Our first
stop was
Gatlinburg, Tennessee,
which is about four hours from the
Elkhorn Inn. In planning our road trips I
use
www.mapquest.com, and break our road trips down into days that usually have
only about 4 hours of driving. That way, if we see something interesting on the
way, such as a winery or a museum, we have the time to stop, as well as having
time for breaks and leisurely meals without feeling rushed. Back in December I bought us
bedandbreakfast.com gift cards when they had a sale, so we could use them on this trip, and in
Gatlinburg we used them to stay at
the historic, ca. 1938
Buckhorn Inn in one of their
lovely cottages. Elegant little houses, they have working
fireplaces, kitchenettes, and balconies overlooking splendid Smokey Mountain scenery. We enjoyed a lovely and elegant dinner one
night at the Inn, and their gourmet breakfasts were delicious, as well; we loved
sitting outside with our coffee on the breakfast room’s veranda, taking in the
truly spectacular Smokey Mountains…
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| Our Buckhorn Inn Cottage |
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| Outside our Buckhorn Inn Cottage |
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| View from our cottage bedroom... |
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| Our cottage's living room & kitchenette |
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| Our cottage's bedroom and fireplace |
Buckhorn Inn is beautifully situated on an 8-mile “loop” of artisan and
artist studios, known as the
Great Smokey Mountain Arts and Crafts Community, and we stopped at several cute places, including
Apple Annie's. But we weren't really in "shopping mode" on this trip, and our “big fun”
was to hit every, single distillery and winery in Gatlinburg-
and there are lots!- to sample (and then buy) the local “moonshine” whisky and
wine! We went first to the
Sugarland Distilling Company, where we had THE best moonshine tasting ever!! We bought their delicious
"Blockader's Blueberry Moonshine", and then moseyed on over to the
Ole Smokey
for a tasting, and bought yummy
Butterscotch Moonshine & really cool Mason Jar lids with pouring spouts! Then we grabbed a bite to eat at Bubba Gump's and went to the
Doc Collier Moonshine Distillery, and enjoyed yet Another tasting! In case you are wondering, the basic definition of
“moonshine” is simply
un-aged whisky, and it can be very raw, potent, and burning- but it can also be
smooth as silk and quite delicious! But because of its illegal “bootlegger”
past, the issue of “dry” counties (where no alcohol can legally be purchased), and a recent slew of “reality” television
programs, quite a “mystique” has grown up around moonshine! Gatlinburg’s
distilleries offer an incredible variety of flavored moonshine- everything from
blueberry and cherry and apple pie, to sweet tea, to peanut butter and jelly!!- and it was a Lot of fun to walk from distillery to
distillery doing tastings, and stopping at both the fun wine-tasting stands in
town for
Tennessee Homemade Wine and
Bootleggers Homemade Wine, as well as the fancier wineries,
Smokey Mountain Winery, (which is in an adorable Tudor "castle"), and
Sugarland Cellars!
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| Our tasting at Doc Collier Distillery |
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| Doc Collier's |
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| Wine tasting in Gatlingurg! |
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| Moonshine tasting at Ole Smokey |
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| Wine tasting at Sugarland Cellars |
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| Smokey Mountain Winery |
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| Smokey Mountain Winery |
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| THE best moonshine tasting- at the Sugarland Distillery! |
I also got to go skiing on this trip, something I have been wanting to do
for several years! Although the Elkhorn Inn is only 1.5 hours from
Winterplace,
having no friends who ski (and finding it no fun to ski alone), I rarely get
there! Gatlinburg has
“Ober Gatlinburg”,
a year-round, family-oriented amusement park and ski resort, and since we were going to Gatlinburg anyway, I packed my ski clothes in the hope that it would be cold enough for the slopes to be open! This was an
oddly and unseasonably warm February, and nowhere in or around Gatlinburg did
we see a mountain with snow on it, so I pretty much gave up hope… but the
resort was open, making snow, and functioning, and so Dan- who doesn’t downhill
ski, thanks to wonky knees from years of long-distance running in the Army-
humored me, and took me to the resort! After doing a few runs, I took a private
“refresher” lesson to get my “ski legs” back (and get a photo of me skiing LOL),
and then skied the Blue (Intermediate) Runs for a few pleasant hours in the
sun, wearing only ski pants and tee shirt, while Dan perused the rest of the
resort. Yes, it was slushy in the spring sunshine, and yes, I’ve had better
skiing,
but it was SO GREAT to get back on the slopes and ski again! I’m 57,
and I learned to ski when I was 30 and living in Germany; and when you learn
to ski on the Zugspitze in Garmish-Partinkirchen, all other ski resorts pale by
comparison! But as I still enjoy skiing, and I can still do it reasonably well,
I want to keep doing it as much as I can, anywhere I can!
