North Carolina trip

I'll try to do this as briefly as possible, yet still somehow convey the pertinent impressions.

Tuesday, 4/19/05

My birthday, but I don't mind the fact that we'll be on the road all day. It's sunny and warm, we're wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts, and I've just cracked open a jar of Nutella for breakfast. We even leave within 15 minutes of when Tim announced our departure time would be. Life is good.

The further south we get, we notice a growing number of redbud trees blooming along the sides of the interstates. It's like a purple haze in the woods. They only got more and more abundant as we traveled on. I wish I could have snapped a pic of how many there were at times at the wooded edges, mile after mile. But of course the best floral landscapes were all along the highway, doing 80 mph with no good places to pull off.

Our first stop was at Jungle Jim's, in the Cincinatti area. Yes, it's a grocery store. A grocery store with section of a monorail tram in front, along with life-size statues of elephants and giraffes. A grocery store in which if you don't find that insanely exotic ingredient you need, you ain't gonna find it. We spent over 2 HOURS in there, just browsing the aisles. Everything from local Amish pickled eggs to live fish to Thai curry pastes and plenty of packages with no English whatsoever on them. When we'd covered mostly everything and our eyes were glazing over, we picked up a few things from the exhaustive deli area and had lunch on a bench out front, enjoying the kitschy elephant fountain and cheesy soundtrack of screeching monkeys. It was just too fun.

We continued south, over the river onward to Lexington. Kentucky was so green and beautiful, and by this time there were dogwoods blooming along with the redbuds, lacy and white in the woods. Lots more green leaves, too. We saw rolling green hills, white fences and then the highway wound through more mountainous country. Yvonne, we thought of you as we passed numerous billboards for the original Kentucky Fried Chicken museum in Corbin, KY. Since it wasn't too far off the highway, we found it and stopped in. No postcards, but they had the original kitchen, pots and pans and utensils from the first restaurant. Before it spread across the US, and over to Germany, here's where Colonel Sanders started the whole KFC thing.

Tim wanted to pick up a few beers that we can't find in Michigan, so we stopped at a place called the Liquor Barn in Lexington. We were also ready for a coffee break, and there happened to be a Starbuck's across the road, so that was a nice break. We couldn't believe how hot it was sitting outside. It was like instant summer. The iced lattes went down very nicely.

We managed to find Calhoun's
without too much problem in Knoxville TN and enjoyed dinner and a beer or two there. Tim had a salad piled with grilled chicken and country ham (ham and other salt-cured meats were to feature in many meals the coming days), and I couldn't resist the pulled pork sandwich and fried green tomatoes. While we were eating we got the news that a new pope had been elected, and were shocked at how fast it had happened.

On the way to the motel in Sevierville, we spotted a Lodge iron cookware outlet store, and made a point to find it the next morning. We ignored the many billboards and tourist brochures for Dollywood and everything associated with it. A long day, but all in all, a good birthday.

Wednesday, April 20th

A mediocre motel breakfast did not dampen our spirits, because we knew there was plenty of good stuff waiting out there. Besides, I had along my box of Leonidas chocolates from Tim. These Belgian morsels are only sold in a few places in the US, and would you believe Howell, Michigan is one of them?

We went nuts in the Lodge store. The prices were good, and we found lots of stuff we knew other people would like too. So in addition to weighing down the back end of the car with cast iron pans for ourselves, we found gifts for other people. My friend Sharon had introduced me to the Pro Logic line, which comes already seasoned. No nasty, smoky odor in the house when you season cast iron yourself, it's all ready to go. I picked up a small skillet, a grill pan, a biscuit pan, and I need to try out my new 14-inch pizza pan. As my brother Chris demonstrated in the coming days, it's good for way more than pizza. The toast you get off it might just make you think about giving up the toaster.

