The Smokies, TVA-land and now West Virginia

Dinner on Saturday night was the equal of the night before. Our wine, though, a Raptor Ridge Pinot Noir from the Russian River was a gem. We thoroughly enjoyed it. John's dinner included the specialty prawns, and a veal chop parmegianno, grilled. Ben's meal was halibut,with a she crab soup starter. Wonderful, finished off with sorbets.

Sunday we got into the car, wine included, and headed north to the Smokies. First stop was the bilingual Cherokee Indian Reservationto find wedding presents for this summer's upcoming fetes. Great fun looking over baskets, cherokee handiworks. In the end we picked up some wonderful cheeseboards as gifts which were designed by a local Cherokee who is now very old and not expected to be producing them much longer. They will become treasures, we hope.
The Great Smoky National Park is normally very very busy. The main roadway through the park climbs up through various climates ending at 6000 feet before descending into Tennessee on the north side. The vistas throughout change as the foliage changes from deep spring at the bottom to almost late winter on the peaks. The vistas of the blue haze of the mountains are as good as any seen on east coast mountains.We stopped and clambered around waterfalls, looked at early spring blooms and then arrived in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a tourist town which we quickly left. Our inn, the Mountain View Inn in Dandridge about 20 miles away provided lakeside views with the Smokies in the distance. Lovely and restful.<

Along the way, we stopped for coffee at the Strange Brews coffee house and Internet cafe, where the owner has nearly been put out of business by the seven month closing on the local interstate 40 due to a landslide. Fortunately the road reopened on Monday. Very 1960s-1970s hippie, tied died, but still good coffee and a change to check email.

We had a pizza at one of the local restaurants and headed off to sleep. Yesterday morning it began to rain as we left Dandridge, but we stopped to look at one of the Tennessee Valley Authority's 1940s dams that create Lake Douglas.The dam began to release waters while we were there which provided us with a small show. It really is amazing how quickly the water level downstream rises as the dam opens some of its outlets.

Then to the road. We made two stops along the way to West Virgina. One in Bristol, which straddles the Tennessee-Virginia line, running down the middle of the main street, and the second in Marion, Virginia where we stopped for lunch.

Our coffee in Bristol (what else would we stop for?) was very good at the Manna Bagel and Coffee restaurant. I enjoyed my latte, Ben his XXX, in a tin ceiling store reviatlized into a coffee shop. After a little antiquing, we headed off again.

Come lunch time we left the interstate for the town of Marion. Marion is like most small towns around here, with an "historic" downtown of mostly 1910-1930 buildings surrounded by urban suburban strip sprawl. In the downtown we found Handsome Molly's Bistro, run by a couple who also run a local Lutheran camp and moved there from Arizona. The food was excellent: I had a Cuban-style pannini and a salad, Ben had a veggie pannini He enjoyed another XXX-dry skim cappucino. We ended up talking with the owners for about 40 minutes before coming the Fayetteville in West Virginia.

Here we are comfortable in the Morris Harvey Bed and Breakfast, enjoying a good yoghurt brek with fresh strawberries, and are now off to the New and Gauley Rivers and the Kanawha Falls.

Last night was a high point of the trip when we met our friend Arnie's girl friend, Kathy. Even though they have been dating for nearly a year we had not had the pleasure of meeting her. Good tapas style food, fun and conversation at the Sedona Grille on Rt 16 in Fayetteville.