National Parks Rock!

After leaving Mystic Springs, we spent the next several days hiking in the many National Parks located in the southwest part of the US... We were so looking forward to getting away from people, cities, and busy days of sight seeing. We wanted to just enjoy nature and the beauty of this part of the country. It was awesome. So far, it seems that the funniest parts of our trip (and blog) have revolved around the many characters we've run into. This part of our trip might not be the most entertaining. So, we're going to just give a brief summary of those days...

We left Mystic Springs on Tuesday morning and headed to Bryce Canyon in Utah. CP - terrifying. My fear of heights had me grabbing on to trees. It was so high and steep I actually got dizzy and weak in the knees while SCOTT was off on an edge begging for a picture... But even I will admit, it was beautiful...

SM - Bryce was an awesome sight. The colors ranged from vibrant reds and browns to muted whites and greens. The hike and the trails themselves were on the weaker side, but the absolute beauty of the canyon was overwhelming. Bryce is a must see for beauty seekers. Unless willing to make an entire day or more of a hike, hikers beware.

We pushed off from Bryce and made our way through some small Utah towns and off-the-beaten-path roads on our way to Jacob's Lake, Arizona - the closest "town" to the Grand Canyon's North Rim. The "town" consisted of an inn, a gas station, and a rotary. We stayed at the Kaibab Family Campground a quarter of a mile from town. The campground was the closest full-hookup RV campground outside of the park. They'd sold us on the namesake of the town - Jacob's Lake. After hiking a bit at Bryce, we were dying to cool off and plunge into the lake. "Lake" was/is an overstatement. It was more like a small pond - maybe twice the size of a swimming pool. And there were horses grazing around it... and a "Private Property - No Trespassing" sign... not very welcoming for a swim.

CP put on an amazing spread for dinner that night consisting of homemade pasta salad with whatever vegetables we had in the Rv and Benton's bacon (!!!), and also some sausage, and a tiny little steak. It was a meat-themed dinner. There is something very primal about cooking meat out in the wilderness. It just smells and tastes better than in your backyard.

We got up early and headed for the mother of all canyons. The road from town to the North Rim is 44 miles long. 44 miles of trees, hills, plateaus, valleys, and our RV Mel chugging along. CP had mentioned on our way that others had told her that the brain can hardly comprehend what it sees at the Grand Canyon. True dat. From the North Rim vantage point (at the top of the canyon), the colored, striated peaks and plateaus stretched as far as the eye could see. On top of that, you can't see down to the bottom of the canyon. It's over a mile deep. CP didn't get as close to the edge to peek as SM. But amazingly enough, she ventured further than the day before at Bryce. Maybe she's getting used to heights? Maybe not. Later in the day while on a fenced in viewing platform she suddenly collapsed to her knees and had to crawl back to solid ground. But, hey, at least she got out there!

We decided to take a more strenuous hike at the Grand Canyon than the prior day. We settled on the North Kaibab trail. The actual start of the trail was a flat 2-mile walk from where we parked. We walked the two miles for our warm up. At the time we started the real hike, the temps were pushing 90. Unlike the many prior hikes we'd done in New Hampshire, the hikes of the Canyon start downhill, saving the hardest - the climb - for the end. It's disheartening descending first. Every step reminds you that you still have to take that very same step uphill. It may seem short, but we hiked two miles down that trail. (The full trail is 14 miles and impossible to do the down and back in one day) The kicker... it descended 1,400 feet over that distance. A pretty steep drop over that span. We must have gone through 25 switch backs to get to our ending point. The views from the lower vantage point up to the top of the Canyon were pretty amazing and well worth it. But the haul back up was brutal. There were two things working against us: the heat - now near 100 - and the altitude. We are used to hiking to peaks in NH around 4,000 feet above sea level. The Canyon starts at about 7,000 feet above sea level. Our lungs just couldn't suck in enough of that thin oxygen. Needless to say, our uphill hike was a slow trek coupled with frequent stops to slow the heart rate. Don't forget we had to walk two more miles back to the RV too.

After rehydrating as best as possible, we called it an early evening.

Zion... we'd planned on leisurely sleeping in and heading to Zion National Park in Utah late morning. However, we'd found out that the park entrance on the side where we were located would close at 9am for repairs. The entrance was 2 hours away from Jacob's Lake. So much for sleeping in.

We got to Zion at about 8:30am. The forecast for the day - sunny, of course and temps to 105!!! Unlike the Grand Canyon, access to Zion National Park is at the bottom of it's canyon. Since we killed ourselves descending and climbing the day before, we decided to take a much different and flatter hike - The Narrows. The trail starts along a relatively flat and well manicured path winding next to a river for 1.1 miles. Then it just ends. The river itself becomes the trail at that point. It was phenomenal!!!

Over thousands of years, the same river that we hiked had carved it's own path hundreds of feet through the earth creating Zion's canyon. At certain points of the hike, there was nothing but the water of the river running next to canyon walls on either side - each hundreds of feet tall. Absolutely breath-taking. About 60% of the hike was in water ranging from ankle to waist deep. The other 40% was along the rocky and sandy shores of the river. We hiked down the river (upstream actually) 3.1 miles to a small tributary that fed into the much larger river. At parts, wading through the rapids of the water flow was tough. CP had snagged a couple of walking sticks at the start of the hike - MUCH NEEDED for balance through the rapids. Neither of us fell in the water. However, SM was not so lucky on the return trip, slipping and falling of a boulder onto a sandy part of the shore. Thank God nothing was hurt - except for his pride. Most importantly, the camera remained dry and undamaged.

We found that hiking back through the river - downstream - was much easier and quicker. We also found the hike to be seemingly cool considering it was 105 degrees out. A good portion of the hike was in the shade and of course we had a limitless supply of cool water keeping our body temps down. We finished the overall 9.4 mile hike and felt like we needed just a bit more. So, we decided to hike another trail - the Lower Pools. Maybe a nice cool swim was in order. What a waste of time and energy. The mile or so hike was on a nice path and all, but we no longer had the cool water to combat the heat of the day. We kept our hopes up thinking we could cool off at the pools. No such luck. The "pools" were stale and murky and park signs were posted everywhere that read no swimming. That trail was a bust, but all in all, the day was a huge success.

At 6:30 pm, the temp at the RV park in St George, Utah - 25 miles from Zion - was still 103!! We're still not sure how the people there do it.

SM - I think that I must have been under the spell of Mystic Springs - maybe a pull toward communing with nature and the hippy inside me. Who knows? But, I noticed - let's say - a somewhat unpleasant odor coming from the left side of my body when I awoke. After lifting my left arm (only my left), I could smell something I can only describe as a cross between an overly "mature" Limburger cheese and an Italian sub gone horribly wrong. Then I realized it was Friday morning. Then I realized we'd been hiking for four days. Then I remembered I hadn't applied deodorant since leaving Aspen on Monday morning. I'd bathed, you know in hot springs and an occasional shower in the RV before bed, but somehow had forgotten the all-important deodorant step. Cost of the fix - $0 for a shower, and $.32 for a few swipes of Gillette Cool Wave.

CP- I have no comment regarding Scott's deodorant debacle. It's too hard to type while covering my nose.

When we got back to Mel after smelling a bit fresher, we noticed her cabin was strangely warm. The rooftop A/C unit seemed like it wasn't working. UGH! We made an appointment to have an RV mechanic take a look. Turns out that it was frozen. When we hiked Zion, we'd left the generator running and the A/C on to keep Murphy from cooking inside the RV. The unit only had a short break until we fired it up again once we got to our campground in St George. Solution - let it melt off and don't run it so long in 100+ degree weather. Who knew? Cost of fix - $0.

