Gift Show In The Smokies & Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort

Last week was a bit of a whirlwind. I worked on Monday and then on Tuesday I left with two of my coworkers and headed to Gatlinburg TN for the annual gift show. It is actually two shows in three cities, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville. All of those are very close to one another. We go to the shows every year to shop for souvenirs for our gift shops. It is so tiring. It is three days of shopping for things that may or may not be of interest to you personally. Also the vendors can get quite aggressive jumping in front of you to show you their products. It is a lot of sensory overload with hundreds of booths set up with so many different types of displays. As always I feel like we get a good selection and variety of products for the coming year. It is a fun trip but after three days we are always glad to get back home. I will give you an idea of some of the different vendors that were of interest to us.

There are lots of food vendors and lots of samples that is definitely a perk to the show. This particular booth had corn flake chewy candy and it was so yummy. Often it is the different unexpected things that people are looking for when they are traveling.

I thought this booth was very interesting. This was a flower farm. They dried their flowers and made postcards, photos and larger pictures. The flowers were beautiful and I love the concept of using the dried flowers. I am not sure if this is something that would work for us. The price point was pretty high.

One thing that we always look for is rocks and different types of stones. People expect to see that when they visit a cave. I thought this Rose Quartz was beautiful.

O.K. I don’t know if this is popular where you live but here it is. Freeze Dried Candy. I am not a fan of it myself but all of the kids at work absolutely love it. I think we saw more of this at the show than anything else.

More Freeze Dried Candy

Aren’t these hearts adorable I loved them and actually wanted every single one of them. I love hearts!!!!

Lots of plush animals. We sell some of the smaller plush but the larger animals are not great sellers for us. I love all of them look at this adorable lamb.

These small punchkins are something I think will be a good seller for us. They are so cute.

We bought several of these water bottles which are also a hot seller right now. I can’t wait to get them in because I am going to buy the “Great Women of Science” bottle.

We also have a Sweet Shop on the property and we sell Ice Cream, Candy, Fudge and Drinks. I think these mugs will do very well there.

And more rocks. I love to look at all the different types.

Just to give you an idea of all the different vendors. This was taken at the Gatlinburg show. We were upstairs looking down into the ballroom.

One of the perks of the show is that we get to eat at a lot of really fun places. The first night of the show we ate at Little Tokyo Hibachi Grill & Sushi in Pigeon Forge. It is a very unassuming looking restaurant with only a few grills and a few tables. We got there really early and at first I wasn’t too sure about the place. We were seated at one of the grills quickly, as I said it was early, and we were joined by a few of our other cave buddies. About fifteen minutes after being seated I stepped back to the front part of the restaurant to take a phone call and it was packed with a line out the door. The wait time was approximately one hour at that time. After we had our food cooked, and served right in front of us, I could see why the wait to get in was so long. The food was amazing. I got chicken and shrimp and I think it was the best I have ever had. I will definitely return with my husband. He would love it.

The next day we ate at Cookie Dough Monster. This place has some of the best burgers you will ever eat. I was a little confused about the burgers, which I had heard people rave about, and the edible cookie dough. What was the connection. Obviously there is no connection. They just happen to sell the best burgers and the best edible cookie dough. Oh and milkshakes too.

There are about sixteen different types of burgers, Betty White, The Island, Mac Daddy, Bleu Bae and BBQ Bacon and Bacon Bomber are just a few of the burgers that are offered. I got the BBQ Bacon and it was delish. Just a little messy.

We also tried some of the edible cookie dough. I have had some of the cookie dough in other places and I never found it too appetizing. This edible cookie dough was delicious. We got, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut, Brownie Bite, and Heath Caramel.

But I have to say the highlight of the trip was being able to visit Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort. It is located in Pigeon Forge. Every year several of the vendors sponsor a dinner for some of the different groups attending the show. On Wednesday night we were treated to a wonderful dinner with our cave friends from several different caves. The resort is so beautiful. They have it decorated for Christmas, inside and out. If you are interested in a stay here just visit www.dollywood.com and click on the resort. I will warn you it is pricey. We didn’t actually stay here we were just here for dinner.

The dinner was very nice and delicious. We shared different things we had found at the show and got some good ideas from others that were there. And we also got a very nice swag bag.

Enjoying the lights with my swag bag.

The last day we were in Gatlinburg and we ate at Jason Aldean’s Rooftop Bar and Restaurant. The food was pretty good but the view from the second floor was great!!! We had a seat overlooking the strip and then a beautiful view of the mountainside. Lots of fall colors still going on here. Oh and a real “Big Green Tractor” inside the bar.

Look at this fall color still hanging on. Of course this is the smokies and the temps here are cooler than in the valley where we are.

We got home late Thursday night and it was back to our regular work on Friday. Over the weekend I worked on these knitted yarn ball ornaments. I will show you more about those in a later post. But I will tell you I am loving making them.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!