Smokies, Ozarks, and the Big Chi Part 2

Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley

  Back with you all with much to report.  Leaving Memphis we headed over the Mississippi and west into Arkansas.  The last time I was there I was struck by the conflict of extremes, beautiful stretches of country giving way to demeaning, ugly pockets of poverty.  Tying our trajectory to its state parks we saw only its better side this time.  In the Ozarks we camped next to the Big Piney Creek and did a couple of short hikes, notably to the top of Whitaker Point.

  Coming down, we stopped to watch a wild herd of elk that grazes before sunset.  This scene struck me not just for the beauty of the animals but also for what it wasn't.  In the east, or in an area with some connection to big money, you would expect this scene to be stage managed.  What played as an organic scene, - granted at 300 yards - shutterbugs, parents with young children, itinerant recently wed attractive people all had an earnest moment with nature.  No one ruined it due to excess or ignorance and there was no need for the kind of hand holding you would expect elsewhere, i.e., park rangers fielding questions, guides shouting things to be heard over other bus tour guides, and everywhere some security contingent telling you where to go and what not to do.

I would be remiss if I weren't to mention that we managed to make it to the Eldorado of roadside tourist traps:  Booger Hollow, AK.  What had been a barely break-even proposition in back-country nostalgia finally went tits up a few years ago.  Now the double decker outhouse stands empty, the country store dispenses no more folksy wisdom while grifting you.

  We drove all night to get to St. Louis, passing thru Branson only long enough to ogle the lights, eat pizza, and leave.

In St. Louis we did the Jefferson Memorial to Westward Expansion (i.e., the big arch) and the Budweiser brewery tour.  In a word:  very satisfying.  The tour gives the necessary allotment of facts, Budweiser propaganda, interesting potpouri, and most importantly free samples at the end.

We got into Chicago around midnight, and managed some downtime while getting around the city.  The White Sox and architecture boat tour are stand outs.  Also had a really good meal at a place called Hot Chocolate where Hillary met some old Mercersburg pals and we closed the place down.

Mercersburg Alum photo, c. 2010

We're on our way to Minnesota today and look for a long stretch of camping after, so not sure when we'll be able to update next.   More to come for sure....... Thinking of you all- H+K

Smokies, Ozarks, and The Big Chi Part 1

One of Gatlinburg's more subtle attractions

Sorry for the delay everybody.  Out on the road we had spotty Wi-Fi service that otherwise had to be dedicated to TMZ.  Leaving Chapel Hill we made a brief stop in Asheville, NC and had a cocktail on the veranda of the Biltmore Inn while our amiable server, Steve, sweated all over us.  This portion of our journey was bookended on either side by similarly gorgeous but diverse national parks, the Great Smokies and the Ozarks.  The sitting capitals of these parks are also similar, but in a retail eye-sore kind of way, and with a direct lineage.  Gatlinburg, TN is Branson Jr.

A town that it was once possible to describe as "cozy" - according to the local bookstore owner - is now a capital tumor leaching tourist dollars off the popularity of the park.  Its easy to think of the place as a scourge.  Driving on the main road out of town we passed such eye-bountiful wallet magnets as Three Bears General Store  - the bears, without the assistance of opposable thumbs nonetheless were able to find God, as evidenced by their proclamation that "Jesus Saves" - a scale mock-up of the Titanic that hosted dinner theatre, and numerous "As Seen on TV" stores (which  gave Hillary such a case of the willies that she refused to stop).  Ultimately though, the stores are there for a reason:  the people want it.  In a sense, it is much more fun to have an approximation of the experience of camping in a national park than to actually have to do the camping.
    We completed our first hike to the top of Chimney Tops, a two mile ascent in the Smokies before meeting Luke in Nashville.

