.
Before ERT, there was one more photo that Leilani wanted, one that didn't turn out as some of the other ones I got today. But as disappointed as I was with it, she loved it, so that made me feel good I created something that someone else liked. And if I could maybe learn to just take it up one step and get the equipment to do so, I wonder if I could maybe make anyone else as happy taking photos for them as she was?
ERT was starting soon so we got our coaster hats on and got ready to take on Wild Eagle and FireChaser Express! FireChaser was amazing at night, I love how you're freezing cold and then get inside that gas station and the fire actually warms you up before aggressively yeeting you backwards into the cold again.
Wild Eagle is, by far, the best looping coaster at night at Christmastime. Flying up on that mountain overlooking the whole valley as Christmas lights electrify the night is nothing short of incredible. This is one of the more visual B&Ms out there and it's almost like the park knows that selling this experience.
With an incredible day in the bag, we headed back to the hotel and got some pizza delivered before all of us hit the hay, having not slept properly that night.
Day 2
I was up at the asscrack of dawn once more, not sure why but even with two nights of awful sleep in a row, I was up at like 5 in the morning sharing funny crap to my Facebook unable to sleep. I've always had that reputation on trips as being the weirdo that's up at ungodly hours of the night so it was nothing new. Adam's asleep in his own little world, Ben's snoring just quietly enough for the white noise to drown it out, and here I am thinking I'm the only one burning the midnight oil until Leilani likes one of the memes I shared. Fortunately I managed to fall back asleep for like an hour before rolling out of bed and getting ready, and once again, Adam has no memory of what happened the night before. We got ready as Ben and I flooded the group chat with fucked up memes about mostly (but not entirely) white pickup trucks.
The plan for today had gone through several iterations until we decided Adam would go to Dollywood alone, the three of us would do the two Wears Valley Rd alpine coasters, and head to Dollywood. So we did that, Ben dropped Adam at Dollywood and met Leilani and I at our first alpine coaster: Goats On The Roof, after a horrendous battle with traffic and a wrong GPS direction.
The social distancing at this place was the worst I've ever seen in the industry but we decided to not be stupid ourselves, keep our face condoms on and stay away from everyone. And what's this? I was able to GoPro up and get a POV of this coaster! Meanwhile, we met Tim from the Coaster Crew event yesterday (he's the club president so he's kind of a big deal around those parts) and he hung out with us.
After this, we were going to do Smokey Mountain Alpine Coaster but the line was ridiculous so we decided to do Rocky Top instead near Dollywood, and this one was handling the virus way better than Goats On The Roof was. The ride is a good ten minutes long so that was a fun time, I've done it twice before but this was my first time in the daytime.
I was supposed to dip out now...but I didn't want to. I was having fun, both doing the stuff on the trip and doing it with these people. So Ben pitched that we all go get a good lunch at The Island, so we headed there.
Last time I went here immediately after a presidential election, when Trump won, there was Trump shit everywhere. This time, he didn't win, but I think they're just pretending he did. This lonely little bastard was marching his Trump flag up Parkway alone without a mask on.
These Three Stooges remakes just get stupider and stupider...
So we get to The Island and get a reservation, to kill the time Ben and Leilani went off to get the Spinning Parrot credit while Tim and I hung out...and I showed him the numerous trip memes we all laughed our asses off making that morning!
Wait aside, Ben and Leilani were still in line when Tim got the call that our table was ready!
Ready for some butter!
It was a family-style ordeal, you order a few dishes and they keep refilling them for you, somewhat like Brazillian barbecue but it's deep fried.
This was my first time eating at a restaurant belonging to an actual chef, and while as a home cook I'm not the biggest fan of Paula Deen's approach to cooking at all, the food was good. We're talking the best fried chicken and meatloaf ever, mac and cheese that was so good I made it for Thanksgiving, the best creamed corn ever, and this deep fried pork chop that I wasn't expecting to like as much as I did. This place hit it out of the park! When you put that much butter in your food it starts to become cheating but was it tasty? Yes.
And guess who we ran into in the gift shop? Adam, after I had said goodbye and promised I would keep in contact that morning, just magically reappeared! No idea how he got to The Island, he was with friends I didn't know, but it was great to see him one last time!
