"It Takes A Lot Of Money To Look This Cheap"

Ah yes, straight from the mouth of Dolly Parton while a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Apparently, Oprah asked if she had resorted to having plastic surgery done at some point. Dolly's response was something along the lines of "Of course. My career as a performer (and I think she was generalizing to most performers here) is bound up as much in my public "image" as it's tied up in my "show." I need to do what I can to maintain what the public expects for as long as I can."

And you know what? I can respect that. She's open and up front about it. She doesn't deny that she's had work done. Most importantly, she's not doing it because she's deluded herself into believing she can look like some young and sexy vixen for as long as she wants.

As time moves forward and various stars come and go, some just fading away and others exploding like tabloid supernovae, I've come to appreciate entertainers (particularly women) that have the ability to just go on and on and on. And I mean that in a good way. How they're able to adjust their "show" to compliment the different points in their lives. How they always seem to be able to produce something new that people find interesting and are glad to pay for. How obvious it is that they've got a good mind for business. It can be really inspiring when you see someone like that and can say "that person really knows what they're doing."

So yeah, I'm not necessarily a huge fan of her music, but I loves me some Dolly Parton. I almost want to go out and buy one of her albums as a way of registering my vote for the "this lady deserves to continue to do what she does" awards.

Can you tell I liked Dollywood?

Thanks to Scottland, I've been to a whole mess of theme parks in all sorts of different parts of the country now, and Dollywood is easily in my top three. Cedar Point in Sandusky still occupies the number one position. Disney World is in the number two position, but only by virtue of its ridiculous size and level of engineering complexity. That leaves Dollywood in the number three position, but if Dollywood could somehow be increased in size to rival Disney World I'd have a hard time deciding which was better.

What makes a theme park good is how well it grabs you by the mental cojones and thrusts you into the self-contained world its trying to create. To do that, you have to have a consistency to your theming that's not heavy handed. If you go too over the top it becomes a parody.

Disneyland was sort of like that for me. I liked it, but it was trying so hard to be "The Happiest Place On Earth" in the middle of the crappiest place on Earth that I just couldn't buy into it. Disney World worked because it's theme isn't "The Happiest Place On Earth", it's "The Biggest Place On Earth" and I could buy into that. The sheer size of the place and how well it all fits together produced it's own sense of wonder after a while.

Cedar Point, on the other hand, was all about the thrill rides. To maintain their theming and experience they simply needed to provide high quality rides within a high quality experience. This is actually more difficult than it sounds though. The park needs to be easy to get around in. It needs to be clean and attractive. It needs to be well organized and staffed with friendly people. All of this they did in spades and more. Most other Thrill Parks failed in one way or another. King's Island was disorganized, Great America was crowded, dirty and difficult to walk through.

Dollywood was a beast of a different nature. It's trying to be part Thrill Park and part Theme Park. Sort of like a down home country Christmas where you occasionally get to ride a kick ass rollercoaster. They had craft shops with actual craftspeople making things. They had two really good rollercoasters, the Haunted Mine Ride and the Thunderhead. The Haunted Mine Ride was very well themed, if a bit light on the thrills. It succeeds where "The Italian Job" coaster at King's Island miserably failed. And the Thunderhead? What can I say. I usually HATE wooden coasters. They scare the bejeezus out of me, and this one ROCKED. It was easy to see why it was voted "Best Wooden Coaster In the World" several years in a row.

Beyond that, the appearance of the park was consistent, visually dynamic and attractive. The food options were good and consistent with the "Smokey Mountains" theme of the park. Sadly, I never got to try the BBQ, which is supposed to be quite tasty. Nor did I get to eat pork pulled directly from a pig roasting on a spit like Suzanne promised me.

Most importantly, the staffing was excellent, and that's key. I've found that it's really the staff that can make or break a theme park. If they're friendly and helpful it's so much easier to just get into the experience and have fun. If they're surly and/or disinterested the place becomes very hard to enjoy no matter how spectacular everything else is.

I even got my science fix for the day, when I got to learn all about chestnut blight.

So yes, I would recommend Dollywood to anyone that has a chance to go there. The three of us (Suzanne, Scottland and myself) had a great time. Suzanne even got to hold a butterfly in her hand while a staff-member to a photo of us.