Time Shares Sales. Yup, their hitting us up. Not sure when they got the data that we were retired but somehow they know. We figured for 200 bucks, we'd take the tour/presentation and gain a 4 day stay in the Smokey Mountains out of the deal. Not bad considering a decent hotel room is easily 100 a night these days. More on the weekends which we discovered on our trip to Rhode Island where the 129 per night on a Thursday is 490 on Friday and Saturday. Sadly, this company markets itself as family and pet friendly hoteliers, no pets are allowed, so the doggies get a vacation at Miss Judy's in Martinsburg which is sort of on the way to Pigeon Forge.
Doggies get dropped Friday morning, and we set the google machine to "avoid highways" and off we go. Again, we plan to have our lunch on the road at a park or the like straight out of our picnic basket. Funny story, we got this picnic basket as a wedding present; it had all the usual picnic basket stuff including 2 plastic champagne glasses. Everything has slowly been replaced but the wicker basket remains and it's starting to show its age. The roads we wind up on are epic and we stick to old WV-55 until we hit 220 and head south for a long time. Lunch was in the Franklin Town Park adjacent to the river while the maintenance guy is mowing the grass.
Back onto some of the most scenic roads in this part of West & plain old regular Virginia, as our route takes us across the state line several times before we get to our motel in Princeton, adjacent to I-77. Over dinner, we discuss our options for tomorrow: get on 77 for a couple of exits to go through the tunnel OR take a local road up over the same ridge the tunnel goes through. We decide on the road and boy howdy, are we glad we did. This is the view northwest from the little park that sits on the West Virginia side of the ridge:
It's the annual fall festival in Burkes Garden, which explained the relatively large number of cars heading up the mountain. Burkes Garden is a delightful spot in the Appalachians where the valley is slightly below the surrounding mountains, spread out like a large shallow bowl. If you have never been to BG, go. There is a general store, a couple of campgrounds but it is still mostly a farming community.
The festival makes the main road one way with the return loop along the northern edge of the bowl. It is a wonderous place and we will be checking out any southern loops to get the entire valley plus leave or depart from the dirt road that approaches from the east. Rumor has it there is a car in a tree, like 20 feet off the ground in a tree just past one of the switchbacks.
We stopped for lunch in a small picnic area/ park near the VA/TN line. At the entrance, there are six different historic markers ranging from information in the 1600's to a primary school in the 19teens. Our inner retired rallymaster cackled with delight over this find.
Our hotel is bright modern and really cool. There is a separate sitting area adjacent to the door and it has a walk in closet. Checking online, this room normally goes for 159 a night so the 200 cost for three nights is worth the time share spiel that will be coming on Sunday. Fortunately, we get to trade into an earlier presentation and find ourselves at the welcome/ presentation center at 845 and not 1145 as originally scheduled. Turns out, these arent the time shares or our parents' generation; there is no week somewhere on some specific property. Instead, you buy the real estate equivalent in points, which you can use at any one of their hundreds of locations plus associate partners over the globe- almost every one of them is a resort. We're not resort people- strike two. Strike one was the 'no pets' policy despite advertising as family inclusive. Our presenter, done one on one mixed in with a powerpoint presentation covering all the benefits of the program, nonchalantly to go on Amazon and just get our dogs a "service animal' vest: Strike three. The weird part was at no point was the cost of the program discussed until the "offer guy" came to our table. Let's just say the know how to hard sell and we saw exactly how folks get into these programs; the offers sound to good to be true and you can finance almost the entire purchase through them. But the offer is only good today; when you walk out the door, the offer is void. Their price you ask? More than the estimated cost of our new truck which we plan to purchase next year. Like a lot more, oh and no discount for paying in cash. Sounds like they make their money on both unused programming and the financing.
After we say 'no', the 'exit interview' guy shows up to make sure we understood the material we were presented and to rate our overall experience. Then he flips over the exit questionnaire with a new offer, different from the first which looks suspiciously tailored to different clients. Our was for retired persons as 'you have no business wanting to get into a 20 year program' [duh]. Our guess is they have these prearranged depending on the status of the potential client with younger families getting longer terms and more flexibility. There were several young families in our group of 10, one with an infant in tow. That prospect of using this program at Disney must have been really hard to turn down- FYI Disney for a family of 4 for a week is just short of 10 grand now and that doesnt include any travel costs.
After extricating ourselves from their sales pitch we talk over the presentation during lunch figuring that at least two families bought into the program and another three probably took the second offer. That second offer was very tempting even for us, but again it was centered on resorts and we are NOT resort people. Speaking of resorts, Pigeon Forge is one giant tourist trap/ resort. We have heard for years about the epic traffic on this 6 miles of road; it did not disappoint. After lunch we take in one of the many miniature golf courses before returning to our room for some pool time before dinner.
Monday is our last full day in Pigeon Forge; to complete the experience we have tickets to the Hatfield McCoy Family Feud Dinner Show, because of course we do. Jean wants to go one of the local churches for Monday morning service and she drops me at the Gatlinburg Golf Club with the intent of picking me up much later. The tee time is 850; the drop off is at 730 and the bar doesnt open until 10. You do the math. It is an amazing track with elevation changes that are truly breath taking.
View from the 10th tee box
The 100 foot drop to the green at the 12th.
We fully expected the dinner show to be absolutely cornball humor ripped straight out of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour material. We were not disappointed. Dinner was served in metal buckets on metal plates by servers in coveralls. Drinks were in mason jars just like at the Phyrst in State College. We wound up on the McCoy side of the audience and some canned responses to shout at various times including "None of you darn business", Arguably, the best bits of the entire show was when things didnt happen as expected and the actors who played the mayor and sheriff ad lib a cover for the mistakes were just downright funny.
We took a combo of the google machine's avoid highways and fastest route settings after crossing through the Smokeys on 441. If you have never travelled on 441, the trip is highly recommended. We met some friends for dinner in Lynchburg on Tuesday night. Good times.
View from our hotel room in Lynchburg
Picked up the dogs just after lunch and we arrived home just as our biweekly cleaning crew got started.
https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/6903-1474dcb2-683a/view
follow up- another invite for a time share weekend from the same company just appeared in my in box