As most of you all know, we've had some computer issues on this trip. The refurbished Dell that we brought was having a hugely difficult time processing much of anything using the free wi-fi at the RV parks. It pretty much wasn't allowing us to share any pictures with you because it would not downloaded them to the blog. We had saved all our photos to the Dell's hard drive. As CP shared in the last post, we ended up losing several hundred photos of the trip when the Dell failed to transfer them to another drive. It was heartbreaking losing the visual documentation of the trip so far. The words of our trip can be recreated, but the images of us in that time and space cannot. When we get back to beantown, we'll be sending out both the camera and the Dell's drives to a data recovery specialist to see if we can get back the deleted files. (Fingers crossed- there were some really cool pics on there) Enough!!! We bought a Mac on our way to getting the A/C serviced. Hopefully we'll be able to give you guys some pix soon - live and in color. Cost of the MAC - too much, but well worth it. Cost of data recovery - not looking forward to finding out. Cost of our pix - priceless.

With those ordeals behind us, we hit the open road. Judy Garmin had us leave Utah, dip south back in to Arizona, then head north and west into Nevada. After driving through most of the state, we can attest that there is really nothing there. From Las Vegas in the southeast to Reno in the northwest, there is nothing but desert brush, some cacti, some mountains covered in desert brush and cacti, and of course Area 51. What trip would be complete without traveling on the extraterrestrial highway? It is a 98-mile stretch of road that cuts through the Nevada desert. There is only one "town" - Rachel - on the way. Rachel is made up of 7 or 8 broken down trailers, a "convenience" store (more like shack), and a host of falling down buildings. Creepy! We blew by doing about 75mph, hoping not to be abducted by aliens - more likely it's residents.

We'd already driven 6 hours or so and were a bit weary from the day's activity. The next town on the map and in our travel guides was Tonopah, NV. Yikes! It was on oversized Rachel. Well, not really that bad. But, we immediately looked at each other and decided there was no way we were going to stay overnight. We speedily left Tonopah behind us and headed another couple of hours for eastern California and Yosemite National Park. We pulled into our beautiful and lake side campground in Bridgeport, CA around 9pm and crashed.

We awoke the next morning with Yosemite only about 20 miles away and a final destination of Lake Tahoe in our sights. We decided pretty early on that since the past few days of hiking were a bit strenuous on the body, we were going to take a leisurely hike in Yosemite. The park is very different from the parks in Utah and Arizona. It's mountainous with lots of tree and creeks running through it. Amazingly enough, there were still un-melted snow drifts on the sides of the road and some snow on the trails we hiked. We let Murphy out of the RV for a short run off leash. This trip had been awesome to see Murphy love and convene with his surroundings. Since the weather was much cooler in Yosemite, he was beside himself to get out and run - where in the desert he was hesitant to do much more than just his business outside of the RV.

After hiking for about a an hour and a half and catching some really cool views of the rapid water running through the park, we both decided that Yosemite was a park well worth returning to for the purposes of hiking. We wish we had more time to spend there, but Lake Tahoe was calling.

Pictures from Mystic Springs

Around this time, as many of you know, we lost a whole bunch of pictures from the trip during when trying to transfer files to a flash drive... very sad... but we were able to find some pictures online of other peoples trips to Mystic Springs- because THIS place deserves pictures!

Some pictures taken from the Mystic Springs website...

What a long strange trip it's been...

If you all hadn't noticed, we've been moving along at a fairly rigorous pace getting through a lot of places in a short period of time. We have also spent most of our time in and around cities, towns, and breweries. Well after 2 weeks, we were both aching to dry out a bit and spend some time enjoying nature. Utah and Arizona were quite a welcomed site on our horizon.

Being from the northeast and not having spent much time in the southwest, we knew hitting the Grand Canyon as well as a few other National Parks in that area were a must. So we left Aspen (each with a Cochon hangover) and headed in the direction of Arizona. On our way, SM had located an RV park located at some hot springs in Monroe, Utah - Mystic Springs was in our sights.

The co-pilot (CP) realized that with only a slight detour on our 5 hour drive to the hot springs, we could stop at Arches National Park. We'd heard great things about the park, so we decided to swing by and check out our sources. They were right! It was truly amazing. We left there wishing we were able to spend more time. It's an incredible place with so many things worth seeing. We really regretted not planning more time there, but when you are trying to see as much of the country as you can in 7 weeks, you have to make some tough decisions... this was a really tough one.

We are so glad we went. Although we only had time for a short visit, we were able to climb up to Double Arch and see a whole bunch of amazing rock formations on our drive through the park. We had a quick picnic lunch and headed on our way. If you are a hiker, want to do several small hikes, and see a bunch of different things in one park - Arches is your place!

Monroe Utah... let's see... there isn't much there. At all. Some farms. A gas station (SM - I saw a real cowboy - chaps, spurs, and everything!). A street light? We drove into town as the sun was setting. Excited for the springs, but growing weary at each passing moment. We drove down a paved road towards the springs and onto a pot-holed dirt road - their "driveway".

SM got out to register at the office and got a good feel of what we were getting into. The description won't even come close to describing the true atmosphere. In the dirt lot, there was an empty hay hauling cart from the 50's and a pick up from the early 60's. Neither looked as if the'd been used since then. To the left of the "office" was an empty swimming pool - again not looking as if it got much use since the 70's. There were a few small empty-looking barns scattered around as well. SM was greeted in the office by a late 40-something wearing a Grateful Dead hat. Ahhh.... light shines on marble head! It still felt creepy, but less so...

We were shown our RV spot. There were actually three sections of the "campground". There were two long rows of permanent trailers on one side (scarily run-down) and an open campground for tents on the other. The final section consisted of two rows for maybe 8 RVs in each row. But, the first row was actually uninhabitable by RVs as it was full of broken-down busses from the 60's and 70's. It felt as if a bus-loads of hippies pulled up to enjoy the springs, their busses broke down, and then they thumbed their way out of town. We pulled into our spot in the second row.

It was now dark and we were not able to see the full magnitude of our surroundings - especially what we had come for - the Mystic Springs. Again, it was a bit discomforting. But, what the hell. Let's go swimming. SM feeling a bit more adventurous than CP, donned a bathing suit and we both headed back toward the office. We walked up some dirt steps to the back of the office building. Now, the moon and stars were the only thing illuminating the landscape. We passed through a chain linked fence and past a sign that read: NO alcohol, glass, nudity, or digging. The first two were understandable. Heck, even the third. No digging? In front of us were two somewhat large metal pools. We could also see a hill and some more steps leading up past the pools. We weren't feeling that adventurous, so we stayed at the pools.

It was really dark. We couldn't see the bottom of the pools and were now tight-rope walking without a net. Splash.... SM went up and over the side and into the pool. It was awesome! Like a hot tub with the source being a natural hot spring. The pool was only maybe three feet deep. SM - I know that CP was wicked jealous. So she tentatively stuck her feet in. Then she thought for a minute and jumped in, fully clothed.

The next morning, we got up and connected the dots of the campground we had investigated the night before. It wasn't far off from what we thought. From their own website.....

DISCLAIMER: Mystic Hot Springs is a one of a kind place. You will not find it anywhere else. Some say it's like stepping back in time to the 60's or 70's. Things are imperfect. We realize that there's a lot we could do to improve it. We understand that things are always changing. We have learned to appreciate it for what it is at this moment.

