Road Trip: Moonshine and Lake Views
This is the third part in my blog series regarding my road trip in June 2016.
Tuesday PM: After the arts & crafts stores, we returned to Gatlinburg for a bit of a joy ride. It ended with a trip to Sugarlands Distillery, another place selling moonshine of various flavors. I couldn’t resist buying some more mason jars full of the stuff. After returning to the hotel, I posted some pictures on Facebook, took care of some errands, and then promptly fell asleep in the hotel room while Ann walked around the town trying to find some interesting nooks and crannies in an unexpectedly commercialized place. It did not keep me up late, though. And little did I know, that unexpected was the first sign of my catching a cold that would linger for an unprecedented period. We settled for having dinner delivered rather than venturing out again.
Wednesday: This was the last morning at the “lodge by the river.” Frankly, the hotel was a bit of a disappointment. Even with recent renovations, it still looked cheaper than its location deserved. And I am still mad that our view of a river ended up being little more than a squinted view of a creek in the distance.
So, we ventured on to the road through the Smokies. That gave us a lot of opportunities to take scenic pictures of foliage, valleys, and “battling brooks” that I could not get enough of, as they reminded me of summers with my Dad. Around lunchtime, we ended up at a visitor center on the North Carolina side of the mountains that had some history of mountain farming for Ann to enjoy. Shortly thereafter, we made it to a Cherokee museum, also on her list.
After checking in to our hotel, we stopped by Bryson City for a brief look around the town and had dinner at a nice little bistro that came recommended. I think it ended up being our most expensive meal of the trip, as we indulged in some drinks and desserts that we had refrained from elsewhere.
Finally, we arrived at our lodging for the night. It was another place claiming a view that was a letdown, as you had to be standing in a certain spot of the place to see any blue of the waters, but the view itself was great. The room was actually more like a 2-bedroom bungalow with a working kitchen, which is exactly the kind of place I would not mind renting for an actual writing sabbatical. But alas, there was no wi-fi or television in the bungalow, so that was a bit of a drag. Fortunately or not, by then I was passed the sore throat stage and starting to enter full-on cold mode.
