Dollywood!

Ah, Dollywood.  The amusement park that was the childhood home of country music and film star Dolly Parton.  She grew up in a little one room cabin next to the log flume ride, and they say that's what made her strive and dream and work and reach for the stars!  Or something like that.  We were there cause the Grunion heard they had a USATC S118 Class 2-8-2 steam locomotive and he wanted to check out the 76.2 mm wide spacers they placed between the wheels and the truck side frames on the axles to deal with the fact that they were originally narrow gauge engines for mountain use.

Anyhoo, while we were on the train, they must have made a loudspeaker announcement that everyone AND THEIR ENTIRE FAMILY should go get in line at the ONLY BOOTH in Dollywood that sold fries.  Seriously, we passed the booth like 20 minutes earlier and there was NO ONE waiting.  This was the line when we got there.

The line snaked all the way back to the Pappy Snuffy's Pissin Porch restrooms!

As I was waiting in line (the Grunion and Amy abandoned me to get a funnel cake), I started to realize why there was such a long line for a product that takes 2 minutes to make.  The place was infested with grannys!  The woman running the show (named Millie) had to be at least 80.

Every other word out of Millie's mouth was "What?" cause she couldn't hear.  She also dealt with the touchscreen register like it was trying to rob her.  Sheesh.  BTW, this turned out to be endemic at Dollywood, as we encountered the elderly running most of the shops and booths.

Sooooooo an order of "tater twirls" and a diet coke is....YIKES!

The moment of truth.  Not good.  They were the kind of "fries" where they just spin-cut a potato (usually with a cordless drill and a weird attachment) and toss the whole spun-cut mess into the fryer with no brining, and with no two-stage blanching/cooking.

Here's a close up.  WTH?  Is that a hair on the fries right in the middle there?  Didn't notice that while we were eating them.  Gross!

I was already gonna give these overpriced, bland, texturally dubious embarrassments a low score, but now with the photographic evidence of contamination with what looks to be (at best) an eyelash, I have to declare that these fries are LESS THAN ZERO.  -2 out of 10. 

Bad Dolly!  No surgery biscuit!