We finally got out of Sevierville and headed south. We drove around Douglas lake for a bit and then went into the Smoky Mountains themselves. More flowering trees to admire and spectacular views. Our goal was to find the Sunburst Trout company. Finding Sunburst, NC was a bit of a challenge, but we happened to round one of many loops in the narrow road running beside a winding creek, and there it was. No one was around, but we saw people down by the trout ponds. They waved us down, and accompanied by a small herd of dogs, we went down the hill to see if we could buy some smoked trout. Unfortunately they told us they were closed for business on Wednesdays, and they couldn't stop what they were doing at the moment. What were they doing? Vaccinating the trout. They were scooping big netfuls of flapping trout, dumping them on a table and using a vaccine gun to inject them. I asked one of the women what they were being vaccinated for, and she didn't know. I later Googled several fish farming and aquaculture websites, but there are so many microorganisms that can infect trout, who knows which one it could have been. I think they took pity on us when we said we had come all the way from the Detroit MI area, so one of the younger men led us up to the big barn and sold us a couple of small packets of smoked trout. We thanked them and shortly after enjoyed it in the shade of a Kiwanis picnic pavillion in the paper mill town of Canton, NC. Very clean tasting, and not drowning in salt or sugar. They use all natural food for the trout, and it seems to make a big difference in the flavor.

Now it was time to make tracks eastward. A brief stop in Statesville for another iced latte (the day was even warmer than yesterday), and a stop in Greensboro to drop off a box of beer to a Beer Advocate friend. Chris was the only pharmacist on duty in the Target store, and could not leave the premises. No one gave us a second look as we walked in with a large heavy box of out of state beer.

We found Chris and Lindsey's house around 630 PM, and sat down to wine, beer, and grilled chicken and beef kebabs and baked potatoes. The area where they live is unbelievably wooded. In fact the entire area is full of so many trees, it may very well look like a woods from a plane in the air, not a residential area. They are to the point of deciding which trees to remove, there are so many of them dropping debris and pine pollen everywhere. Over the next three days, the car became dusted with a yellow coating of pollen. But it's beautiful there, and the leaves were nearly full on the trees, quite a contrast to Michigan where we barely had buds. And we hit the azaleas nearly at their peak. There is hardly a yard or corporate property without them. Chris said the rest of the year they are just green shrubs, but now they were covered with blossoms, every color from snow white to eyeball-scalding fuschia. We were also in awe of the fact that people had already been mowing their lawns, and we sniffed the green scent of cut grass. Dandelions were already going to seed, too.

Thursday, April 21st

Greystone lake is a good-sized reservoir right behind the house, so after a very light breakfast, we took an access path from the street down to the dam. We could see how our nephews just loved it here last fall. Fish, frogs and turtles everywhere you look. The path around the lake is probably a mile, and along the way we saw herons, various birds, and Canadian geese with a cluster of fuzzy yellow goslings. We gave them plenty of room as we walked by them, but we still got hissed at.

We admired the many homes surrounding the lake. They've taken advantage of the lake view with huge decks and windows. Chris surprised us by telling us they didn't even know the lake was so close to their house when they bought it. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise to find out they had access to it. We enjoyed walks around it every day we were there except Sunday.

Chris took us to a restaurant/kitchen supply store in Raleigh he had become quite fond of for purchasing cooking gadgets and toys. And we fell in love with it, too. No bullshit, no high prices, just functional, good kitchen tools. We bought a few during the entire hour we wandered around in there. It brought back memories for Chris and I, having worked in restaurants or college cafeterias in previous lives. Lots of large stainless steel pots, pans and other fun things.

We were ravenous by the time we got out of there, so we went to the Farmer's Market. North Carolina Seafood is right there in the market, and this is another no-frills place. You get a styrofoam container of deep-fried goodness. Normally deep fried food is something we completely avoid, but that day it was heaven. Not heavy or greasy at all. The long lunch crowd line probably kept everything coming hot and fast. We had fries, slaw, hushpuppies and scallops, oysters and spicy crawfish, washed down with sweet tea. Sitting under a tent on a picnic table enjoying the almost summerlike temperatures, it was perfect.

