The rain had lightened, Still there, but at least it wasn't pounding down.
Parking seemed to be private pay lots only. We gave up creeping through the slow crowded strip looking for a free town lot, and parked in one of them for $10. The strip was packed with families and some older people too, nearly all of whom were overweight. There were a few attractions mixed in with mostly sugary food stores. Caramel corn. Ice cream. Fudge. The beach strip without the beach. And not what we were looking for.
We knew we were getting a hotel room somewhere, but we hadn't gotten that information from the restaurant where he was booked later, a place nowhere near the strip. So once again, I walked through Gatlinburg feeling like an earth tourist, without knowing where I would lay my head that night. And ate at a restaurant, because I'm not twenty one.
We found a Chinese restaurant on the back side of the strip. It was still early enough in the afternoon that we ordered lunch specials. It began raining harder. We were inside. Dry. Eating warm food. Reading the menu, I discovered that the restaurant had been there a long time. In fact, it opened the year I was last in Gatlinburg, when restaurants were for someone else.
We came out satisfied, still with nowhere to go. The Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum had been replaced by a Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. And while it seems like a counterintuitive place to go see marine life, we were there in touristland. When in Rome . . .
When in Rome, don't be a broke person living out of a backpack. That's for the woods. Paid about $75 for two people. It's a beautiful aquarium.
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