It was the last day of the road trip before we made it to the first of our relatives. We slept in a tiny bit as we only needed to make it to the NC mountains by 3:00 pm for a hike with Grandma S and Grandpa J. This was the plan because we couldn’t check in to the house we had rented in the NC mountains until 4. I can’t tell you the excitement that Tweenster and Super Marshmallow displayed when we told them we were going on another hike (sarcasm meter on high).
Since it was our last morning, we decided to find a great breakfast place. The Hyatt had told us the night before that they only had a small continental breakfast, but “there were great breakfast places in town”. We should have known, being that Knoxville is a college town, that college kids do not eat breakfast. Nevertheless, we searched and searched and searched and finally found something that was a little walk away, but also near an art exhibit that we could look at on the way back.
As we exited the hotel, the town was pretty empty. Who would have guessed?:
When we arrived at the restaurant, Ruby Sunshine, they were able to seat us outdoors. Mom the Always Cold really loved this since she didn’t need to battle her nemesis: Ay. R. Conditioning.
After we placed our order, Mom and the kids decided to walk around Market Square. Even though nothing was open, they wanted to see what it looked like:
The square was pretty empty, but there were a few interesting sites, like the weird flamingo like birds on the rooftop of one place.
Bacon, Bacon everywhere and not a thing to eat:
When our food arrived disaster struck. All of our meals came with bacon on top of everything. Not to the side, ON TOP! The french toast, french toast bites, fancy pancakes, and bread pudding all had bacon. Mom, kindly (ok, maybe not so kindly) huffed and puffed while Marshmallow and I explained that we do not eat meat. To her credit, the waitress was very patient and did point out that the menu has a small footnote saying that all dishes come with bacon. Normally, we do not check for small footnotes unless ordering something that seems like it might come with extra sides. Who looks at some random part of the menu to see what breakfast comes with? The waitress, at this point, had been sent back to bring out one nonBaconized pancake.
The bacon was removed from our food and we decided to give it a try instead of wasting all of the food. Mom took one bite of her bread pudding and spit it out. It was not cooked! At this point, Mom the super grumpy was already like a rock rolling down a hill. There was no stopping her displeasure. Tweenster had a lot of pancake, so we removed the Bacon covered one while the kitchen prepared us the nonBaconized version. Mom and her attempted to eat the bottom one.
Mom took one bite of the pancake and made a face that can only be described as a baby spitting out their first taste of canned vegetables. She slowly chewed as she let the pancake dribble out of her mouth. Her whole body shook with an unnatural movement. Both kids thought Mom was about to die and looked on with mortified concern. “It tastes like bacon, it tastes like bacon” she exclaimed! “Is mom ok?”, Tweenster asked as she panicked.
“My french toast bites are hard as a rock” Super Marshmallow wailed.
“It doesn’t taste like bacon, but I don’t like these” Tweenster said. I happily ate my french toast. I also tasted the baconized pancake, but couldn’t taste any bacon. Mom was still making her disgusted face and told me I had no taste buds.
A Miracle at Market Square:
At this point we were ready to go. Only Dad had actually eaten anything. Everyone else was hungry and grouchy. Out of the blue, an older lady who was clearly homeless approached. As our table was accessible from Market Square she stopped and asked if we had any money we could spare. Mom the quick thinking, piped up that we didn’t have any money, but if she wanted we could give her some food. The very hungry ladies eyes lit up like candles in a cave. “Sure” she said. We shoveled some of our food onto a plate and she sat at a convenient bench to chow down on the best breakfast she has had (notice her one possession – an umbrella as this comes in later).
As she ate the food, the waitress returned with the non-Baconized pancake. I am sure she was thrilled to see what we had done by inviting the needy lady into the restaurant area. Since we were not going to eat it, we asked for a box so we could package up the rest of our food for someone who truly could appreciate it, bacon taste and all. As we paid the bill, the most expensive breakfast of the trip and the only one we did not eat, we explained to the children that this is what we talk about when we say making lemonade out of lemons. While we did not appreciate our food there are many people in the world who are hungry. We were more than happy to help someone in need.
