the golden ticket, part two

After spending Thursday morning in Cades Cove, we decided to head back downtown in the afternoon to take further advantage of the VIP pass. This time, it was all five of us, so we had to pay for one ticket for each attraction, which I am in no way complaining about because it's still a magnificent deal. First up was a trip up the Gatlinburg Aerial Tramway, which I am going to complain about, but only a little. Going up the side of the mountain in the tram was really interesting ... except that we were in a single tram car with 115 new friends. Oh, the humanity! Listen, I have been on some crowded El cars in my day, but this put them all to shame. Luckily, it was only a 10-minute ride.

And the ride took us to Ober Gatlinburg, an amusement park in summer, ski resort in winter. Here again the golden ticket got us wristbands that let us do all the activities. We didn't have a whole lot of time, so we skipped ice skating and the animal sanctuary. Instead, we headed up the chair lift. Mike and the boys got off halfway and went down the alpine slide, which they reported was great, while I continued up the chair lift to the top of Mt. Harrison, where I was treated to some pretty spectacular views.

We ended up taking the aerial tram back down the mountain (this time with 115 new friends who had been drinking beer out of plastic boots hung around their necks!), and by the time we got back downtown, we were all hungry, so we headed to Mike's chosen dining emporium: Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Surprise! We all got shrimp. Heh. It was delicious, and as a bonus, it turns out that Mike and I know a surprising amount of Forrest Gump trivia (our server gave us a quiz on the movie). 

Once we were all stuffed completely full of shrimpy goodness, we opted to play some more mini golf, this time at Treasure Quest Golf. Part of the course was lit by blacklight, so we had fun looking at each other's clothes and teeth. Mike ended up winning by two strokes (conveniently, Mike was also the scorekeeper), though I again got two holes-in-one. Hmmm, I might actually come to like something golf related! The boys liked it a lot too, though Max found it really frustrating because he was out of practice.

Just down from the golf place was another mirror maze (seriously, a town that can support not one but two mirror mazes?). Mike opted to stay in the front and buy some candy (yes, you read that right, Mr. No Sweet Tooth bought candy. For himself!) while the boys and I took on Ripley's Marvelous Mirror Maze. It was much more intense than the one we had done the day before, and featured an infinity room (think all the mirrors, plus strobe lights). Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" was playing, so the boys started dancing, which was pretty trippy and funny. After we finished the maze, the attendant told us we could go through it backward, which was very exciting for the boys. After much loud maneuvering, we finally made it out and back to the street.

We had promised the boys Ben & Jerry's ice cream once we had done a few activities, and we made good on it even though we were all still pretty full. After that, they decided they were too tired for any more fun. Second day in a row that I could have done more but they didn't want to. Might be a record!