Hillary with ursine chum

From Nashville we went to Memphis, a place which has also capitalized on its perceived identity with much of the American public of being the mecca of blues and soul music.  Memphis is no longer a source; it is one more in a list of falling down American cities that have chosen to save their downtown to the detriment of the rest.  Much of the city we saw was boarded houses or vacant businesses and it did not take long to get into the rolling chum of highway detritus:  check cashing, pawn shops, gas stations serving as liquor store/grocery/social hub.  Beale St. is cool for a Saturday night and little else.  On a lighter note we did manage to take in the King's house before we left.  Having been fleeced by his minions at the parking lot - $10 for parking and $30 a piece for the "basic" entrance - we were whisked across Presley Blvd to that stout manse, Graceland.  All joking aside, it was fun and something we were glad we were able to do.  The house now seems quaint in comparison to the McMansions of today, but you get an interesting look into the man's life from how he chose to arrange his grounds, albeit with a heavy dose of hagiography on the King's more sordid or bizarre moments.  There's only one mention of his lethal pill habit.

Area man peruses Presley HQ

We're in Chicago now, staying with Kevin's friend Whitey in the Ukrainian Village, which is neither a village or in the Ukraine.  Running out now, so look for Part 2 tomorrow.

On the open road

We begrudgingly left the banks.  It's a hard place to leave even knowing what we have in store for us in the coming weeks.
We have been studying "500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late" for weeks now and were excited to finally hit up the first spot.   We drove through the cotton and tobacco fields of eastern North Carolina and made our way to Wilbur's Whole Hog BBQ.  If this first restaurant was any indication, we have a lot to look forward to throughout the rest of the US.  We shared a bbq plate with traditional east carolina pork, slaw, potato salad and hush puppies and got side orders of brunswick stew and chicken gizzards.  The BBQ was amazing - smoky, tangy and with just enough bite to make your eyes water on occasion.  The potato salad was yellow and smooth with just a little sweetness to balance out the vinegar.  The only bad part was knowing that I will never be able to create any of that at home.  Ok, I could give the chicken gizzards a try but once was enough.  I will post pics once I get my damn phone to work.
We made our way north to Cary, NC to visit a friend of Kevin's.  Cary, NC is just outside of Chapel Hill and is known as the Catch All for Relocating Yankees.  We met him at a friend's house and headed out for more BBQ.  This time we hit up Q Shack in Durham, NC.
Last night was our first introduction to true southern hospitality.  Kevin's friends who offered to put us up are going through some issues with their new home (two kids under three, termite damage and two months of repairs before the house can be inhabited=not a lot of fun for the Lee family).  Despite never having met us, two of their friends both offered to take us in for the night.  We ended up staying with Matt, a Montana native, who could not have been more hospitable and we ended the night with Yuengling lagers and a lengthy conversation about what we've been reading over the past year.
We are off today to Great Smoky Mountains National Park for our first night of camping and then off to Nashville on Monday to hopefully catch up with Luke who is on an adventure of his own.
We'll let you know how it goes.
h + k

The First Thinly Veiled Reference to Sex

Hall of Famer Johnny Bench displaying his fluency with baseballs and weed. 

   In his famous "Seven Words You Can't Say on TV" shtick, George Carlin said the hypocrisy of the F-Bomb was that it was inside joke everyone was party to.  As an example he played up the weatherman talking to the newlyweds and how the assumption was they had been engaged in a two-person orgy for the duration of their honeymoon.  Hil and I have definitely been playing up the honeymoon card in an attempt to mooch drinks from various soft-touch bartenders, but you wonder a little what assumptions they're bringing to the table.  There's something to be said about the laconic style of speech and implied formality of Southerners -  "your vocal cords feel like a cross between velvet and peanut butter" - as if it were sufficient to break even the grimmest news:
"Whal' Doctor Mittens did not have occasion to make it thru su'gery, Ah am in a position to offer you a sweeeet teea."
    So then a missed call from a 252 area code led Hillary to call the rental office to find out if there was some important news.  From staying here last year, we knew the cabana boy was coming to clean the pool around mid-week, so I can only assume Hillary wanted to insure she was here during that eventuality and that I had eaten my sleeping pill-lined puff pastry, to the same degree that I wanted to make sure to invent some side trip on the day in question.  I had suffered through a lengthy description by a local somewhere between his 10th and 16th pint of ale at a roadside shack as to what was the proper degree of severity and entrance angle when employing "the Buxton Munch", and had no terrible inclination in either of us learning more. (Author's note:  This did not actually happen.)
     The woman who answered at the office told us she hadn't made the call, and didn't know anything pertinent that someone else would have called us for and besides, "I see here y'all on your honeymoon, so you must be quaht busy.  We wouldn't want to disturb y'all." (Author's note:  This actually happened.)
So and so and so.....truth sometimes stranger than fiction.
The post script is that we made 4am friends with our neighbors last night, who are getting married on the beach here Friday.  We were invited within 15 seconds.