CP - My favorite part of this is that Scott located this place and, presumably, read the website before deciding we should check it out. What about that disclaimer made SM think this was a cool place to stay? SM - I missed the disclaimer when looking into the place. But, what a cool time machine!!

Also from their website...

The water comes out of the ground at 168 degrees Fahrenheit at 200 gallons/minute. As the water flows, the minerals cool and form layers of rock. This spring has been flowing out continuously for millions of years. Over time, the mineral buildup has created a mound that is a mile accross, 200 ft deep, 200 yards wide. As the water travels through a man-made channel (That's the digging they meant!!!), it cools down, and it is then contained in 8 bathtubs and 2 concrete pools. The pools and tubs are kept between 98 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit. In the morning, with the sun rising over the hills, we went for a second dip in the springs. This time we went all the way to the bathtubs up on the hillside with awesome views of the valley below and the mountains on the other side. We sat there for almost an hour mesmerized by the experience. This place was a trip. Although we're not sure we could recomend it to all the people in our lives- we are SO glad we went. This place was a one of a kind experience and surely will be one of the coolest places we visit on this trip. We will be posting some "borrowed" pictures of this place in a separate blog entry...

Rocky Mountain Hi!

After a very long drive from Lawrence to Boulder (CP slept this time), we arrived downtown and realized that we had nowhere to stay! We'd called a campground close to downtown, but it had no openings. We were temporarily stuck... After discussing the options (arguing) for a bit and calling a few more places, we found a local hotel that not only allowed dogs but could also fit the RV for the night. We were in!

We unpacked at the Univeristy Inn of Boulder and took real showers with CLEAN towels. We indulged ourselves and watched a little TV while we were getting ready. If you can believe after 2 weeks of no TV (besides the Celtics game), we settled on watching MTV. There was nothing else on the other 35 channels!! It was some reality show about stuttering teenagers. (Wow, now that I read that, it sounds weird) We then hopped on our bikes to the downtown Boulder area of Pearl Street. We had some locally brewed beers and a yummy chicago style buffalo chicken pizza. We walked up and down the street with SM sitting on a few benches as CP checked a few shops out. We stopped at Boulder Baked, a bake to order cookie shop where we grabbed three cookies for the road.

We headed back to the hotel for some much needed blogging (SM) and sleeping (CP). While CP slept, SM quietly giggled watching Betty White on Saturday Night live. God bless her!!!

Boulder is a beautiful city. Surrounded by some of the prettiest mountains. You felt like you could actually reach out and touch them they were so close. We were sad to not be able to stick around long enough to enjoy all the outdoors has to offer around there. We had to be in Aspen by 2:30 that day. So after a great nights sleep in a real bed, we stopped at Breadworks, a local bakery, for some coffee and breakfast (the yummiest swiss cheese and scallion popover ever!) and hit the road.

Next stop - Aspen and the Grand Cochon!!!

The road to Aspen was gorgeous(!!!) and hilly. Along the way we stopped at the Continental Divide, elevation 12000. With snow drifts on the ground and the thinnest air we'd ever breathed, we walked to an overlook point and took some pix. It was so worth a stop, even though SM wasn't sure what it was exactly (SM - the only thing I haven't known on the trip so far :)). In case you don't know, the continental divide is the hydrological divide of the Americas, basically the line along which water on one side drains to the Atlantic Ocean, and the other side to the Pacific Ocean. Pretty neat. We weren't used to the altitude so we didn't stick around - the dizziness and sense of impending vomitting was humbling.

We got to Aspen with plenty of time to spare. We checked in to our hotel. Well not really. Our room wasn't ready but we were told we had been upgraded to a two bedroom suite. The hotel was incredible! No doubt it will be the nicest accommodations of the trip (No offense to Mel, the recently christened name of our RV)

We grabbed our bikes and rode around town. Aspen is beautiful. Perfect looking. It's like someone said "I want to design an affluent and picturesque mountain community." We didn't quite fit in - between Scott's "Got Pork?" t-shirt, our RV and our bikes literally covered in dust and road grime. But we had fun! We stopped by the tiny Aspen Brewery for a quick beer and made some plans to hang out later that night with some friends who had recently moved from Boston to New Mexico. As luck would have it, they were at a work conference in Snowmass about 10 miles up the road.

The Aspen Brewery was started about two years ago by a couple of friends who had been homebrewing together and dreamt up a business plan. We'd say they are succeeding. Their beers were available all over town and the brewery was the location of the after party for event we were in town to attend.

We finished our beers (SM- an IPA, CP- a Brown) then headed over to the real reason we had come to Aspen. The Grand Cochon!

"Eating meat is a privilage. We respect and appreciate the animals that provide us with food, and treat them accordingly."

-Flying Pig Farm

You may recall that this winter we attended the Boston Cochon 555, a culinary competition where 5 local chefs cooked 5 heritage pigs which were paired with 5 wineries. The chefs that are chosen to participate are known for "whole hog utilization", meaning that they use as much of the animal as is edible. (CP - You will be happy to learn that thinly sliced pigs ear can add a delicious crunch to salad of wilted greens. Seriously. Delicious. SM - Mmmm.... head cheese)

What is really cool about this competition and the one in Aspen is that not only do the chefs get a listing in the brochure but the pigs and the pig farmers do as well. Heritage breed pigs are old breeds of pigs that are delicious, but not well suited to commercial farming practices. Therefore they are pasture raised almost exclusively by small family farms.

The winner of the Boston competition was Farmstead, Inc (from La Laiterie in Providence, RI). If you have a chance, it is really worth a visit. They own both the restaurant and the attached cheese shop. Worth a trip for the cheese plate alone that includes candied nuts seasoned with herbs de provence. The nuts made such an impression that we tried (SM - CP succeeded) to replicate them two Christmas' ago as gifts.

Note: Do not ask SM about who should have won the Boston Cochon unless you have a lot of time and patience. The short answer - we both felt that Hungry Mother in Cambridge should have won (SM emailed HM for a t-shirt to wear at the Grand Cochon competition, but failed to get one), but were happy to support the local boys from Farmstead, Inc.

As a backdrop - Aspen was hosting the Food and Wine Magazine Food and Wine Expo the same weekend we were there. We arrived at the event, which took place in the Jerome Hotel, just as it was beginning. We were in luck - we saw several familiar faces. Oh wait... we don't actually know any of these people. We've just seen them on TV! The event was a Who's Who of the chef world. We are huge Top Chef fans so we were a bit star struck to see Gail Simmons, one of the judges, and several past contestents and winners. Then we saw a crowded corner with flash bulbs popping- Jacque Pepin, the famous french chef, author and television personality was at the event as a judge! Wow, we felt pretty fancy just to be in the room with these people. The highlight of Scott's day was when one of the Top Chef Voltaggio brothers saw his "Got Pork?" shirt and said to him "Cool shirt". "Did you see that?!?!" He squeeled. We're so proud..

We spent the beginning of the event watching a few chefs present their food to the judges, and the judges eat and comment on the food. While standing there, SM struck up a conversation with a women who, because of his t shirt, mistook Scott for a pig farmer (which we did take as a compliment). Turns out her nephew IS a pig farmer and his pig was being prepared that day by the NYC restaurant, Fatty Crab. Her nephew started his career as a manhattan attorney. He and his wife bought a country house in Sushan, NY. To get a "farm" tax break, they started raising a few pigs to sell at NYC farmers markets. Well, people loved their pork and soon restaurants all over NYC were ordering from them and they became full time farmers. We had the chance to meet and chat with him. He invited us up to NY to visit his farm and we are very hopeful we will be able to take him up on the offfer.

