Picture, if you dare, a large barn trimmed with red neon lights. This barn resides between an indoor mini-golf course and the end of the universe, in Pidgeon Forge, Tennessee. Myrtle Beach is widely accepted to be the armpit of the South; well, now I have found the other armpit. Pidgeon Forge, which just North of Gatlinburg and the beautiful Great Smokey Mountains National Park, is home to attractions featuring the technology of 1995, combined with the fads of 1990, and the tasteful discretion of 1985. And the similarities to Myrtle Beach don't stop there. It's a place where hillbilly rednecks meet Las Vegas advertising executives, where tatoo parlors and Wings stores outnumber schools and churches. It's like one of those old Appalachian mining towns where all the factories and stores are owned by the mining company, and everybody that lives there works for the mining company, only to spend their paycheck to pay their bills straight back to the mining company, who owns all the houses, only in Pidgeon Forge, the whole town is run by carnies, and the mining company is Dolly Parton. But the parallels to Myrtle Beach are uncanny. Both are home to one of Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, a spectacle of what I like to call rednecksploitation, and each boasts that monument to marine science known as Ripley's Aquarium. Both areas have the ever-popular Tanger Outlet Mall, as well as variety of other, oddly similar outlets and stores, including those perrenial favorites, the Wings warehouses of tack. I don't think I've ever seen a place so tacky. Speaking of tack, I garauntee that you have never seen anything quite so objectionable as Pidgeon Forge (unless of course you're from Jersey, in which case you live in worse). Speaking of Jersey, I saw an aweful lot of Yankees and foreigners in and around Pidgeon Forge, and that makes me sad. So let's get back on the topic of rednecksploitation for a bit. Both Pidgeon Forge and Myrtle Beach are popular vacation spots for people who aren't from the South, and while there, they don't go anywhere but to the tourist trap places. That is why Pidgeon Forge and Myrtle Beach alone are responsible for Yankees thinking that the South is full of hooting, hollering, broke-ass, trailor-living, class-less, uneducated redneck carnie folk. If Pidgeon Forge was all I ever saw of the South, as most of the tourists from up north do, that's probably what I'd think, too. And it doesn't help that they drove past all the cotton and tobacco plantations down 95 where they don't know the slaves have been freed, either. At least neither is in North Carolina, where we have the decency to keep our name off that shit, but both are still a little too close to the border for me, the border across which they sell fireworks to little children and ride motorcycles without helmets and drive like women from Florida. Sweet God, Floridiots can't drive, especially if it's a woman. Which brings me to my next point. Some people just shouldn't be allowed out in in public. Some people should just stay at home and eat a lot less and beat their kids a lot more, 'cause damn. If visitors to Pidgeon Forge have two problems, they're morbid obesity and parenthood. Half of these people shouldn't even have children, unless they're just fattening them up to eat, in which case they'd be doing the kids a favor. Yea, I said it. I'm pissed off, damnit, and when I'm pissed off I talk about cannibalism and religion. Religion!? If there's a city with more bible factory outlets and drive-thru wedding chapels, I'd like to see it, and punch it in the face. Right after I take a bat to the temple of the combination ABC and Thomas Kinkade store. That's right, I said drive-thru wedding chapel. Yes, once you find out your slut girlfriend's pregnant with your bastard jew-baby, for only $70, you can say your vows and order 15 cheeseburgers with your father in-law in the back seat with a shotgun, you fatass hillbully. No blood test or waiting period in Tennessee, since you trailor-living rednecks can't afford to elope in Vegas. Man, I'm pissed. At least there was a hot-tub and pool table in the cabin we rented; I had to vent after so much as driving past this monstrosity.
In other news, the Great Smokey Mountains National Park is breath-takingly magnificent. Nestled between Pidgeon Forge and Gatlinburg, and one of the few untouched areas in the Appalachians, this park is a showcase for what these mountains used to be, what they're supposed to be. The park is home to over 800 miles of trails, including a section of the AT, and it's highest point at Clingman's dome, as well as trails rambling through dense rhododendron forests and rocky crags, leading to refreshing waterfalls, scenic vistas, and quiet glens. All the trails and destinations have easy access from the park's roadways, but are suprisingly secluded, making this an ideal destination for hikers of all sorts. Day hikers as well as multi-day excursionists will all be able to find many trails that suit the type, distance, level of strenuousness they desire. It is a paradise amidst a living hell, a last refuge of beauty and peace surrounded by filth and tack.
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