The Farmer's Market was a lot like summer, too. We would not have seen this bounty of plants, flowers and produce until sometime around July here in Michigan. Chris found the citronella-scented geraniums he was searching for to help keep the mosquitoes off the deck, and we picked up a few items for dinner that night. We moved into the buildings to check out the other stalls, and wandered among shelf after shelf of local preserves, honey, local crafts, and candy. Chris picked up some country ham and bacon, much to the approval of the seller who sounded an awful lot like Boomhauer from' King of the Hill'.

We took all our booty home, and then walked a few blocks to the Sawmill, a bar and restaurant. We sat out on the patio and watched the traffic and clouds go by, and drank beer from local breweries, things we can't get at home. By this time Lindsey was home from work, and we prepared a dinner of an assortment of grazing type foods from the farmers' market. Grilled asparagus, pickled okra and watermelon rind, fresh tomato bruschetta, cheese, almonds, sopressata sausage. Of course there was more beer and wine, and we finished up another perfect day with long talks around the dining room table.

Friday, April 22nd

The eating was just getting started. I had wanted a big 'southern' breakfast sometime during our trip, so Chris roasted some potatoes on the pizza pan with rosemary and olive oil, fried up the country ham and bacon, and made drop biscuits in my new Lodge biscuit pan. We had to see if it worked, after all. And it did, beautifully. Alton Brown's biscuit recipe is a very good one.

After all that, we had to take another walk around the lake. The goslings were still in the same place as yesterday, so Lindsey got to see them. We saw even more wildlife than the day before, including a frog (or something!) that sounded like one of the creatures Jabba the Hutt was either eating out of a fishbowl or knocking off a ledge. Two days in a row, in the same spot near a bridge whatever it was leaped into the water and scared the crap out of us. We saw snakes, too, which was an even scarier sight. Big brown things, swimming like miniature pythons in the creek.

We drove to downtown Raleigh to check out the sights there. On the way we admired many beautiful homes and flowering dogwoods and azaleas. We walked around a bit, admired the Governor's mansion, and then after all that hard work, went in search of much needed refreshment. The Flying Saucer has something like 200 beers. We only sampled a fraction of them, but we enjoyed another warm summer like day outside watching the clouds billow up and float by.

Dinner was a simple grilled chicken salad that night. I think we have finally learned not to eat until we are stuffed, something we have done so many times on vacations. Only twice did I actually eat enough to feel very full. In previous times, that would have happened several times a day.

Saturday, Apri 23rd

Breakfast was sort of a phase two of the big breakfast theme. It was nice to spread it out over two days. We enjoyed cheese grits with the leftover bacon crumbled on it, and scrambled eggs with all the grilled/roasted leftovers from the previous 3 days tossed in. We took our last walk around the lake, and since Lindsey didn't feel like going with us, Chris took us to Southern Season, a monstrous gourmet food and kitchen emporium. It would have tested anyone's stamina, I could see why Lindsey wanted to have a quiet afternoon at home. After a while we just sort of zoned out, there was just so much stuff in there. We still managed to spend over two hours though, that's how much fun it was. A lot of it was overpriced. We saw quite a few things we could get more cheaply in other places. And samples...plenty of tasty samples. It was fun to admire the imported Italian dinnerware, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver dishes and cookware, but....turn the pieces over, and there was definitely sticker shock.

We had coffee in the Weathervane coffee shop there, wandered through a few more stores, and then made the all important plans for dinner. We split up, Lindsey and I off to Stein Mart to do some birthday gift shopping for our niece, and the guys off to Lewis BBQ Restaurant for takeout. Lindsey and I saw some Yellowtail Pino Grigio in the grocery store while we were picking up some buns and pickles, and thought it just might go down well. We took a tour down a few streets near their neighborhood and admired more beautiful houses. Meanwhile the guys drove 15 miles ('It's a bit out of the way, but it will be worth it,' said Chris) for barbecued pulled pork, hushpuppies, cole slaw and the much raved about banana pudding. Somehow we'd gotten talking about the carrot raisin salad from Chick-Fil-A too, so they picked up a container of that. We feasted until we were pleasantly full. All on things we could not get around home. We wondered what the big deal was with Chick-Fil-A. It's just a fast food chicken place, for cryin' out loud. We had seen news footage of a grand opening of one in Oceanside CA last December, with people camped out in the parking lot the night before to be the first ones in. Okay, we wouldn't quite go that far, but we now know the carrot raisin salad and chicken nuggets are very good. Places like these are so successful, because they stick with one thing, and do it well. McDonald's, take heed...