During the event each of the chefs prepared several dishes for the judges. Their marks were counted as 49% of the total score. The same dishes were served to us spectators, whose vote counted for 51% of the total. We sampled some amazing food that day and got the chance to chat with some humble, talented and energized chefs. We stuck around to see the winner get crowned and, more importantly, the event organizer to invite all attendees to the Aspen Brewery for the after party.... ON HIM!

As the event ended, our friends Karla and Brian arrived in town. We snagged a few extra Cochon passes for them and we all headed to the after party for a few free beers. We then headed out for a bite to eat (more for them than us) at Little Annie's. It was so great to catch up with them and honestly to have conversations with other people besides each other. We really feel so fortunate that our paths crossed with Karla and Brian so easily on our trip. We wish they would move back to Boston but will settle on knowing we will see them again soon in August for the Hinterkins Wedding Bash.

We crashed.

After sleeping in a bed fit for a king and queen, we rolled out for a leisurely morning in Aspen having some breakfast, working out at the hotel gym, doing some much needed and free (our suite came with a washer/dryer) laundry, and spending just enough time in the pool and hot tub. We hit the road, excited to switch gears and put our hiking shoes on!

PS- Back in Boston, this weekend was known as Molly-Palooza. CP was sad to miss it, but hopes they had a blast celebrating Molly for the amazing and soon to be married woman she is...

There's no place like Kansas

Our next stop was Lawrence, Kansas. CP has been obsessed with going to Kansas since we started planning the trip. She found the town of Lawrence in an article about the "Best small communities in America" and it became one of our primary destinations.


There's not much to the town really: no great tourist attractions or particularly important historical significance. It's claim to fame is that it is the home of the University of Kansas (Go Jayhawks!)


We arrived in town around 4 pm, stopping first at a 30 acre off-leash dog park to let Murphy run around. There are two large off-leash parks in Lawrence, along with miles of bike trails and 50 parks. All of these are reasons why it was a great and relaxing stop for us on our trip. We stayed at the local KOA, about two miles from the downtown area surrounding Massachusetts Street, the main drag through Lawrence. We got settled in at the campground, went for a quick swim in the pool and headed into town. We first walked the entire street... a nice area of primarily independent shops and restaurants with an occasional Starbucks, Talbots (of course - effing Talbots - if you recall, they were in Historic Williamsburg too - what the eff is historic about Talbots?) and Gap mixed in.



CP had read about a really neat local hardware store. We went in to buy a fly swatter and a plug-in mouse siren that's supposed to drive away any vermin - except Murphy, of course. It was like stepping back 40 years. There was crap everywhere. No nice aisle 1 through 6 clearly denoting what's for sale in each. If you could find an aisle, nothing stocked on the shelves served any indication of what you'd find on the next shelf. Nails next to coffee pots, squirt guns paired up with shovels. You get the idea. From what we gathered, you need to rely on the store's proprietor to find things? Oh my. After we looked around for a time and stumbled across the items we needed ON OUR OWN, we stood at the front of the store and waited. And waited. To pay. The owner walked by a few times, took down some posters from the front windows, and pretty much ignored us. CP made as much noise as possible to get his attention. Shuffling her items. Coughing. Finally he let us know that the register was in the middle of the store. Of course it was! Right next to the hoses, caulking, and wheel barrows. It felt like small town America. Well, SM was planning on golfing the next day and had the choice between the town's 2 courses. To make small talk as the owner worked out our total - ON PAPER, BY HAND - SM asked which one he preferred. It was the Pandora's Box of questions. Although he had quit the game 10 years before, he promoted each course as if he were on the City of Lawrence's board of golf tourism. We couldn't shake him. SM must have "ended" the conversation four times as he stutter-stepped and stutter-stopped his way to the door. CP was long gone out the door and half way down the block, giggling and shaking her head. In the end... he recommended the Alvamar Golf Course.



To recover from hardware shopping, we headed to the local micro brewery - of course. The place was called the Free State Brewing Company and we hoped to watch the Celtics win the championships. We were in luck - with two seats at the bar and the game on TV (Not enough luck though, as we all know how the game ends).


The next morning, CP got up and biked into town to take a yoga class at the Lawrence center for yoga. (It was a great class). SM took the RV for an oil change and then took Murphy to the other local dog park. After this we met up downtown so Scott could head out to a local golf tournament to benefit the Special Olympics at you guessed it - Alvamar. While SM was hobnobbing with the who's who in Lawrence, CP walked around the town some more and then went and read a book.



SM - Who knew Lawrence, KS on a Friday was a hotbed of golf tournaments? Well, there were no regular tee time openings at either course until 4pm. That just wasn't going to work. I had called and found out that the Alvamar Course was hosting a fundraiser for Special Olympics and luckily, they had an open space. OK - I'm in. I was paired up with three late twenty somethings who were more interested in the free beer cart that was buzzing around the course than golf. Between the three of them, they had played exactly one round of golf this season. Ugh! Once I shook the fact that our team clearly wasn't going to win the tournament, we just had fun. Over the course of the day, I came to find out that the tournament was actually the brain child of a few local Lawrence, KS Special Olympic board members and Lew Perkins, University of Kansas' athletic director. My three golf partners spoke of him like he was the second coming. I guess all of sport in Kansas revolves around the Jayhawks. Lew was recruited to Kansas from UCONN where he was their AD for 30 years. Once he came to town, he bolstered and turned around the Kansas programs. In 2008, they won the NCAA basketball championships - the trophy of which was displayed at hole # 1. Pretty cool. My partners also stressed a recent poll listed Lew as the second most influential, popular, and upstanding athletic program manager in the world - amateur or professional - second only to the manager of Manchester United. A pretty powerful guy...?



Well after 15 holes, the beers had caught up to my partners - I had abstained due to being over-served at the Free State Brewery the prior evening. Lew was at the 16th hole selling "closest to the pin" chances. We got to chatting and he discovered that my partners all knew each other and that I was a late add to their foursome and happened to be on week 2 of a 7-week RV trip. He was beside himself asking me questions of the trip. I guess he kind of took a liking to me. The moment we began talking I could tell he was a Boston guy. That accent just can't be hidden. He asked me where I was from. I said Boston. Then I said Dorchester actually, by way of Scituate. He sarcastically noted that Scituate was no Boston, but a nice Irish Riviera just the same. Snide comment from a Chelsea boy. I felt bad for my partners, but he and I took up all of the five minutes alotted to our team on the hole chatting about Boston.



We finished up the day a respectable one under. Not bad considering... On the way to the parking lot, Lew caught me again. He asked how long I was in town because his foursome was down a guy for a Saturday morning round and wanted me to join. Wow! I was honored. As CP and I had planned on heading to Boulder early the next morning, I explained that to him and respectfully declined. The whole day's experience just confirmed to me that CP and I have been really lucky to have been able to take this special trip. I am constantly amazed by feeling so welcomed by the people we bump into (from a nobody to an important sports figure) and baffled when things like this keep falling into our laps.



After picking SM up from the tournament and hearing him recap the afternoon in excruciating detail, we headed back to town to a delicious dinner at 715, on Massachusetts Street: Housemade bread, salads, seared scallops and shitake mushroom pasta. It was incredible and well priced. Kuddos!