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| Me, skiing at Ober Gatlinburg- "my private mountain"! |
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| Hammonds Buffalo Farm |
One of the coolest things we found while driving on Glades Road near the Inn was a
heard of
buffalo, peacefully grazing
in the spring sunshine! We had to stop to check them out, and learned that the
herd was founded by Benny Hammonds, of
Hammonds Farm!
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| Hammonds Buffalo Farm |
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| At Cooter's Place! |
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| Me & the General Lee! |
We also got to
Cooter's Place, which is totally fabulous- a true tribute to all things
Dukes of Hazzard! and I even got to "drive" the General Lee!
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| Cooter's Place, Gatlinburg |
As "railfans" who enjoy basically anything and everything that has to do with trains, we always try to stop at railroad and depot museums when we find them on the way. This trip we stopped at the the
Monterey, TN Depot Museum, which tells the story of the people of the Upper Cumberland and what brought them there...
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| At the Casey Jones Museum |
On our drive home we stopped at the
Casey Jones Museum in Jackson Tennessee, and learned about the famed railroad engineer who became a world-famous icon due to his heroic last ride, when, on April 30th, 1900, he gave his life to save all the passengers on his
train. The home he lived in with his wife and children is on the museum's property, and so we got to visit that, too, and Dan even rang the bell in the train's engine!
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| How DID they get that caboose up there?! |
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| At the Casey Jones Museum |
From Gatlinburg we went to the
Shiloh National Battleground and Cemetery, and then to
Nashville, both of which I’ve covered
in my previous
post, as we went to both those places largely to explore their
connection to the Civil War- and in Nashville to enjoy the great, live music “Music
City” is justly famed for!
Dan had stayed at a Peabody Hotel years
ago, and told me about the famous ducks marching every morning to the lobby
fountain, and as The Peabody Memphis is the only remaining Peabody Hotel- as
well as the only historic hotel left in Memphis- we simply had to stay there!
Yes, it is quite a splurge, but it is a beautiful hotel, in the great, grand
way of old and beautiful hotels, with a truly fine French Restaurant (that does
NOT serve duck! LOL), lovely service, and, of course, the Peabody Ducks! (Tip: Ask for
a room with a view! I forgot to, and as a result the view from our room was
one of rooftops- not the romantic river view I had hoped for- especially at the
price The Peabody charges!) Our
first evening we saw them in the lobby, at 5pm, having the good fortune to turn
up an hour early and meet a very nice lady who allowed us to join her table
next to the fountain- the best seats in the house! The ducks spend each day
quacking and splashing happily in the lobby fountain, and promptly at 5pm the red-uniformed
Duck Master marches them from the fountain, onto a red carpet; they walk down a
small flight of steps, and then, single file, march to the elevator, and up to
the roof to their Duck Palace! Hundreds of people come to see the ducks each
evening, so the lobby bar and balcony above the fountain were packed, and they
have “rules” that no one can stand up when the ducks are leaving the fountain! Children
are allowed to sit on either side of the red carpet, which is a nice touch, as
otherwise the kids wouldn’t be able to see the ducks at all! Hotel guests pay
hundreds of dollars for the privilege of being Honorary Duck Master, helping to
escort the ducks upstairs in the evening or downstairs in the morning, and
because of the crowd, it was literally impossible for me to get even one good
photo of the ducks leaving the lobby!
