Gatlinburg!

Before embarking on this trip… we were having dinner with some friends on Thursday evening… and I asked Angel’s husband, Todd, what he thought of Gatlinburg… he said “It’s Myrtle Beach, without the beach.” … What a perfect description this was.

For those that haven’t been to Gatlinburg lately.. let me fill you in. There are certain things that Gatlinburg is a Mecca for: Airbrushed T-Shirts, Custom / Novelty License Plates and frames, NASCAR Memorabilia, Beef Jerky, and Fudge / Candy.

The reason for our visit to Gatlinburg was none of the above… our visit was to visit Arrowmont.. to see:

 

Jennifer. She’s at Arrowmont, doing a residency… she seems to be having a good time…

The above is a quick look at Jennifer’s studio. She appears to be getting a lot of work done… With us to distract her though… she didn’t seem to get as much done…

Friday evening, we walked up to a lovely steakhouse for dinner and a little preview of what was around town. The remaining time Friday evening was restful.. we just hung out..  watched a movie… went to bed at a decent time…

Saturday, we started off with breakfast at one of the many pancake “Cabins” in the area… I’ve got to give them credit.. they made one heck of a breakfast… the place was PACKED as well… it was a good start to the day for a little people watching… After packing ourselves full of food, it was a short walk up the hill to the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum.(Click on that link to go to the website, and you can even go on a virtual tour of the museum)

For those who don’t click on the link, at this museum, you’ll find over 20,000 pairs of salt and pepper shakers. That’s right… over 20,000 pairs. They’re categorized by type to include: Christmas, Wood, Food, Alcohol, Cats, Dogs, Monkeys, Cities, Cows, Chickens, etc, etc, etc.

It was rather amazing. Personally, I was a bi fan of the salt and pepper shakers that looked like something you would ever use salt or pepper on… like Ice Cream… or Bourbon bottles…. or other oddities. Best of all… if you’re interested, the entire museum is for sale.

After the museum, we noticed a “winery” up the hill from the Museum, so we went to check that out.. it was the typical wine for this area… mainly sweet stuff. nothing that falls under the realm of normal wines…

After such a busy morning, we went back to Arrowmont to get the grand tour there… There’s definitely some interesting stuff going on around there… lots of workshops and classes offered… in the above picture, we stopped at the Arrowmont library for a little break…

Then, we were off to the Ripley’s Aquarium.

These folks at Ripley’s had all sorts of stuff all over town… the Aquarium, the Ripley’s Museum, Ripley’s Mini-Golf…. a little bit of everything.. But for an aquarium located 500+ miles from the nearest Ocean… it’s amazing what they had… really the whole 9… sharks, fish, rays, all sorts of stuff!!

After a walk around the aquarium, we headed up the street for a Moonshine Tasting at the Ole Smoky Distillery . They had some corn liquor, some white lightning, cherries soaked in white lightning, and “Apple Pie” … which was their White Lightning with apple juice, apple cider, cinnamon, and sugar… it was the only one that really went down smooth, but given the ratio of the mixture, it wasn’t too surprising… it’s roughly 1 gallon of apple juice, 1 gallon of cider, 2 cups of sugar, some cinnamon sticks, and one quart of 100 proof white lightning. But, the tasting was free… so, totally worth stopping by to check it out.

This got us up to lunch on Saturday, at which point we stopped at a Greek restaurant with live bluegrass musicians playing… a few gyros, and a few glasses of iced tea, and we were recharged and ready to go…. … Sort of… … more like ready to go back to the house and take a nap… Which we did with gusto.

Jennifer made some burgers for dinner topped with mushrooms and muenster… accompanied by twice baked potatoes, and grilled corn on the cob… These artsy folks know how to eat…

Virginia and I didn’t last too much longer after dinner… so we packed it in early, and got some good sleep for the drive back today…

We woke up this morning, packed up… Jennifer cooked us some egg and cheese sandwiches for breakfast….

Then, we came back to Boone via Maggie Valley and Cherokee… It was a nice trip… I wish I would have taken more pictures… but I’ve been trying out a new lens… and I’m not the biggest fan of it… hopefully there will be more blog updates in the near future before the weather turns all crappy…

Today is our anniversary!

Believe it or not… it’s already been a year. With that in mind, I decided that it was time for a new look for the blog. So, hopefully, everyone (all 4 readers) like the new layout.

So, being our first anniversary of actual marriage… the decision was made that one day of celebration was not enough.. so, the celebration kinda lasted all weekend.

To start things off, I had to enlist the service of our good friend Josh. I needed both his muscles and his truck for the gift I had decided to get for Virginia.