We left Lawrence in the morning, with CP saying "I love you, Lawrence, Kansas. I WILL be back". And SM saying "You're not right".


Next stop Boulder, Colorado!

Taking Care of Business

Memphis, TN is known for a lot of things - two of the more touristy things being BBQ and Graceland. Seeing as we were only passing through Memphis for one night on our way to Kansas, we decided to be tourists for this leg of the trip.

We has scoured Chowhound (an on-line community food discussion board), travel magazines and other on-line sites for a good BBQ place. We settled on Central BBQ. The one thing that has become clear so far in trying BBQ joints on this trip is that our expectations are too high. Call us snobs.... whatever. None of the BBQ from the places we've visited compare to what we've tasted on the competitive BBQ circuit. Understandably so. We are used to eating freshly finished, off the smoker BBQ. Restaurants and BBQ joints don't have the luxury of knowing what or when people will order. Most of the meat is way overcooked - the soft, fall off the bone type BBQ. Knowing this, we finally lowered our expectations and focused more on taste than texture. Central BBQ was spot on with their BBQ sauce - a perfect balance of tomato base, spiciness, sweetness, and smoke. It was also served WARM from a dispenser. YUM!

We didn't have very high expectations for Graceland - the home of Elvis Presley from 1957 until his death in 1977, and since a museum. We expected a cheesy, rhinestone-laden, suck money from tourists kind of a place. We were both pleasantly surprised... at least from Graceland itself. The park actually consists of the Graceland Estate and across the road (a two lane highway named Elvis Presley Boulevard) is his collection of autos, planes, lesser memorabilia, and several gift shops (aka - rhinestone-laden cheese).

Aesthetically, the exterior of Graceland is pretty cool. The 13.8 acre estate boasts the white-columned main house, impressive grounds, and several other buildings (an office, racquetball court, etc). The recorded tour of the mansion comes over a provided headset that can be restarted, rewound, and forwarded at any point. The interior of the main house is exactly as it would have been when Elvis passed in 1977 at age 42. The decor was clearly high-end, but humorously outdated. His living room walls were heavily mirrored and the room included a 15 foot white sofa and matching love seat. The dining room was a cool Deco. SM - The kitchen reminded me of the home where I grew up - although Elvis was WAY larger. The appliances were that awful pea green and the kitchen floor was carpeted! The funniest room we came across was his addition on the back of the house - what would be considered the family room - and aptly named the "Jungle Room". It included a working waterfall, tons of heavy, teak Hawaiian-themed furniture, and the floor AND ceiling were covered in green shag carpet. Too funny. The tour of the main house does not include a tour of the upstairs. Elvis was a very private person and never showed guests the upstairs. Out of respect for him, the public is still kept from it.

From the main house, the tour continued through a few of the exterior buildings. Throughout the tour, Elvis' family history, music beginnings, singing career, accolades, and his life were revealed. It was done very respectfully and was very informative. We both have a whole new respect for Elvis. One building housed his estates entire collection of his gold and platinum records and memorabilia from all of his 32 (!!!!) movies. Right next to all of his music and movie awards is a large plaque given to him by the city of Memphis that describes all of his involvements with local charities. There is a small display nearby showing some other civic awards he had received. It is obvious he was a very generous man who was looking to give back to the city he felt was his home. We hadn't realized he had been so involved with his community beyond performing. Combining this with his public successes, we both understood why he is and always will be the King.

The tour of Graceland ended walking outside through the Meditation Gardens, where he, his parents, and grandmother are all buried, next to a memorial plaque for his twin brother who passed away quite young and is buried in their former hometown in Mississippi. A quiet and fitting end to a great tour.

Nashville : The Home of Country Music

With the thoughts of Benton's on our brain and the smell of smoked meat permeating our clothes, we left the small towns of Eastern Tennessee and headed for the big city... Nashville.



We were hesitant at first to even go there. For those of you who recall, Nashville took the brunt of record rainfall at the beginning of May. It dumped over 13 inches in two days, cresting the Cumberland river at almost 52 feet. The historic section of downtown was 6 to 12 feet underwater. In Asheville, we had heard that the Country Music Festival was still a go in Nashville the weekend before we were contemplating going. We figured if the city could accommodate 200,000 country music fans, they could accommodate 2 yankees.





We decided to stay at the KOA. The place was a disaster when we got there. The main reservation building - closed. In fact, all permanent buildings - closed. The pool - closed. And the kicker, the bathrooms - closed. Time to use the RV shower... We decided to show our support for the struggling campground and stayed anyway.





The one amenity they did offer was a round-trip shuttle to the downtown area for only $10 a piece - cheap! After we got acclimated at the site, we hopped on that shuttle only to meet our driver Jerry - a total character. He dropped the name of every bar, restaurant, and store manager encouraging us to "Let 'em know Jerry sent ya. You'll get 20% off." Even though he was a bit of a quack, he was super informative and gave us the scoop on the Broadway area of downtown. Seeing as it was almost 4:00, we decided to limit the night's visit to a few key things.





Since leaving New Jersey (after that, it is the South right?), CP has been dying to look the part and buy a pair of cowboy boots. Before doing anything else, we hit every western store in downtown - maybe 8 stores. At store #2, SM went way out of his comfort zone and purchased his very first shirt with SNAPS instead of buttons. He tore off the tags and immediately wore it. A snap shirt and Crocs - tourist anyone? At the 8th (?) store, CP hit the jackpot... buy one pair, get two free!!! She walked out with two pairs in a bag and one pair on her feet. (CP would like to mention that all three pairs are not for her- a girl can only have so many pairs of boots, regardless of what they tell you in Nashville) We were both ready to hit the western and honky tonk bars of Nashville.





Wait a minute - fuel was needed. Since we still hadn't had the chance to tear into any of Bentons ham or bacon and that we hadn't quite satisfied the BBQ craving from North Carolina BBQ, we decided to hit Jack's BBQ on Broadway. The brisket was out of this world! With that behind us, it was time to listen to music.





7 days a week, 365 days a year there are 6 main bars on broadway that have live music from 10 am to 2 am. The musicians are only paid in tips from patrons of the bar. The venues are a HUGE draw for tourists and locals trying to see some great music cheap AND for musicians trying to be the next big Nashville find. The most famous of the bars is Tootsie's. As they say, it's 37 steps from the back of the Ryman theater (the "Mother Church of Country Music" and home of the Grand Ole Opry for 31 years) and 74 stumbling steps back. With 1 show on Tuesday and Thursday and 2 on Friday and Saturday nights, the performers at the Ryman often used Tootsie's as their watering hole. In it's day, it was not uncommon to see the world's most famous country singers in Tootsie's drinking at the bar. It was also known if you plied them with a few, they would get on the small stage and perform.





We were not lucky enough to see anyone famous (at least not famous yet) at Tootsie's. But by far, it was the best music we heard of the 6 bars that we visited. Well unfortunately, Nashville isn't well known for it's craft beer. In fact, the variety of beers at several of the bars ranged from one American lager to the a lite beer of the same ilk. We did, however, get lucky and duck into a brewpub on Broadway. We sampled each of the beers on tap - which was actually a shortened version of their usual offerings. Come to find out that they took on 12 feet of water in their basement during the flood and it ruined 3,800 gallons of beer. :( Due to the lead time to brew and ferment the beer, they still were not to capacity after 6 weeks. We wrapped up the evening listening to Jerry pump up Nashville even more on the way back to KOA.





