It’s Thanksgiving, which means family, friends, football and food. It also means we must make a good impression on company, so I blew the leaves off the roof and cleaned up the front yard in the morning chill. It was work, but I don’t think it was enough to offset the caloric intake of my traditional 2 helpings of turkey and all the fixin’s.
Started down, still down.
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…fatback is listed as a vegetable on the menu.
Donna wanted to go someplace different for lunch, so she picked a restaurant out of the coupon book that offered a buy one – get one free deal. She really wanted seafood so she decided we should try Crabby Abby’s. There was a good review in the local paper, so off we went to Augusta. If you don’t do the buffet and order off the menu, you get a choice of two vegetables with each entree. Your choices are: Fresh Shucked Corn-on-the-Cob, Green Beans, Early Peas, Fried Rice, Tater Tots, Fresh Fried Green Tomatoes, Fried Onion Rings, Fried FatBack, Mashed Potatoes (gravy upon request). FatBack? Fried Rice? 🙂
Started the day with a stop at the North Carolina Arboretum. Donna wanted to go to see the gardens. Diane and Allen wanted to go back because the last time they visited in April nothing was in bloom. I wanted to go because it meant a top down drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The original plan was to all ride in D & A’s Integra, but Donna wasn’t feeling to well so she wanted to ride in the Miata. As a surprise bonus the Arboretum was hosting the 2002 Carolina Bonsai Expo. Very beautiful stuff. Amazing that in today’s fast paced society that this slow moving art form survives. Of course there are tons of web sites devoted to it. After that it was too early to go right to lunch so I devised a little loop that included a stop at Looking Glass Falls and Sliding Rock before ending up at the Pisgah Inn for lunch. The food is really good and the view is super making it well worth the 30 minute wait. After eating, we stayed on the Parkway and went over to the Folk Art Center. From there we went our serparate ways, Diane & Allen went into downtown Asheville and we headed back to the hotel. Later, after supper, a trip for ice cream was agreed upon. Allen looked in his Underground Asheville book and picked a place called Sweet Heaven because of the ice cream but it also has live music. When we got there “Inna Gadda Da Vida” as coming from a kid on a really nice Roland piano whose father was a baby when that song came out. Turns out this 14 year old keyboard prodigy, Nick Stubblefield, also plays for the Sunday brunch at the hoity-toity Grove Park Inn. A while later his 12 year old sister accompanied him by singing a few old jazz standards. She was as amazingly as good as he was.
Started up, went down, went up, still up.
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Instead of Outback, we ended up at the Big Easy Cafe in next parking lot over. Donna & I used to live in New Orleans about a dozen or years ago and this is as close as we can get to the food we loved so back then. Unfortunately every time we eat there the experience gets worse. For what ever reason they have never been able to cook rice right, it comes out all puffed and split. We now know not to get anything with rice, but that severely limits the entrees. Today was the last straw, the first 2 items Donna tried to order that didn’t have and don’t plan on having anymore (they could at least cross them off the menu.) My french fries were cold. And worst of all the fucked up the loaded potato skin appetizer – they covered half with sour cream and the other half with guacamole. Unfortunately the guacamole was kind of watery making it look a lot like baby diarrhea.
Every other month we met at the Stoplight Deli in downtown. They open in the evening just for us, nice folks and really good food. Needless to say, because the only people in the joint are there for the meeting it makes it great. The other month’s we alternate between member’s homes and pot luck it for food. These work out well for the same reasons, no interference from outsiders. This month was supposed to be at a member’s house, but nobody volunteered to do it, so some one suggested that the meet at Teresa’s Mexican Restaurant on Whiskey Road. This suggestion was not meet with resounding approval, but no one wanted it to be at their house, so Teresa’s it was.
When we got there there were only 4 other people at a table in the main room, so we joined them. A few minutes later the woman who said she was going to arrange us a spot entered and saw us there. She immediately found the manager who offered a choice of some tables in the no-smoking section or the Cantina room where the bar is, but rarely are there anybody in there on week day nights. We picked the Cantina. Wrong choice as it turned, but we didn’t want to move again because the six attendees had doubled in size. They make a lot of margaritas at the bar, which means a blender is almost constantly whirring. Then to top it off, another family reunion/birthday party came in and used the other half of the room. They were kind of boisterous which added to the din. We did manage to get the meeting in, but you can bet we won’t do that again.
Almost didn’t drive the car at all today. Took the free electric shuttle bus to downtown early. We then walked across the pedestrian (and bike) only Walnut Street Bridge to the other side of the Tennessee River and visited some not yet open shops and Coolidge Park with its marvelous carousel (not open yet either.) Walked back across to go inside the Tennessee Aquarium. We visited it way back around the time it opened in 1992 and it was worth the re-visit. They had a special sea horse exhibit downstairs that was worth the price of admission alone. After the Aquarium we had an early lunch of Japanese food at Sekisui right across the street. We were going to catch the matinee showing of Minority Report, but were about an hour early so we ducked into the Tow Truck Museum. Officially called the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum and at 4 bucks a pop for admission, well worth it. The first ever wrecker was made just one block away at the Ernest Holmes Company. After watching the movie we walked the 12 blocks back to our hotel. In the evening we wanted to go see the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts play a game and planned on taking the shuttle back in town and walking home afterwards. But at the last minute decided to drive and maybe take a short nighttime drive afterwards. Stayed for the whole game, which the Lookouts won 4-3, but were so tired afterwards that we just went back to the hotel and crashed.
This morning was trash pick-up with the bike club. We have a whopping 4 block section of town to police. We always get a big turn out for the event too, because the Club buys everyone who comes out a breakfast at Best Bagels. Besides the usual cans, both intact and shredded by lawn mower, bottles and fast food wrappers, today’s haul included 2 IBM Selectric typewriters, a rusty hand saw, a couple sets of car keys and a lobster tail with the meat intact.
After that it was another drive to Augusta to deliver the Bike Club Newsletter to the big 3 bikes stores. By then it was lunch and the temps were in the 90s so the afternoon was spent indoors in the AC and channel surfing.
Started down, still down.
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