See, Virginia always likes to climb into the recliner with me…which isn’t too surprising because I tend to exude a good amount of excess heat, and as anyone who’s ever come to visit us knows…. the futon in the TV room isn’t the most comfortable place in the world to sit.

So enters “The Cuddler”

Yes… it’s really that big…. let’s take another look…

So… finally, it’s a recliner that we can both share…. The only problem is that it’s pretty difficult to close the thing up by yourself… Also, parents be warned… the next time parents visit, they made be made to share the cuddler….

So, after Josh and I snuck this monster into the house and set it up, it was time to start thinking about dinner… so, I didn’t take any pictures, but I made some hot bacon dressing with some salad; chicken breasts stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan; and finished it all up with a Gooey Butter Cake… Let me tell you now.. the Gooey Butter Cake will make the food blog at some point… but it might be a little while before I make it again. You arteries harden just thinking about the recipe. But, it’s really dang tasty.

After the feast, we rounded off the night by trying to sit in the cuddler and watch TV… next thing you know, we woke up in front of a TV that had been idle so long that it shut off. So… is the chair comfortable? I’d say yes.

Saturday morning, we rolled out of bed and decided to head to a festival in celebration of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s “Birthday”… there was to be music, crafts, and all sorts of information about the Parkway. So, after driving up to Cumberland Gap on the Parkway, we finally got to the Music Center where the majority of the music was happening… Now, at this point, I suppose I should mention that it was raining when we left Boone. But, we turned on the radio, listened to NPR and kept heading North. But, it was still raining when we got to the music center.

We parked the car in a field and headed over to an information tent to see what the deal was. Apparently, there would be a “shuttle” showing up to take us to areas where things were actually happening, as the field we were in wasn’t exactly a happening spot. But, here’s the catch… all of the music stuff was in the amphitheater… which is outside… in the rain. So, we looked over at the group of people standing in the rain, anxiously awaiting the shuttle, just so they’d get a chance to hear the wonderful bluegrass music… and got back into the car.

We were a bit bummed, but at the same time, we weren’t about to sit in the rain to hear some bluegrass. We might have another trip up there on a day that isn’t outrageously crappy weather. So, we hopped onto the Parkway heading back South, and hopped off at Galax. At this point, we were getting a bit hungry so I whipped out the Droid and asked it where to eat. (For some readers : The Droid is my amazingly smart Google Powered phone.. it does a bit of everything, including telling me where to eat based on my GPS location… with reviews of local restaurants)  So, the Droid told me that I should head to Flossie’s for lunch, as apparently Flossie’s is outstanding.

As we got close to Flossie’s the road was blocked off… dang… another setback? No! This time, it was a street festival. As we parked the car, bluegrass music filled the air. We rounded the corner, and saw people flat-footing and clogging to the music. We continued into Flossie’s and immediately upon looking at the menu, we knew that we were in the right place. Virginia got a hot turkey sandwich on Texas Toast with mashed ‘taters and gravy, and I got a country fried steak with gravy, mac n’ cheese, green beans, and hush-puppies. The food there was AMAZING!! (With the exception of the mac n’ cheese… it wasn’t horrible, but compared to the rest of the food, it was sub-par) We finished everything off with pecan pie accompanied by home-made ice cream.

We walked around Galax for a little bit, found  cute little book store… but it’s all really just a blur.. what really happened in the afternoon was a herculean effort to stay awake on the way back to Boone since we were both packed with enough food to feed a small city. So, we got home, layed around… fell asleep…

We woke this morning, on the actual day of our anniversary with no real plans… until I watched the news… Who would have thought… but there was a Greek Festival in Charlotte today. So, once again, we loaded into the car and took off. Upon getting to Charlotte, we realized that the event might be a little bigger than we anticipated…

 

The place was PACKED. Think… Busch Gardens… in May… with 50% off coupons… that’s how busy this place was. I forgot to mention, today was the 3rd day this celebration was swinging… But, apparently, the people hadn’t gotten tired of it. … … For the most part… one of the Spartan Warriors may have had a bit too much.

He tried to take on Virginia… little did he know that she was all full of food and ready to rumble…

The food there was typical Greek Festival food… meaning AWESOME!!!! We shared a dinner of chicken, spanakopita, salad, a meatball, and some pasta / rice stuff… and for dessert, (which we had before dinner) we had Baklava Sundae… Other fun for us in the day included a tasting of Greek wines… some god walking around… and watching the little Greek kids dance.

Now… it’s time to relax and spend some time in the cuddler again… but, we also saved a bottle of wine from our wedding that we’ll be having tonight…

It’s been a great first year, with many more to come. We’ll try to keep things updated here as much as possible. Until next time… Take it easy.