Dolly's backwoods treasure

PIGEON FORGE, TENN. - If your circle of friends includes self-styled urban sophisticates, a declaration that you like to take your family vacation in and near Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., is a bit like announcing you're a fan of Ann Coulter at a global-warming convention. You are met with simultaneously sympathetic and condescending looks.

But they are fueled by ignorance. For there is no better place to spend quality time with the kids than in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, in verdant eastern Tennessee -- with ample time spent at the friendly, good-times emporium owned by Dolly Parton, perhaps the only American icon who could be said to rival her beloved Great Smoky Mountains.

Granted, one must be willing to enjoy all kinds of folks and appreciate great American kitsch. If you run screaming at the smell of a go-cart or fudge, then get you to that pristine isolated beach and stew, self-righteously, in the sun.

But what's a real family vacation without top-tier miniature golf (a Pigeon Forge specialty), arcade games (ditto), roller coasters (ditto ditto) and outlet malls for back-to-school shopping (thrice ditto)?

Head to Dollywoodland, and you get all this and the most beautiful natural scenery this side of the Grand Canyon. Every other vacation we've tried requires a trade-off between child-friendly pleasures and rural isolation. Not here. You can drive away from the gates of Dollywood (sadly, of course) and, in 15 minutes, find yourself alone in a mountain clearing watching bears frolic in the distance.

The road trip

From our home, we have the nine-hour trip down cold. We leave in the evening with our two boys (Peter, 6, and Evan, 4) already in their pajamas, stop overnight at a Hampton Inn and arrive just as the sun reaches its midpoint over the Smoky Mountains.

Thanks to the large inventory of mostly log-built homes, the relatively long season (fall colors are crucial here) and the local culture, the privately owned rental properties offer what I think are incomparable standards and value.

Our houses have varied, but these whimsically named delights ("Forget Me Not" and the like) invariably include two bedrooms, a private outdoor hot tub, a whirlpool bath, a game room, a full kitchen, a balcony, free Wi-Fi access, privacy and glorious views. We typically pay about $900 for the week, a sum that can hardly buy you a single crude motel room in July and August in such locales as Door County, Wis.; Myrtle Beach, S.C., or Michigan's harbor country.

The staff, the rides

We spend at least two days in Dollywood. We're theme-park aficionados, and this one is the best.

Here's why: Dollywood staffers, many of whom are retirees, are infallibly warm and pleasant, without any Disneyfied artifice. The park is built not on Florida swamp but in tree-filled, mountainous terrain, with its water slides and rides -- especially the wondrous Thunderhead roller coaster, which takes advantage of the land's natural contours.

And what theme park have you ever visited where the food is actually imaginative? Dollywood has ham 'n' beans (yum), skillet potatoes (yum again), corn bread, pork barbecue, peaches, smoked sausage and the juiciest of grilled turkey legs. It's neither cheap nor perfect, but at least you feel as if you're eating food with some roots.

You can also hear music with roots. Sure, Dollywood has its share of trite collegiate revues, but it also has the Back Porch Theatre, a stage at the rear of the park's beloved replica of the wooden shack where Parton was born and raised. Every morning, Parton's relatives (and at Dollywood, it seems as if almost everyone is a relative of Parton's) play bluegrass and country as the day warms around them. I never want to leave.

But the boys always want to ride the trains, enter the mine shafts, watch the eagles soaring in patriotic display. One can come from a world very different -- culturally and politically -- from the pervasive gestalt of the only theme park I know with a church on the grounds, and still find oneself seduced by the warmth and kindness of eastern Tennessee's great people.

Outside the gates of Dollywood, temptations are everywhere, from kid-friendly teppanyaki dining (much cheaper than Benihana) to the kid-friendly Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies to horseback riding in the foothills.