After this we dropped Tim off at his hotel and Ben and Leilani continued to Dollywood, dropping me off at my car. Initial plan was for Leilani to ride back up with me but Ben worked his magic as a trip planner and managed to find a way that she could extend her vacation and go to Six Flags and an Orlando park with Ben and Adam. So that left me driving back home at like 5 pm, much later than I planned to, and the thing is, I didn't mind.
I'm not a perfect person by any means, and like anybody, I screw up. And sometimes, I screw up really bad. And man oh man do I try to hold myself accountable for it. As of my recent fender bender heading to Wooster for Ben's mom's funeral, I had kind of given up hope that I would ever be a good influence on anybody's life. All I ever see in life are my screwups, beat myself up for those, and when I try to work myself out of it, I screw up again, and the cycle begins again. But recently, both opening up to people I care about about this and opening my eyes to those social connections in my life, there's so much more that goes on that I simply never noticed. I literally drove three hours to support my friend at his mother's funeral, got in a wreck, missed it, and drove my wrecked car up to Wooster, despite my mind racing off the hook and calling my parents along the way to break down because I couldn't drive with a clear head, so I could still see him. And instead of giving myself the credit for pushing through and still busting my ass to be a good friend, I just continued to beat myself up for missing the funeral. And that totally isn't fair to myself. But this weekend, seeing how thrilled and happy Leilani was to be somewhere she needed me to get her, and seeing Ben have that experience at the Wildwood tree when I was able to be there for him, I realized that this is stuff I choose to do almost every day and I never acknowledge. I traveled with Ben, both to Florida and to Tennessee, because I wanted to travel with my friend. And I agreed to drive Leilani just because it was the path of least resistance, not at all processing how much that would do for her. And in turn, Adam be open and having that conversation with me made me want to pick up that photography side job. Leilani's attitude towards my needs driving was probably the first time I felt fully comfortable needing those accommodations to get where I'm going. And Ben, being the go-getter he always is busted his ass to plan all this for all of us. And if I can feel as appreciative of these three goobers, maybe they felt the same way about me? I mean yeah, every so often I will give myself a legitimate reason to be mad at myself, but in all the beating myself up and failing to forgive myself I've done over that, I've probably overlooked god knows how many reasons to love myself that I give myself every day. I'm a human being with flaws, but at the same time I work hard for my friends, I'm a shoulder to cry on for those who need it, and I genuinely try to help those I care about in any way I can when push comes to shove. And up until this trip, I didn't even realize it. Focusing on the "good side of the seesaw" as my parents put it is exactly what I needed to learn to do, both to become a better person to others and to see myself as being a good person. After years of living with this dark cloud over my head ever since I started trying to be more social, I think this was the final kick in the ass I needed to just let that go away and start giving a shit about others and letting them give a shit about it.
Saying goodbye to Ben and Leilani I actually choked up a bit explaining this to them, both of them along with Adam did so much for me over these three crazy days and I was so grateful for this new outlook on myself and others they helped me see. I missed everyone the second I pulled out of the parking lot and got blazing trails back home. And of course, as if that wasn't already too much, Beautiful Day by U2, one of my favorite songs ever, shuffled first on my phone when I put music on. That drive was honestly surreal, it started raining as soon as I hit the interstate but I stayed careful. Once I was on a quiet stretch, I called my mom and ecstatically told her that I finally saw what she and my father always talked about when they told me to give myself more credit and that I made two great friends out of this trip. She told me to be careful, and I responded that I knew how important it was since I had to be there to help make Thanksgiving fun for everyone and make the mac and cheese we had at Paula Deen's! Normally when I drive alone it can turn into a sort of petri dish for those bad thoughts about myself to stew, but this drive was different. It was quiet, peaceful, and pleasant. I rolled in a little before midnight and went to bed knowing I had just taken the most important trip I've done in a long time.
Ben. Adam. Leilani. Tim. Jenny. Thank you, THANK YOU for this weekend we all got to share together, thank you all for making this experience so much better just by being who ya are, and thank you for showing me that I fully have the capability to do the same for yourselves and the other people I care about. This crazy, chaotic, batshit insane mess of a trip had probably everything that could go wrong go wrong, but socially everything could not have gone better and I'm deeply grateful for all of it. Keep being awesome, all of you, and I'm so glad such an amazing park set the stage for this eye-opening experience that I needed now more than ever. I seriously hope we all stay friends for a long time and do this again.
And if this buncha goobers likes me, how bad can I really be?
