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Ober Gatlinburg

Catchin' Air

On the water slide...

 

We had a fantastic time at this place.  Eat before you go or pack your own lunch, the restaurant is pretty much crap.  You can drive up to this park for free or you can ride the sky-tram paying a pretty price to get to the top.  You get the view, but it was scorching for us so we decided to drive up to it.

Stay out of the little mall area, it's your average tourist dollar sucking machine with nothing of any value. 

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We headed outside immediately and were rewarded with a medium sized amusement park that offers quite a lot for an economical value.  The rides were pretty good and while we were there, NO LINES.  We jumped to the front of the line and was able to go on a ride as many times as we felt like it.  A slight thunder and lightening storm coupled with a nice southern rain was the only thing that stopped us from having a complete blast.

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Tanis couldn't get enough of the slinging pirate ship ride.  My stomach was doing fine for about a dozen rides.  After that I had to explain to him there were other rides in the park and we should hit them.  He was having a blast!  He got the entire ride screaming back and forth at each other because every time he was on the down-swing, he would throw his hands in the air and scream at the top of his lungs.  After a while, everyone on the ride was screaming at each other on the down-swing.  It even became a bit of a competition to see which side could be louder.  Reminds me of a story of his Papa O'Donnell and a family friend getting each side of the Happy Canyon room competing with screaming "Yee-haw's" at the Pendleton Round-Up one drunken year.

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We quickly moved onto some water rides and rode them until thoroughly soaked.  It was warm and the water was cool so no one really seemed to mind.  We all pretty much tore it up on the rides.  There was a second fun water ride with some humps that you went down on little rubber rafts.  You could go down in groups of two.  Rick and I found out quickly that if you hit the second bump fast enough, the front lifts up causing you to catch a little air.  No one seemed to care that we were trying for the absolute maximum amount of air we could get.  The last jump we did we almost jumped out of the track and took a straight plummet off the side onto a gravel road.  Our wives didn't marry us for our common sense.  Or our money.  Or for the size of our...well, you get the picture.  Exactly what did they marry us for?

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