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| The Peabody Ducks in the lobby fountain! |
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| The Peabody Lobby Duck Fountain, 5pm |
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| Dan & I with the Peabody Ducks! |
But the ducks come down again in the
morning at 11am… And so… at 10am the
next morning Dan and I found conveniently ourselves up on the roof, take-out
coffee in hand, behind the Duck Palace… and when the Duck Master and the Honorary
Duck Master Kids came up to the roof to escort the ducks downstairs to the
lobby, there we were, me with my camera at the ready! And so we did get some
great photos of the ducks marching across the roof from the Duck Palace to the
elevator!
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| Peabody Ducks marching across the roof! |
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| The Peabody Ducks, on their way downstairs! |
Although being Honorary Duck Master may seem like something
only for kids, it’s very much not! I actually tried to book their Honorary Duck
Master Package, so I could guide the ducks with my very own Duck Master cane,
but it was unavailable the days we were staying, and the 5pm Honorary Duck
Masters the evening we arrived turned out to be men in their 60s!
We had a truly delicious, gourmet dinner that evening at
Chez Philippe, the Peabody’s very fine French Restaurant,
where even the butter pats are shaped like ducks! (The soaps in our guest room
were duck-shaped, too!)
Yes, it really IS All About The Ducks!
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| Desert! |
The Peabody is right downtown, and walking distance from
Beale Street, THE famed music street of
Memphis- similar, in feel, to Broadway in Nashville. I got Dan a gorgeous silk shirt
embroidered with musical instruments (on sale) at
Lansky Bros.- Elvis' tailor- so Dan would feel like a True Memphian,
and every evening we walked downtown and went from bar to bar, enjoying truly
great live bands playing a variety of music- everything from Blues, Rock, and Country, to Rockabilly and Jazz- and
we loved how safe we felt, even in the wee hours of the morning- as we did in
Nashville!
Tip: go UPSTAIRS at BB King’s- you have GOT to see the hand-painted
musician-themed tables done by self-taught southern artist Lamar Sorrento! The balcony is great a great place to enjoy the music, as you have an excellent view of
the band, and we enjoyed both the music and our BBQ Nachos- and I fell
Totally in love with the tables!
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| Beale Street music |
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| Tap... |
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| A Pumpkin Coach- just like we took in Dalat, Vietnam! |
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| Live music on Beale Street... |
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| BB King's, Beale Street |
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| Great Rockabilly! |
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| Beale Street |
These are some of the wonderful tables done by Lamar Sorrento at BB King's in Memphis
done
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| Graceland |
And then, of course, we HAD to go to
Graceland! Dan wanted to see Elvis’ vehicles and aircraft, and I
didn’t want to risk us having to stand in line for hours, so I booked us the
“VIP package”- and visiting Graceland is NOT cheap- it is seriously like going
to Disneyland! There are no longer real people guiding the tours, by the way-
for better or for worse, it’s now an “interactive self-guided tour” with an iPad… What I enjoyed most about
Graceland, having grown up in the arts (my mother was a fashion illustrator,
and I went to art school and became a professional artist, myself), was that
it’s truly a museum of 1970s décor, in all its weird and wonderful "jewel-toned" splendor- a
splendor I remember SO well from my 1970’s childhood! The Pop Yellow Room! The
famous Jungle Room with its carved Tiki décor and green grass carpet! The “Indian” tented paisley fabric ceiling and stained glass lamps in Elvis’ Pool Table Room! The
plastic slipcovers like my Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Milton had! The Poodle
Wallpaper in the bathroom! The macramé plant hangers! The beaded curtains! The
horses, the golf carts, the gun range…
It is all just Tooooooo fabulous! And because of its total fabulousness,
touring Graceland actually made me quite sad…
Elvis was so obviously having a wonderful and fun time with all his
“toys”; entertaining his friends, playing with his daughter, decorating his
amazing house… and then he died at 42- way, way, Way too young…
Before we left, we had a bite to eat at
Graceland’s "Chrome Grill", which has a great table built into a Cadillac (I want that
table!), and I got myself a pair of “gold” Elvis sunglasses!