The homeless lady scraped the rest of the food she had not yet eaten into the to go box (along with what we had put in) and started to walk away. She then, was so appreciative, that she turned around and walked back to us. She said, “it’s supposed to rain today. This is all I have, but please take my umbrella as you will need it.” Of course, we did not take her only possession and told her we were happy to help. However, we left feeling like we had done something really good. My only regret is that as she was eating, that we did not engage her in conversation to learn a little about her story.
Art in the Alley:
As we left the brunch place, a little poorer, but a lot richer we headed to Graffiti Alley. This alley, which at one point was overrun with graffiti had been turned into an art exhibit. We thought it was the perfect thing to show our children after they had learned to indiscriminately use spray paint at an earlier stop. Fortunately, unlike the Cadillac ranch this did not have mud and did not involve removing our shoes:
The alley was a little smelly, like all city alley ways. Marshmallow really liked the smell;
After visiting the city art, we ran into something that everyone could agree that they liked. However, it was a little hard for everyone to pick something out. It also had a funny bathroom sign:
Back at the hotel, we stopped at the continental breakfast. It ended up having a better selection than they advertised. Everyone loaded up:
Gems, Gems, and more Gems!
After breakfast, we packed up and lugged our stuff back to the car. Our stop today was something we knew the girls would love, a gem mining place:
We really didn’t know what to expect. Was it commercial? Was it real? Who knows, but it was fun and the only one semi on our way. They had the largest collection of geodes and gems we’ve seen and they were all quite large:
I was sent inside to get the buckets of dirt that Digster and Junior Digster would search through. As this was the last stop, I splurged and bought the $35 buckets. Was it excessive? Yes! Was Mom annoyed? Yes! What she didn’t know is I could have gone for the $100 buckets or the $150, or the $300 and didn’t! You hear that Mom? I actually chose the midrange buckets!
The girls had a great time sifting through the buckets to collect the prizes. The colors and quantity were great:
They say you can’t buy happiness. What they don’t tell you is that you can buy happiness for a child!
To the Hike!
As we left, a little heavier with gemstones, we headed for lunch and the hike. We of course listened to Rock and Roll in the car (Dad Joke Alert, Dad joke Alert). Mom had found a place that was on our way and she considered kid friendly, but frou-frou enough for her. Unfortunately, when we arrived, it was you guessed it…. “Closed”. Panic time. We were already running behind and wouldn’t make it on time to meet Grandma S and Grandpa J. As we desperately tried to figure out what to do we got a fortunate phone call. Grandma S and Grandpa J had taken a wrong turn and would be 30 minutes late. We now had enough time to improvise and get a real lunch. We went to Olive Garden. Was it great? No. Did everyone find something to eat? Yes. Was it a real lunch? Depends on who you ask.
As we left the restaurant and headed for the hike, the clouds looked ominous. Further, with the 30 minute delay if we drove directly to the rental we would arrive at checkin time. We proposed to skip the hike and head straight there. Mom checked with GS and GJ and they agreed. They probably did so because they were still wandering around and lost and had no idea what time they would arrive. We drove through the forest, across rivers, avoided wild horses (ok, not so wild), and down dirt roads.
Just as we arrived, the skies opened, confirming that skipping the hike was in our best interest:
We finally arrived a little after 4. As we were driving into the rental location (and getting a little lost at the same time), Grandma S and Grandpa J’s car showed up behind us. We had successfully made it cross country!
Everyone was alive! The car was alive! We had seen some amazing sites! We had gotten dirty! We had gotten clean! We had eaten like it was the end of time! We had sped faster than we ever sped before! We had laughed, yelled, cried, danced. We had slept (not really) and woken at the crack of dawn. Most of all, we had fun as a family! Would we do it again? I hope so, as we need to return in 4 weeks…
