• What to know if you go

WILLIAM SCHEMMEL/Special (ENLARGE)

A potter shows his skills in Craftman's Valley at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

Pigeon Forge, Tenn. — You just know going in that Dollywood's going to be tacky, hokey, a hillbilly Disneyland. Soon after passing through the turnstiles, though, you look around and think: Disney could take some cues from Dolly.

Smokies icon Dolly Parton has given the park a soft Appalachian spin, with nostalgic memoirs of her Tennessee mountain home. In her park, you're never more than a few steps, or a few minutes, from live country, bluegrass, gospel and pop, on a half-dozen stages more than 40 times a day. You never know when Barbara Mandrell, Ralph Stanley or other friends of Dolly will drop by to say "Howdy!" and sing a few of their tunes.

In Craftsman's Valley, one of the park's original areas, more than a dozen mountain artists create pottery, paintings, weavings, decorative blown glass, woodcarvings and metalwork pieces you'll want to put on a showoff shelf. For a nice piece of change, you can take home a custom-made handcrafted wooden wagon or buggy from the wheelwright's shop. Other things you won't find in Disney shops: peach butter, strawberry-rhubarb jelly, handmade lye soap, handcrafted dulcimers and Christian books.

Eagle Mountain Sanctuary is your chance to view America's national symbol up close. Wildlife experts from the American Eagle Foundation exhibit some of the more than three dozen bald eagles too badly injured for rerelease into the wild. The majestic birds live in a 30,000-square-foot screened aviary.

The Dollywood Express, powered by a l943 steam locomotive, huffs and puffs five miles through the hilly woodlands surrounding the park. Tall trees and banks of rhododendron, mountain laurel and other flowering plants shade most of the park's 130 acres. Cool streams ripple through it, fountains spout, and ducks and ducklings are on the ponds.

Ham 'n' beans, barbecue, taters and maters ("Dolly's favorite fried green tomatoes and skillet potatoes"), funnel cakes and other vittles are reasonably priced for the families that make up the bulk of Dollywood's 2.5 million annual visitors.

During the day here, visitors can do much more than listen to music, take a placid train ride, and buy crafts and eat. Forty-plus rides range from lazy inner-tube floats to coasters designed to terrify the bravado out of the most stalwart.

New this year, Mystery Mine is a 2.5-minute humdinger that careens you, at speeds up to 70 mph, through a darkened mine shaft, twists you around and drops you 85 vertical feet, turns you upside down and backward and, thankfully, every which way but loose. After your harrowing Mystery Mine adventure, Thunderhead, a clicketyclack wooden coaster with top speed of "only" 55 mph, and the Tennessee Tornado, billed as "the world's only mountaintop triple-loop coaster," seem like a quick ride around the block.

Splash Country, Dollywood's 30-acre, separate admission water park, is the place to cool down on a sizzling summer day. The park's 25 amusement areas include water slides tailored for small fry to nearly vertical plunges that seem like you're falling off a mountainside. There are two kids play areas, a wave pool, a lagoon pool, and an inner-tube float on a channeled "stream." You can rent a cabana with cable TV, a kitchenette, a patio and room service, and turn the kids loose for the day.

The Chasing Rainbows Museum traces the park's namesake back to Jan. 19, 1946, when Dolly Rebecca Parton became the fourth of 12 children of Robert Lee and Avie Lee Parton.

"I was born and paid for with a sack of cornmeal my daddy gave to Dr. [Robert F.] Thomas. That's all they thought I was worth, but I've been raking in the dough ever since," she says with the flutter laugh that's as much her trademark as the big-hair blond wigs, big bosom and mile-high stiletto heels.

She wrote her first song when she was 5, appeared on Knoxville TV at 10, and the day after high school graduation went to Nashville. She co-starred on Porter Wagoner's TV show for seven years before going solo on the Grand Ole Opry. Her first day in Nashville, she met her first and only husband, Carl Dean, a building contractor. How have they managed to stay together for 42 years? " I stay gone," she says with a laugh.

She's sold more than 100 million recordings world-wide, won seven Grammys and nine Country Music Association awards, and has been named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress.

In 1986, Parton partnered with Herschend Family Enterprises (which operates Georgia's Stone Mountain Park) to reinvent what had been Silver Dollar City. With Dolly's name, Dollywood has more than doubled in size and added new attractions every year. She's also a co-owner and "name" behind the Dixie Stampede dinner show.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the Stampede revolves around fast-action competitions between horseback riders in Union and Confederate uniforms. Buffaloes stampede; piglets, ostriches and chuck wagons race. Kids chase chickens and adult audience members ride hobbyhorses and pitch horseshoes, while 1,000 spectators eat barbecued chicken, baked potatoes, corn on the cob and cobbler with their fingers. The friendly North-South rivalry is carried into the restrooms, where stalls are labeled "Southern Only," "Northern Only." Stampede staffers say some die-hards refuse to cross the line.

Mindful of her own childhood dreams, growing up dirt-poor in the mountains of Sevier County, Dolly Parton in l995 established the Imagination Library. Funded by the Dollywood Foundation, the program sends a free new book every month to children from birth to 5th grade. Begun modestly in Sevier County, it distributes about 4 million books a year in 42 states, including Georgia.

In May, Parton gave an outdoor concert that raised $500,000 for a new Sevier County hospital. After introducing her band, she giggled: "And I'm Dolly," as if her home folks or folks elsewhere on earth wouldn't know.

IF YOU GO

Getting there

• Pigeon Forge and adjoining Sevierville, Tenn., are about 250 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. Take I-75 to U.S. 441, south of Knoxville, and go east about 40 miles. Or, I-75 to Knoxville and I-40 east to Exit 107.

About the attractions

• Dollywood is open daily April-December. One-day, all-inclusive tickets, ages 12-59, $47.05; ages 60-over, $44.60; ages 4-11, $36.80, including all taxes. 1-800-365-5996, www.dollywood.com.

• Dollywood's Splash Country is open mid-May to mid-September. One-day admission ages 12-59, $39; ages 4-11, $33.45; ages 60-over, $36.80. 865-428-9488, www.dollywoodssplashcountry.com.

• Imagination Library, 1020 Dollywood Lane, Pigeon Forge, TN 37863; 865-428-9606, www.imaginationlibrary.com.

• Dixie Stampede is open all year. Including pre-show entertainment, main show and four-course dinner, adult admission is $39.99; ages 4-11, $20.99. 1-800-356-1676, www.dixiestampede.com.

Where to stay

The Resort at Governor's Crossing in Sevierville is a good choice for families. One- to three-bedroom condos, from $169, have full kitchens, cable TV and a large outdoor pool, close to restaurants, outlet malls and attractions. 865-429-0500, www.condosinthesmokies.com.

Information

The Sevierville Chamber of Commerce is a good source for lodgings, area attractions and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 1-888-766-5948, www.visitsevierville.com.