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| Poodle wallpaper! |
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| The Yellow Room! |
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| The Pool Table Room... |
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| Ah, the 70s... |
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| The famous "Jungle Room" |
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| Elvis' gold records... |
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| Elvis' shooting range |
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| ...and his outfits... |
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| The coolest dining table in the world! |
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| LOVE this dining table! |
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| Dan & the Lisa Marie |
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| Me and the Lisa Marie! |
Our last two nights in Memphis we stayed at the
Sheraton Memphis Downtown, which has a convenient trolley stop right outside, and was walking
distance from Beale Street. American Queen included one night there in our
cruise package, and we added another. While nice enough, as chain hotels go, with a pleasant lobby
bar called the Crossroads Lounge featuring yummy house-infused spirits, including basil and hot pepper
vodkas, after you’ve stayed at
The Peabody, nothing else quite measures up!
Memphis is famed for its “Dry Rub BBQ”, and as Chef Dan
makes great (but a different style) of ribs, I wanted us to sample some Real
(and Really Good) Memphis-style BBQ and learn at least a bit about it. But now, thanks in
great measure to Food Channel and Food Network shows, celebrity chefs, and BBQ
competitions, there are literally hundreds of “famous” Memphis BBQ places, all with
5-stars,
so the question becomes: Which
One or Two Does One Go To?! And so I booked us a BBQ Tour with
“Tastin’ 'Round Town”, and we
thus got
to sample 6 different kinds of Memphis BBQ all over town, and learn about them- the
difference, for example, between the “old family recipe” places and the
“competition” places, and between saucy ribs, and dry-rub ribs! All the BBQ we had was excellent, and each one was different and unique- we even got to try the famous and trendy “BBQ spaghetti”, and BBQ
nachos- but the two stand-outs were the incredibly smoky wonderful brisket
from
A & R BBQ and the
AMAZING ribs at
Cozy Corner- and if the tour had only
taken us to Cozy Corner it would have been well worth it! I DREAM about those
ribs! Cozy Corner's smoke master was charming, and actually let us inside his magic,
room-size smoker, too!
If you are only
going to go to ONE BBQ place in Memphis, GO TO COZY CORNER!! Between the BBQ and local microbrewery
Memphis beer, we were well and truly stuffed at the end of the tour- no
need for dinner that day!- but I am
still kicking myself for not trying Cozy Corner’s BBQ Cornish Game Hen!
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| The BBQ Master of Cozy Corner! |
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| BEST MEMPHIS RIBS: COZY CORNER!!! |
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| Learning about Memphis BBQ... |
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| The Cozy Corner Smoker- house of foodie miracles! |
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| Tastin' 'Round Town |
On the BBQ Tour we also learned that we could
drink with the goats at Silky O’Sullivan’s,
one of Beale Street’s landmark bars, and so we went back later that evening and
did just that!
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| Drinking with Silky's goats! |
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| Silky's very contented goats, at their Goat Palace! |
During our four days in Memphis we spent a LOT of time just walking around and enjoying this delightful city, periodically stopping for a coffee or a drink...
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| Downtown Memphis |
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| The Memphis Bike Bar! |
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| Me in my Elvis glasses! |
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| The floor of the Memphis Cotton Exchange |
...and the excellent
Fire Museum of Memphis, America's premier interactive fire museum, located at the legendary Fire Engine House No. 1, where we enjoyed their interactive exhibits, including “driving” a fire truck around Memphis!
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| Putting out fires... |
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| ...and taking turns driving the Fire Truck! |
But the real “hidden gem” of Memphis is the small Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art,
which is also downtown. Their collection is truly and totally extraordinary,
and the life-size inlaid animals, carved jade carriages, and fantastically
intricate carved ivory literally took our breath away…
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| The Billy Bass Adoption Center at the Flying Fish! |
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| Lunch! |
Our last day in Memphis we treated ourselves to delish,
briny oysters at the
Flying Fish,
Memphis’ “Lent Central", and got a real kick out of their
hilarious Billy Bass Adoption Center, and their slogan:
BE NICE OR LEAVE!
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| OYSTERS! |
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| "Lent Central"- Memphis' "Flying Fish" |
And then, happily full of BBQ, oysters, and Tennessee
moonshine, and our heads full of great music, ducks, buffalo, and goats, we boarded our
gorgeous
American Queen Paddlewheel Steamboat, and began our cruise down the
Mississippi to N’awlins!
