Coaster trip preamble - Amsterdam!

This summer I (Paul) went on a roller coaster tour with the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) Europe region. It was a week-long organized bus tour to parks in Denmark and Sweden, but it started at the Amsterdam airport. I took the opportunity to fly in two days early to explore Amsterdam a bit and add on an additional theme park. I have been to Amsterdam once before, but it was only for a one-day layover on my way to Egypt way back in 2008, so I was excited to visit again and explore the city.

After an overnight flight, I landed in Amsterdam at 8AM on a Thursday, and took a train to my hotel, the Met Hotel. It was only one stop on the train from the airport, a very convenient location since I'd have to go back to the airport to start the coaster tour. It was a nice mostly residential neighborhood with good tram access so I could get into the city in a matter of minutes. It was also quite a bit cheaper than city-center hotels, despite being very nice. Would recommend! Since it was still so early my room wasn't ready yet, so I dropped off my bag and took the tram toward the city. My destination was the Rijksmuseum, but I got off the tram a little early so I could walk through Vondelpark. It was a nice urban park that reminded me of Piedmont Park in Atlanta. It was a pleasant walk on a sunny morning, although it was surprisingly warm. From there I continued on and spent a couple hours in the Rijksmuseum. It's a large museum in a cool building, with a large amount of Dutch art. One of the main attractions, Rembrandt's The Night Watch, was undergoing conservation but there was a neat exhibit describing how they preserve the nearly 400 year old painting.

After the museum, I strolled around central Amsterdam for a while, taking in the canals and architecture. Amsterdam is a nice city, and the center was understandably packed with tourists. Some areas were quite charming, but there were also a lot of chain stores and tourist traps, ranging from Madame Tussaud's and Ripley's Believe it or Not to McDonalds and the Nike Store. Eventually I took the train back to my hotel, and stayed in for the evening since it started to rain and I was exhausted from the red eye flight and time change.

You know you're in the Netherlands when this is the bike parking at the train station!

A pleasant morning walk through the park.

Just a cat hanging out at the Rijksmuseum.

The main hall of the museum.

Big-head last supper?

Expectations...

...vs reality. Yes, this area was super crowded!

Big ol' ship.

They had a Van Gogh self portrait!

Nice views while walking.

A quaint shopping street.

Lots of amazing architecture all around.

Dam square, which is tourist central.

There's an underground bike garage!

The next morning I met up with two other coaster enthusiasts (Rob and Scott) and we drove about an hour and a half east to Walibi Holland amusement park. I really wanted to visit, since the park has  a couple of well-regarded coasters but wasn't included on the official coaster tour. Luckily other people had the same idea, and Rob offered to drive since he had a rental car already. It was a sunny, relatively busy day, but we got fast passes to help out with the lines. The park used to be a Six Flags, so I didn't have the highest expectations, but it was actually a pretty nice park. We rode all of the coasters, and rode our favorites several times, and also hit up some of the non-coaster rides including Merlin's Magic Castle, and had a nice long lunch (schnitzel) in an air conditioned restaurant. There was a huge music festival called Defqon.1 right next to the park, which didn't seem to impact crowds too much, but it was really cool to see and hear the festival from the lift hills of the roller coasters. We stayed at the park for the entire time it was open (10-6), and then Rob drove us back to our hotels. I ended the day getting some take away dinner from Le'meone, a Syrian restaurant which had excellent falafel. I ate at table in small park next to my hotel, where a woman practicing cello. Nice end to a nice day! 

Lost Gravity was a surprise for me - excellent coaster!

The photogenic first drop.

Untamed was a great coaster, but maybe a bit overrated.

Goliath is probably the best coaster in the park.

The "Exotic" section, which was Mexican themed.

This ride looks amazing, but is horribly rough.

Lunch time after we got all of the coaster credits in.

The nice little park where I ate dinner.

Fattoush and falafel. Yum!

I love how residences address the streets! It's such a safe city you can just leave your bikes and toys on the sidewalk.

That ended my time in Amsterdam, as the next morning I'd be heading straight to the airport to join the roller coaster tour. Amsterdam has great urbanism, with good transit and bike paths. There's also a lot of construction everywhere, and new modern development to contrast with the historic buildings. It's an iconic city and definitely worth visiting.

Memorial Day in the Smokies

Memorial day snuck up on us this year, but we made last minute plans to drive up to Tennessee and spend a couple of days in the Smoky Mountains. We found a small cabin near Pigeon Forge on AirBnB that was somehow still available. We drove up on Saturday morning, with the intention of stopping in Gatlinburg on the way. However, the town was absolutely packed. To be expected for a holiday Saturday, but it was beyond what we thought it would be. Parking lots were 100% full with gridlock traffic on the streets. Instead we drove up to Pigeon Forge and picked up a couple of alpine coaster credits at Rowdy Bear's Smoky Mountain SnowPark and Skyland Ranch. After settling in at our cabin, we went for dinner at Applewood Farmhouse. The food was bland, but it was atmospheric. We've had a lot of not-so-great food over the years in the Pigeon Forge area. The dining scene could use an upgrade!

Our cabin had a hot tub on the porch and overlooked a lush forest.

The inside of our cabin.

Paul hasn't found a mascot he doesn't love.

The unique go-cart coaster at Rowdy Bear, with the suspended coaster above.

Riding the Wild Stallion at Skyland Ranch.

Dinner time!

Hanging out by the river while we waited for our table.

