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…
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