We decided to stay in Maggie Valley, NC this weekend. We usually drive through the small mountain town on the way to Gatlinburg, TN but have never stayed overnight there. I picked a cute hotel that was #5 on Trip Advisor called the Valley Inn. It was precious! It looked like a cute BIG red barn almost. It was super affordable too. A man and woman own it, who are from an area not too far from my hometown, which is cool. The room was small though and the bed mattress was terribly uncomfortable. It was not the Ritz, but for the price it was a great deal. The only negative was the mattress!! I will say everything was incredibly clean!!! Which is a huge plus for me! And the best part was that our room overlooked a beautiful creek, gazebo, swings and a firepit! He even had a grill if you wanted to cook out. It was a really cool deal, yall!
We left around 9 am Saturday morning and got into town around lunch time. We got some iced coffees (iced vanilla latte for me) at the Organic bean coffee house (which had great reviews) and I loved it but it was 11.00 for me and Jacob! We both got mediums (his was a caramel macchiato) but I seriously feel like it should not have been that expensive. LOL. Oh well. Then we went to Cherokee, NC which is about 30 minutes through the mountains from Maggie Valley. We tried to get tickets to see the outdoor drama Unto These Hills, which is about the Cherokee Indians & the Trail of Tears. Unfortunately they didn't start selling until 4pm so we went shopping around Cherokee. We got a late lunch at Burger King. They have a Wendys near the Casino (and no we didn't go in there ;) and then they also have a KFC but that is pretty much it for fast food! I love walking to all the little shops and seeing Indians out walking around. Pretty neat too because I am part Cherokee, a very small part! They had an awesome creek in the middle of Cherokee that everyone was swimming in and walking in, so we decided to get our hot little feet wet too!
It was cold but fun!
Later on we got our tickets and then around 7pm we came back to watch the show. It was great!!! I highly recommend.
This play has been going on since the 50's! Very cool to see real Native Americans play in it as well.
We drove back through town and went to a few shops before getting to our hotel.
Sunday morning we got up like a bunch of old people super early haha. We ate breakfast at Joey's Pancake house in Maggie Valley, which totally lived up to it's hype, it was delicious! Its only open from 7am-12 noon!
Loved the pancakes and that hashbrown casserole!
After that it was around 10:30 so we went to check out Ghost Town, one of the other reasons we chose to vacation here! It had just re-opened 4th of July weekend! None of the rides (except the chairlift) were working but we rode the scary chairlift up to the top! The only western theme park 5000 feet up on top of a mountain!
I have ALWAYS wanted to go as a child, seeing the commercials on tv!!!
The view behind us...on the way up!
The views are amazing though!
We had such a good time. We saw two gunfights, a can can girl dance show and a lady perform on the guitar and sing. They had fun things to see and explore and a little museum too. They had food and old tyme pictures as well as numerous gift shops!
Unfortunately both of our phones died almost as soon as we got there! UGH! I would have loved to take pictures in the saloon with the can can girls dancing! All the actors are so nice and offer to have pictures taken with them.
After ghost town we went to Gatlinburg! It is a bit over an hour drive through the National Park (but its a gorgeous drive!) and when we got there we ate at one of our favorite places-The Smoky Mountain Brewery & Restaurant!
We got burgers and the broccoli with beer cheese. SO SO GOOD. Love that place. Then we went walking around town and I checked out the new Paula Deen store.
A little over priced but I got me a mug that says Butter Y'all. Hahaha. It was a neat store though, I cant wait to go back. Then we drove to Sevierville which is right past Pigeon Forge and got a delicious apple dumpling with ice cream, and some apple cider, and bought a half dozen apple cider donuts to take. This is a favorite desert of ours, highly recommend you go there! We also brought home some apple butter from there.
And the kicker was on the way back into Maggie Valley we saw a HUGE elk on the side of the road, we had to stop, along with everyone else and take a picture!
We got back to the hotel and ended up roasting marshmallows on the bonfire right by the creek with some other guests. It was a great way to end the night!
We drove back this morning and I miss it already!!
This all looks so fun! Glad you had a good time!
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