That darn banana pudding...that could be made at home, too. It might just have to be. It's the simplest kind of comfort food. Vanilla pudding, sliced bananas, and vanilla wafer cookies layered throughout and wonderfully softened. And the whole thing still warm.

We spent more hours around the table, talking and looking at pictures. Lindsey had a whole album of pics from her study abroad months in Australia, and that was fun to look through.

Sunday, April 24th

We hit the road just after 9am. It was hard to leave, but knowing we had at least 12 hours of traveling ahead of us made it imperative we get going. And we know we'll be back there again.

We had to try one more local fast food place, so we found the Biscuitville in Mebane. Another example of how McDonald's started out way back when and did so well. All they do is biscuits. And they do them well. We got another infusion of salt in the form of country ham biscuit sandwiches. We are so going to have to back off on the sodium-laden foods this week.

We saw the first snow before we were even out of the state of North Carolina. Around Mt. Airy, we noticed white flakes coming down, and my hope that they were just fallen flower petals did not materialize. It snowed harder and harder, until the entire tops of the hills were white. All through Virginia and West Virginia it snowed more or less continuously. It changed to rain somewhere in West Virginia, and southern Ohio. But soon it turned to wet snow again. We were still admiring the flowering trees, but now they were covered in snow. It made it hard to even see the white lacy dogwoods, but it looked neat on the flowering crabapples and redbuds.

By the time we reached our target for dinner, Chipotle on the east side of Columbus, it was getting toward 6pm. We got covered in wet snow just getting the short distance from the car to the restaurant.

What's the big deal with Chipotle? Everything is fresh and made to order on the spot. Kind of like Subway, only with Mexican food. And there is no ground beef anywhere. You get shredded barbacoa or chicken or whatever. All the condiments are fresh and chunky and good. We had wonderful fat burritos and guacamole and chips while we watched the Ohio State University students come and go at a rapid clip to enjoy the place, too.

Places were closing, and it was not the best weather for walking outside, but we noticed the restaurant was in a mall of some of our favorite stores. Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, Smith & Hawkens garden shop, as well as some intriguing looking other eateries, including a Cheesecake Factory. There was even a Trader Joe's there. But we had no time to dilly-dally, and the car was already crammed with souvenirs, so we got on the highway again.

Ohio must have gotten dumped on with rain days earlier, because we saw so many ditches and creeks overflowing with muddy water, and water standing in fields. Mile after mile, and in the same area we had seen lots of torn and broken tree branches on the way down. They had gotten hit with some ice and snow storms in the late winter. Now this.

We thought maybe it would stop snowing and clear up, because we saw a spectacular sunset about the time we were passing Toledo. Fiery purple and orange filling half the sky. But then the sun set, and it just snowed harder. Luckily the roads were only wet, not slippery at all. The last 70 miles in Michigan were the worst. The ground was completely white, and the wind and snow battered the car. We pulled up the driveway into a winter wonderland. Snow clinging to the trees and deep on the ground. The patio furniture was covered. But 24 hours later, it was almost completely gone. By the end of Monday, it looked more like the place we'd left on Tuesday. We still have a long way to go to catch up with the verdant greenery we saw in North Carolina, but spring is definitely coming. The daffodils are a little knocked down from the heavy wet snow, but they look just as fresh as when we left them.

*Sigh* Back to work tonight. But at least we have the weekend to look forward to. Chris and Lindsey will be here Friday afternoon, and we will spend the afternoon in Jackson partying at Scott and Ann's Saturday. Scott will turn 40 in grand style, and we will have more food and family togetherness.