The fried chicken and greens were good. Everything else was bland. David looks thrilled. Use some spices, people!

Saturday evening it rained through the night. We had been watching the forecast and it looked like Sunday might be a bit of a washout as well. But in the morning the radar looked a better than expected, and it seemed like it wouldn't rain until the afternoon. So we made this our Dollywood day! It worked out really well - although it was a bit chilly, the rain held off and the mere threat of rain kept most of the crowds away. We went straight to the brand new coaster, Big Bear Mountain, which was having some troubles and didn't open up until about an hour later. But we got on the first train of the day. It's a fun family thrill coaster and a great addition to Dollywood. We managed to ride every coaster in the park by early afternoon.

An empty Big Bear Mountain train testing in the morning.

Wheeeee!

Dollywood has a fantastic setting in the mountains.

An installation for the food and flowers festival.

It was cloudy but the rain held off.

Paul waiting to ride the drop tower.

From Dollywood we drove to a new area of Pigeon Forge called the Mountain Mile, which is essentially just a nice strip mall. We had a late lunch / early dinner at Junction 35, which had over-the-top drinks. Paul's smoky margarita came in a literal jar of smoke. We also had "Tennessee poutine!" Even though we were full, we had to get ice cream. A google search showed mostly bad chain options, but one local store stood out - Cruze Farm. This small Knoxville-based chain had decent soft serve, although they didn't have vanilla, which is bizarre.

The Mountain Mile.

Paul at lunch/dinner.

Soft serve time! David was not a fan of their "sweet cream" vanilla replacement.

Pigeon Forge is... a bit of a mess. It's essentially just miles and miles of car-centric strip malls and overpriced tourist attractions, and the target clientele is very conservative. We saw a pizzeria that was promoting an "FJB" pizza, and a store literally named "The Trump Store." The traffic is horrendous - it feels much worse than Atlanta. The redeeming factors are that the surrounding nature is beautiful, there are dozens of coaster credits (a big plus for Paul), and Dollywood is a legitimately great attraction.

Monday morning, Memorial Day, we checked out of our cabin and drove to the Cade's Cove area of Smoky Mountains National Park, which was about an hour drive away. We left early to try to beat the crowds, because the scenic drive in Cade's Cove is a one-way, one lane loop, and we'd heard (and seen videos) that it gets extremely crowded. It wasn't too crowded by the time we got there, then shortly into the loop we hit a big backup. As we slowly crept forward in the car, we saw some rangers ahead, and realized the traffic jam was caused by a bear sighting! The bear was slowly munching its way through a field. We watched for a while, then continued on our way. The loop passes through lush meadows, and past a few historic buildings. We stopped at the visitor center to check out some of the buildings and read about the park.

After the pit stop, instead of going all the way around the loop, we continued south on Forge Creek Road, a well-maintained dirt road, to head toward Atlanta. This is a very lightly travelled road, and was a nice break from the loop. Not too far down the road we saw another bear, this time only about 40 feet or so off the road. We turned the car off and just watched in silence for a while, which was nice. The bear ignored us and slowly ate its way through the clearing.

Great morning views in Cade's Cove.

That's a bear! It was pretty far away but we could see it clearly.

Looking back at the bear jam.

A historic church building.

Nice views on an overcast spring morning.

An old mill building.

Maybe Andy Dufresne's box is buried under this tree.

A black bear!

If not friend, why friend shaped? 

We continued down the road, to the turnoff to Parson Branch Road, which would take us south to a state highway and back toward Atlanta. Unfortunately, there was a sign warning that the road was an 8 mile unimproved dirt road, and 4-wheel drive was recommended. Thanks Google Maps! At this point it would have taken at least 45 minutes (probably longer, due to traffic on the loop road) to backtrack and drive to Atlanta via the more western route, so we decided to risk it. It turned out to be OK - we scraped the bottom of the car once or twice and had to drive through several streams, but we made it. Turns out the road, originally constructed in 1838, reopened last year after a six year closure. Whatever upgrades they made must have helped us out.

Not great, but our Hyundai Ioniq can do this for eight miles. Right?

We drove over dozens of streams, which luckily were paved.

Emerging off the rough dirt road, we were on a state highway known as "The Tail of the Dragon." It's a winding mountain route that is popular with motorcycles. It was a nice scenic drive. A bit down the road we saw a small parking area and an information sign. We pulled over and saw it was a short hiking trail to Yellow Creek Falls, so we took an impromptu hike! It was a nice quick stop to break up the drive. Continuing down the road, we went through Robbinsville, the only city in the area. We had lunch at Lynn's Place before we kept driving toward Atlanta.

Paul at the waterfall.

A little friend we made on the hike.

Overview of the falls.

Passing cabins on a lake.

Corn nuggets at Lynn's place! The menu said "basically fried cream corn."

After driving in to Georgia, we stopped in Blue Ridge, a cute little mountain tourist town. Downtown has a number of shops and restaurants, as well as the station for the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway, which is a four hour round-trip tourist train to another tourist town on the Tennessee border. We stopped in a couple of shops, including Mountain Man Comics.

A classic car in downtown.

The scenic railway leaving downtown.

Downtown is cute.

Yoda and R2D2 in Mountain Man Comics.

We made it back to Atlanta by late afternoon. We still have to get back to the Pigeon Forge area again to pickup some more of the remaining and new alpine coaster credits, and I'm sure we'll be back to Dollywood soon enough!