We got up early ready to tackle another schedule-filled day. We were starting to run pretty low on any fruit or veggie alternative in the RV. So, CP located a promising farmers market. It turned out to be a bust. The floods had not only damaged many crops, it also had shut down the structure holding the market. We got only a few local tomatoes (important for dinner) and then headed further from downtown to a bakery that CP had looked in to. It turned out to be a local shop with about 4 locations, similar to Flour Bakery - just a notch or two below. So, morning breakfast and shopping was not a complete bust.



Our bellies filled with two yummy muffins and a macaron, we turned the RV back toward downtown. After just barely scratching the surface of Nashville the day before, it became clear to both of us that there were a few definites left to visit. First, we set our sites on the Ryman Auditorium. Built at the turn of the century as a tabernacle - called the Union Gospel Tabernacle - for a "churchless" preacher, the 2,300 seat auditorium is said to have the second best acoustics of any facility in the US only surpassed by the Mormon Tabernacle. After 50 years as a place of worship and a renaming to the Ryman, the auditorium came into financial problems. In order to keep it afloat, the space was rented out for local shows including the Grand Ole Opry that was exponentially gaining in popularity. From 1943 to 1974, the Opry called the Ryman home until it's popularity again outgrew the space. In addition to being the Mother Church of Country Music, it is widely considered the birthplace of bluegrass music (woohoo!) For the next 20 years, the Ryman was left unoccupied and in disrepair. In 1994, the Ryman was completely restored and is now an intimate show auditorium and a museum.



We bought the backstage tour and museum pass and walked the backstage halls and dressing rooms haunted by the famous pioneers of country music. Johnny and June Carter Cash share a dressing room in their honor - June finally accepted John's proposal for marriage on-stage at the Ryman. Pictures of Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Minnie Pearl, George Jones, and Elvis Presley (only performed at the Ryman once) adorned the wall. In the course of the tour, it became VERY clear that neither of us knew much of the history of country music. After the tour, we again got lucky. It was a Tuesday night and the Opry was going to be aired that evening. Since leaving in 1974, the Ryman now only holds the Opry on special occasions. The flood had completely destroyed the usual, current day Opry auditorium and stage. That night, the show was to be held at a local college - Lipscomb University. Score!



We were inspired by the Ryman and really looking forward to seeing and hearing the Opry. We had several hours in between, so we decided to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame. It was a neat tour, but nothing as historically important or interesting as the Ryman. If you ever have the choice between them, go to the Ryman.



We headed back to the KOA for dinner. Normally, we haven't mentioned meals we've eaten at the campsites. This one was very different. We had been chomping at the bit to tear into our Bentons since visiting their outfit. Carolynn skilleted up some of that bacon, cut up some local tomatoes, and we made ourselves some BLTs. Holy crap!! SM - Most of you have seen my figure. It's not built on staying away from my share of bacon. Hands down - not even close! - Bentons bacon is the best I've ever eaten. I can't wait to try the ham - stay tuned!



The tickets we purchased for the Opry included a shuttle to and from the show. Not bad, huh? We thought so... We were the first campsite and/or hotel location that our shuttle picked up passengers. After stopping 7 or 8 more times, we and 20 of our newest bus friends headed on down the road escorted by Pat. We wish we had hot searing pokers to burn out our ears before listening to even one Country note. Pat was a Nashville transplant from, you guessed it, Boston. In life, you come across people who really have the gift of gab and an innate ability to entertain with the most mundane of topics and conversations. Some people just don't. Even worse are those who think they have the gift, don't, and embarrassingly just ramble on. And the worst - including our driver Pat - are those that think they are gifted, clearly are not, and ramble incessantly OVER A MICROPHONE TO AN IMPRISONED BUSLOAD OF COMPLETE STRANGERS. It was 25 minutes of pure hell. We're not exaggerating. CP had several bouts of her nervous laughter she gets when things seem so weird that it can not be possible it's not a dream.



Howdeeeeee! We were greeted by the "new" Minnie Pearl as we hurriedly exited the bus at the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry is THE longest continuously running radio show in the world - broadcasting on WSM - AM since 1925. It consists of eight or so country and bluegrass performers, each singing three to four songs each. The artists themselves sprinkle in their own brand of humor throughout the show. In between each act, a live announcer reads commercials for the shows listeners. It has stayed true to the radio shows of old. The performers we got to see and hear were a mixture of Country legends and some newer acts.



The show started with a couple groups we hadn't heard of before: Justin Moore and Terri Clark. Next, we were very much looking forward to hearing the bluegrass sounds of the Del McCoury Band, whom we had seen previously at a taping of A Prairie Home Companion. We weren't disappointed. Then came the legendary and 89 year old Little Jimmy Dickens. We had heard of him on our tour at the Ryman. The 4' 11" singer from West Virginia has been performing for 75 years and a member of the Opry for 60. His most famous song is "Hey Good Lookin" written for him by Hank Williams. You may know him from a recent series of commercials and music videos he has done with Brad Paisley.



The show finished out with Lady Antebellum. SM - Aside from listening to Country when it's CP's turn to deejay, I really know nothing about Country music. I was picturing Lady Antebellum as Country's version of like an Aretha Franklin - a large white woman with a soulful, piercing voice, ready to bring down the house and close out the show. The BAND Lady Antebellum at it's core consists of a trio. My perception was blown. However, my expectation that the house would be brought down to close out the show wasn't far off. I actually recognized 2 of their 4 songs! They ended the evening with a piano and one guitar acoustic performance of their hit "Need You Now." Awesome!



On our way out, we were still revelling in our enjoyment of the show. Then we remembered that Pat would be our "entertainment" for the long ride home. In her eyes, she did not fail to deliver a great performance. Thank God the KOA was the first stop!

Rockslides Part 2: The quest for the Ham

When we decided to head out on this trip we got a lot of recomendations on specific places to visit. We listened to all the suggestions and have routed and re-routed our trip to try to see as many of those places as possible. BTW - please keep emailing or writing in the comment section below if you have more suggestions.





One such suggestion came from CP's parents. They had read an article in the New York Times about real, home-style, smoked Kentucky country ham. One of the four places the article highlighted was actually in Tennessee - Madisonville to be precise. Come to find out, there isn't much to Madisonville... but they and the article made the ham this place puts out sound like it is literally the best thing since sliced bread. And we love pork! So, we figured that a little detour to pick up some of the best country ham and pork was a must.





We got a bit more than we bargained for - on the trip there alone. What was supposed to be an easy 2 hour and 45 minute trip from Asheville to the closest KOA campground - Sweetwater, TN (population 5,600) - to our coveted pork, turned out to be a 4 hour and 30 minute trip. We drove along the smokey mountains (absolutely awesome sights) in an area known to motorcycle enthusiasts as the "Tail of the Dragon", an 11 mile section of road that boasts 318 hairpin turns. If anyone had ever been up to Rte 112 west of Lincoln, NH about 20 years ago, this "Tail" made 112 look like childs play. So, just imagine driving all those hairpins in a 24 foot RV! Now, imagine driving that in an RV in front of and behind large groups of motorcyclists. (CP can tell you all about it - just ask) Scott slept in fear for his life... Seeing a pattern?





