Stampede!!!!

We are camped at River Plantation RV Park, within a stone's throw of the Little Pigeon River in Sevierville TN. There are 26 Country Coaches registered for this inaugural rally of the SouthEast Country Coachers, a brand new chapter of Country Coach International. Dorcas and I are charter members of this chapter. We have made new friends as well as renewed old friendships. We have good wi-fi service here, and I have updated the blog with some past trip reports. I think I am current now, except I haven't written anything about our Buffalo River trip last month. Maybe soon.

Tonight the Country Coachers attended Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede for dinner and the show. The Stamped defies description. Everyone should see it at least once. It is a combination rodeo, circus, hillbilly vaudeville, Civil War reenactment and game show. I had expected we would eat first, then have a show. It turns out that you do both at the same time. And they feed you with an efficiency that I have never witnessed before. Folks are seated five rows deep around the indoor arena on benches and a narrow bar . A server walks in front of each row and serves perhaps 75 people. The server walks up and down the row as quickly as he/she can, serving a new course and removing the plate from the last course. Your ticket is placed in front of you at the edge of the bar. The server knows what you are drinking due to the orientation of the ticket, i.e. right-side up, up-side down, folded, perpendicular to the bar, parallel to the bar etc. If you move your ticket, your diet Pepsi order may become root beer at the next refill. One side of the arena is designated "the North" and the other is designated "the South". The servers on each side are dressed in the respective blue and gray. Thankfully we were on the "South", so we did not have to ask to be re-seated.

The show started off with some native American dances including some pretty fancy high-wire eagle action. Then the cowboys and settlers came with longhorn steers, buckboards and covered wagons. Later there was lots of fancy choreographed horse riding and some trick riding. I was most impressed with the riding. There would be ten riders doing precision routines in a small arena, going very FAST! Very exciting. The last half of the show features teams representing the North and the South, performing various competitions, some with audience participation. There were also novelty races including pig races (Abraham Link-sausage, et al), pig races with hurdles, kids chasing chickens races, covered wagon races, stick horses races, barrel races and mounted ostrich races. Quite a sight to behold. Where else but in Dolly-land?