When we first pulled into town two days earlier, I had thought Pigeon Forge was a lot like Las Vegas. My impression didn’t change in better lighting. Oh, we weren’t seeing casinos and slot machines, but every building we saw on “Tourist Avenue” seemed to shout at people “Look at me! Look at me! Don’t I look awesome? Come inside and have a great time!”
Oh, I wanted to go inside all of them. Mom and Dad had other ideas. Theirs was a “look but don’t touch” mentality.
We rode the trolley bus past about a gazillion mini-golf courses competing with double and triple decker go-cart parks competing for kids’ attention. A dozen dinner theater venues promised the adventure of a lifetime. There were pirate shows, cowboy shows, knights and kings and a feud between some dudes named the Hatfields and the McCoys.
“Can we go to a dinner show?” I begged.
“NO!” Mom decided for all of us. “I looked up the Hatfield and McCoy show. It’s about $50 a person.”
“What it I promise not to get a dinner?” I offered.
“Bears are free.”
“Then why can’t we go?” I wanted to know. “I just saved you $50!”
Mom just rolled her eyes. Dad, always one to save a dollar, was no help. He was just fine keeping his wallet in his pocket.
“Look! There’s an escape room that looks like Alcatraz Prison!”
“NO!”
“How about the wax museum? Look! King Kong likes it so much, he’s trying to get in!”
“NO!”
“There’s a Titanic museum! That’s historical! Don’t you want me to learn anything on this trip?”
“NO!”
“But they got PINK FLAMINGOS on the lawn!”
“NO!!!”
Mom’s eyes did light up when she saw a building shaped like a castle advertising MagiQuest. She’d first played MagiQuest at the Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City, Michigan and bought a wand there. She kept it in the minivan so it was available when we took a trip to Kansas City and they took the grandkids to the Great Wolf Lodge there. A whole building devoted to MagiQuest! I could tell Mom was intrigued. I was hopeful to finally see some action, but alas! We had the Equinox back in the parking lot, not the mini-van. My parents were too cheap to spring for the cost of a new wand. Dang!
We finally stopped for lunch. We were going to try out a new local-flavor restaurant, but when we went inside, I knew pretty quick it was a no-go. The food smelled delicious, but it was also mostly breaded. Breading meant wheat. Wheat meant gluten. Gluten meant poison to Mom.
“You could have a salad.” The waiter suggested.
The five worst words to say to someone with celiac and gluten intolerance, is “You could have a salad.” It’s not that salad isn’t good, it’s just it’s totally overused on people who can’t have wheat. Consider: everyone else is eating pizza, Mom gets a salad. You go to a sandwich shop, Mom gets a salad. Fried chicken? Mom gets a salad. Cake and pie? Mom gets a salad. It’s a cold day in February, everyone else orders steamy hot food, and Mom gets a salad. “You could have a salad” is pretty much an insult these days. I sure the waiter was clueless on how overused his remark was, but Mom wasn’t going to sit there in a restaurant that treated a serious medical condition as an afterthought and justified it by offering a salad.
There was an Outback Steakhouse across the road and Mom made a beeline for it. Dad was very aware that Outback tends to be a bit on the pricey side, but for once he didn’t say a word about the money. Mom got steak and a loaded baked potato. Dad got grilled chicken and a baked sweet potato. They ordered the Thunder Down Under for dessert – a mound of ice cream and whipped cream on a naturally gluten free hot brownie. They even got cokes – at nearly three dollars each.
Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!
Finally, my folks were loosening the purse strings and spending a little money on this vacation! But Mom and Dad still had a card up their sleeves. As soon as the main coarse came, they both split their meat and potatoes in half, and asked for to-go boxes.
Their lunch was also going to be their dinner. Two meals for the price of one. How very clever of them.
I sighed. My parent’s frugal vacation was starting to get old.
“Mom. Dad. We’re on vacation! We’re saw a lot of stuff, but we never really did anything! Could we at least go back to the Titanic Museum?” I asked. “It’s big, it’s history, and I’ll be able to tell my friends I actually got to go inside it. Please, please?”
Mom and Dad exchanged a knowing look.
“How would you like to go on Noah’s Ark instead?”
“Noah’s Ark! Is that HERE? They have Noah’s Ark?!?!”
“No, but The Ark Encounter is on the way home. We were planning on stopping there tomorrow. It’s a little smaller than the actual Titanic, but very impressive anyway.”
I was so excited I was hopping up and down on the seat. We were going to Noah’s Ark! We’d be going inside!
“We timed it just right.” Mom was saying as she checked some information on her phone. “Yesterday and today were just perfect for outdoor sight seeing. It’s supposed to start raining tomorrow. We’ll be inside.”
I stopped hopping. It would be raining, and we would be inside Noah’s Ark. Just a coincidence?
“Uh…is there something I should know about?”