Having parents who both ride Harleys, CP is pretty well informed on motorcycle safety and pretty careful when driving around motorcycles. Many of the bikers on "The Dragon" need a small refresher course on their own safety. It's a narrow road and we took up our full half of it with the RV. But they insisted on speeding along, hugging, and at times crossing, the center line in the road. It was stressful! (for CP - again Scott slept like a babe) SM - Rumor has it that CP never once crossed that center double yellow line, nor the right side solid white line - an unbelievable feat and display of driving prowess. Amazingly enough, the passenger side mirror is still in tact. :)





When bikers make it through this section of road alive, they claim to have "Tamed the Dragon". Although our RV and Carolynn's sanity only made it halfway - the sign at the Tennessee border read "Not a Thru Way - Closed Due to Rock Slide" - we feel we have "tamed the dragon" for sure.



So, back to the sign. We made it to the border of Tennessee only to be turned away and detoured about 35 miles out of our way... but no worries. We eventually arrived at our campground in Sweetwater, tired from driving (CP) and sleeping (SM). It was the nicest place we had stayed at so far. We took the opportunity to lay low - hang by the pool, do some laundry and make some dinner in the rv.



In the morning, we headed out to Madisonville in search of this pork Mecca - formally, Benton's Hams. Judy (our Garmin GPS) made Benton's an easy find, albeit it not quite what we had expected. A bit dingy and nondescript on the outside - maybe like an old gas station you'd picture from the late 50s. Inside was the same - a bit dingy - but NOT nondescript. The walls were wood panelled, the floor cement. And meat. Lots of heavenly curing - in the open air -meat. Everywhere. The on-sale product was displayed in a case from again maybe the late 50s... oh but the smell... the sweet smell of smoked pork... hickory and apple wood smoked - come to find out later. We walked in, looked at that crowded and disorganized case and were warmly and sincerely greeted by an older gentleman working the register. "What can I get you folks?"



We had no idea! We were sent for the country ham... so we mumbled something about wanting some ham... but then the bacon looked so good we decided to order some of that too. The man looked at us over his glasses. "Where ya'll from? Cause it ain't from around here." We told him Boston and he laughed "What, did ya get lost?! Well then, how did you end up here?



We told him about the NY times article and that Benton's was in fact our destination for this leg of our trip. CP asked if it would be ok if she took some pictures of the place. He said no problem and then even offered to take his glasses off to pose for one of himself.



We were the only customers in the shop at 9:05, 5 minutes after they openend. Our chit-chat and picture taking must have created a stir because about this time, a man walked out to the shop from the nearby office. "Hi, Where did ya'll say you were from again?" We repeated that we were from Boston. "Well that's a long way to come to Madisonville. I'm Allan Benton." Hmm... Benton's Hams... Allan Benton... He must be someone important. "If you have some time and are interested, I would love to show you what we are doing here." We looked at each other like kids on Christmas morning. Of course we had the time!



There is no way we could ever capture in writing the true experience of seeing the Benton's Hams operation and conveying with any adequacy the pride that Mr Benton takes in his work and in his product. We will try to give you some small idea...



Mr Benton showed us how they season (salt and sugar) the pork, wash it, dry it, smoke it and age it (up to 2 years!!!). At times, when there was no one working the particular station he was showing us, he would ask someone to step in to demonstrate (with the seasoning) or jump in and demonstrate himself (when showing how they fuel the huge smokers).



He spoke to us about his choice to leave his career as a guidance counseler almost 40 years ago, his choice to venture out to do something else, and how he stumbled across working for an older gentleman in his dying ham business. "Temporarily" working for this artisan reminded him of the food he had eaten as a child, growing up in rural Appalachia where all the food was organic. "We ate organic, because we were to poor to afford fertilizer." He glowed as he recalled how GOOD and natural the food from his childhood was. He told us how he set out to continue to make the product of his business that good. He shared his frustrations in trying to seek out local pasture raised natural pork (Much of his pork is all natural and pasture raised although he doesn't market the meat that way as there are times he simply isn't able to source enough pork raised the way he would like.) He shared with us that the first 25 years of his business were really tough, that he almost failed many times, and even contemplated using short cut methods used by some of his country ham competitors. His dad told him, "Son, you'll never win playing the other man's game." He perservered and put the quality of his craft ahead of the easy dollar. He perservered due to his obvious love of his work, the lingering memories of his childhood, and the sage advice of his father.



He caught a lucky break just over 10 years ago from chef at a five star restaurant in South Carolina - Blackberry Farms - who tasted and then started ordering his product. Blackberry Farms was known to have many well-known guest chefs through their kitchen, including Thomas Keller and Tom Collichio. These guest chefs too recognized the superior quality of Benton's meats. Soon restaurants from Napa to NYC were ordering Benton products. As he put it, "We were better known in NY and California than we were here in Tennessee". He also went on to say that Blackberry Farms really put his business on the map. Well Mr. Benton, although they may have played their part, please take credit where credit is due. Thanks for the tour and for such an unbelievable and authentic product.



http://www.bentonshams.com/

A picture is worth a thousand words...

But we'll probably still use all those words...

We've been having some problems posting pictures to the blog but we think we have solved it. We added a few more pictures to the Asheville entry... feel free to go back and take a look at them.

Thanks!

CP & SM

One city: Five Breweries, 30 Roller Girls, One Drum Circle

There are a few points along our trip that we really look forward to. Asheville, NC is one of those stops. It's a funky, bohemian city of 70,000 tucked into the western hills of North Carolina. In the 20's, Asheville was the summer spot for the Carnegies, the Mellons, and the Vanderbilts. George Vanderbilt had his Biltmore Estates constructed in the 1890s - was and is now still the largest private home in America - 4 acres of floor space, 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces all nestled on a meager 125,000 acres.

So six days of wonderful togetherness beckons an afternoon break. We rolled into Asheville, got our bearings at the RV campground, and headed to town. SM dropped CP off at the visitors center and headed out of town to play a round of golf.

CP- I had sent away for a "Visit Asheville" guide before we left for the trip so I stopped in just to see if they had any new information. We'd noticed a bike bath that ran through our RV park and were hopeful it led downtown. No such luck, but they did have a map showing where it did lead. With that in hand, I headed off to downtown. I spent most of the afternoon trying to walk on every street in downtown. It is a great city- Nowhere in downtown did I see any sort of national chain. All independent shops and restaurants. Imagine a city with no starbucks, no CVS, no McDonalds. These places do exist in Asheville but seem to be relegated to the stripmalls on the outskirts of the city. "Local" is a big deal here. In almost every shop I saw signs advising people to patronize local and independent shops. I had a plan to find a place for us to have dinner that night so after doing a bit of online research and a bit of on foot research I narrowed it down to three places and made a reservation at one. I stumbled across a few signs for the "Thomas Wolfe Historic Site" while walking. I decided to head on over. For $1.00 I got to tour the childhood home and watch a 20 minute movie on the life of Thomas Wolf. If, like me, you have no idea who Thomas Wolfe was: He was a very successful and well traveled early 20th century novelist who spent the first 16 years of his life in Asheville. In a little Boston connection- he also attended Harvard University for Graduate School.

SM - It was a hill course. Enough said. There were no flat holes - uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies all day long. The only saving grace to my game (and score) was that the course had seen some rain the two days prior and the greens were slow. After adjusting my puts for speed, I was able to tun at the holes and finished with a 91. Not too bad for a course I'd never played and where more than half the holes dog-legged so I had no idea where to hit the ball. Thank goodness for my playing partner, and local, Jeff who helped me out quite a bit. One birdie, five pars, 7 bogeys, 2 doubles, and 3 dreaded triples.

After reconnecting, we stopped by the RV site to freshen up and get ready for a night on the town. Dinner was at "Table" where we ordered a 4 course tasting menu- chef's whim. The great part being you never know what you're gonna get. The awful part, you never know what you're gonna get. The meal started with a deviled egg with shrimp amuse bouche (ahhhhhh - the angels sang), followed by the most incredible steak tartar - SM's first venture into raw beef. The next course knocked us for a loop: Sweetbreads with Beets. We hate beets. And let's be honest- sweetbreads can be awfully tough to stomach. Scott managed to clean his plate (he wasn't quite sure and still isn't what the heck it was), but CP had a bit of a struggle once Scott started, mid course, asking her what sweetbreads are. Sometimes it's just not pretty to be reminded of these things while chewing them. She managed to eat about half the plate. And since the meal had gone from raw beef, to the thymus gland, we were both awfully nervous what the next course would be...

But we needn't have worried! Next was a fantastic soft shelled crab with pattipan squash, followed by a wonderful pork chop with white beans and lavender puree. We finished the meal with cheese (CP) and chocolate budino (SM). Yum! (Thanks, JP)

During CPs travels earlier in the day she had found a local bluegrass band that was playing at a nearby bar. We headed out. Dum, rtackattack, dum. While making our way to the "Jack in the Wood" to watch Sons of Ralph we heard some drum music coming from small brick park in the center of the street. We wandered over to see the park packed with people of all ages involved in a drum circle. Maybe 200 people of all shapoes and sizes. "Retired" hippies pushing 70, 18month olds skaing their hips to the beat, and 20-somethings enjoying being outside and dancing the night away. The music was great, the crowd was happily having some good clean fun. It pretty much defined Asheville for us...

Saturday morning SM took murph for a nice walk and then CP took him for a short 2 mile run. He needed the exercise after being cooped up the previous day. CP stumbled across some info that highlighted the local art studios in town - there are a ton of them in Asheville! Again, we got lucky and the city was having the twice yearly open studios where anyone can swing in and check out the local art. We spent several hours taking full advantage. Lots of really cool and unique stuff. The last (and largest) of the buildings housing the studios, also houses a small brewery - Wedge Brewery. We stopped in and had two beers. It was a cool space. Truly the tiniest brewery either of us have ever seen and some of the best beer we've had on the trip so far. While sipping our beers at a small outdoor table, a couple of Asheville transplants (they've been here 38 years and still don't think they are locals) struck up a conversatiuon with us. We'd been planning to hike on Sunday before heading out of town and they happily advised us on some of their favorite places to hike and even went so far as to draw us two maps in excrutiating, yet illegible detail (we didn't have the heart to explain that we have GPS).

We went back to the RV and made some lunch- trying to use up a lot of the odds and ends we had in the fridge. We then hopped on our bikes and rode uphill (SM - it totaly sucked, CP- It wasn't that bad- you should ride home from work with me some time) into Asheville to check out their "Art in the Park" festival (SM - unlike the art earlier in the day, it totaly sucked) and try to find some free wifi. Again, we got lucky and the Asheville Brewery not only had free wifi, it also had the Red Sox on TV and, get this, a local women's roller derby team was having a fundraiser on site involving yard games, hula hoop contests, a live band and a lot of hot pink glitter. (SM- It was a spiritual experience, CP- It was weird, the fundrasier and SMs so called spiritual experience)

We updated our blog and shared a small pesto, spinach, mushroom, walnut and gorgonzola pizza and headed out to Lexington Avenue Brewing Co. We were running out of energy and planning to head home soon so we each ordered a half a pint of beer- It is a great option and something we have seen often in North Carolina... sometimes all you want is a little taste of a beer or just a little more beer... we wished bars in Boston had this option...

So we hopped back on our bikes and headed down the hill to the RV. All of a sudden we heard some bluegrass music coming out of what looked like a converted gas station. We stopped at the open garage doors and peered inside to find Craggie Brewery! A tiny brewery- even smaller than Wedge. Such a cool scene of twenty or so people, staning around listening to bluegrass and drinking some beers. We were VERY torn. We listened for a couple minutes and headed home to rest up for our morning hike.

We said good bye to Asheville, stopping on our way out of town at the State Sponsored Farmers Market. (It was awful and a huge disapointment after our amazing experience at the one in Raleigh).

We had decided to hike "Graveyard Fields", but a rockslide had closed to Blue Ridge Parkway in that direction. Undeterred, we followed the 25 mile detour through small towns and Pisgah National Forest. We eventually arrived at the trailhead and headed out for a two hour hike. It was beautiful. We hiked both to lower falls and upper falls. Once at the upper falls, another hiker asked "Have you hiked here before?" We admitted we had not. "Be sure to hike up those rocks over there to see the 60 foot waterfall. It's down rocks, but it's still pretty cool." We took his advice. Cool indeed.

We finished the hike and jumped in the RV. Destination: Tennessee!

Road trip? Nah, local North Carolina food trip!!

We got an early start leaving Yogi Bear's Jellystone RV resort (he must have been in hibernation - we missed him) in Emporia, VA with Greenboro, NC in our sights as the final pit stop of the day. We thought we'd stop somewhere closeby for some breakfast but by the time we hit NC at 8:50, we realized we hadn't eaten yet. Thank god for left-over sweets. Our meal consisted of a cookie, a pecan bar, and the most awesome granola CP's mom Jane had outfitted us with before leaving Boston.





Raleigh, NC was en route to Greensboro and there were several reasons we wanted to swing by to check it out. CP did some homework and found that Raleigh has an incredible state-sponsored farmers market set up to encourage local, small farm production. The facility was pretty impressive. It had several large permanent structures and no less than 50 farmers selling produce, salsas, sweets, meats, and cheeses. Seeing as we missed a decent breakfast, we scooped up local tomatos (in season here!!!!) and sweet corn for a salad. We picked up some garlic roasted chevre and sausages. CP whipped up a killer tomato/corn salad with basil from the plant on our kitchen table, garlic, and olive oil. Mmmmmm......

We figured that besides biking everywhere in sight, we hadn't gotten much exercise since starting the trip . We picked up a day pass at a local Raleigh gym. That was a must and is on the list for attempting once a week. We totally fall into things. It's pretty cool. On our way to the gym, we passed a local Raleigh brewpub - Natty Greene's. The sign out front... $2 drafts Thursdays. We love Thursdays. We love beer. We love Thursdays with $2 local beers. :) After the gym, we need to balance health with indulgence. We sampled all 12 beers. (We did not drink 12 pints of beer- perhaps another day we may have, but this was not such a day.)

SM had competed with another BBQ team - Meat @ Slim's - in Maryland a few months back and had run into a team from Raleigh. They strongly encouraged us to swing by a restaurant 42nd Street Oyster Bar. We were in the neighborhood. Oh my! We got 6 oysters from the raw bar, 4 oysters Rockefeller, and 4 42nd St Oysters. Three of the raw ones were the size of SM's fist - and he stomached those without a prob. We pushed off from Raleigh having worked out, eaten everything in sight, and imbibing our way through the town.

We were pooped by the time we reached Greensboro. We really just used it as the night's pit-stop to Asheville, NC. We did end up getting some local NC BBQ in Greensboro. Although tasty, we both decided that the vinegar-based, NC BBQ just isn't our preference. Our RV park was set up right next to the local car auction house. We just had to check it out... It was the biggest car auction we'd ever seen with three auctioneers working simultaneously.