On the Banks

The Outer Banks is a place of silence inducing landscapes and the tendency to describe those landscapes in  the most windbag-erific terms possible.  A recent account of a beach horseback ride by a geezer in the local  standard bearer included the visual "my steed's salt-flecked mane".  Yes, we are also in the land serving as the backdrop and well spring of Nicky Sparks and his blood-and-guts beach romance novels meant to convey the possibility of mildly tawdry affairs between middle class white people, which are to be consumed by middle class white people on beaches not unlike those described in the novels.  The truth is, the place is gorgeous.  For those not familiar, the long stretch of barrier islands point out into the Atlantic and so are a place of very extreme sea currents.  Sandwiched on either side by the nakedness of the ocean and the calm, unfolding stretch of the bay, there's rarely not a loin-quivering view to be found somewhere. We read, we write.  We go to the beach and sit and contemplate and commiserate and kibbitz.  A quick dip pool side, then on to cocktails and the dinner making.  Don't worry about us, we're managing to get by.  Just think of us on occasion.......(Hillary wanted it to be known there's also a lot of bugs, which is true.  We saw our pasty neighbors making a dash over the rise separating our house from the beach like it was D-Day at Omaha.)
   Everything changes. (Wait for it:  Kevin's inner windbag is stealing upon the scene) Next week will find us somewhere else.  But for right meow, we are very content.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwouIbYEHmE
     Also, the only consolation in the Jet's bungling of any fourth quarter comeback is knowing they have an ass-chewing and "snack" waiting for them today.

Books read: "That Old Cape Magic" - Richard Russo

OBX

So we made it to the Outer Banks where we will be spending a week oceanfront before we trade in the luxury of four bedrooms for a four man tent.  After a rough start to our trip - one of us dropped an entire case of wine down the newly carpeted stairs in Weehawken (sorry!)-we had the perfect travel day yesterday with gorgeous skies crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel, no traffic and a new bumper sticker that seemed to keep the crazies off our tail.  We got settled in and enjoyed cocktails on the deck as dusk rolled in over the ocean.  The ingredients for last night's pasta primavera with the veggies from our farm stand stop are still waiting in the refrigerator because we got too caught up in watching the ocean to come in from the deck and cook.
We woke up to a rainy day, hungry from no dinner last night so decided to make a breakfast feast.  My friend Cindy has a hard time in the kitchen - she's texted in a panic looking for help with scrambled eggs- so I'm always trying to come up with recipes that are easy enough that even she could make them.  This is one of them.  We are also limited in ingredients and accoutrements because it's a vacation home kitchen so I made Not Quite Eggs Benedict.  While New Jersey's tomatoes might be almost done for the season, North Carolina's are still in their prime and they made the meal.

Not Quite Eggs Benedict
2 eggs per person
2 tomato slices per person
1 English Muffin per person
Blender Hollandaise (recipe below)
1/4 lb Frizzled ham per person (recipe below)

Prep:
Fill a sautee pan with water about 3" from the top
Add a palm full of salt and set on high
Crack each egg to be poached into an individual bowl and set aside
Slice a tomato

Make do with what you have Blender Hollandaise
3 egg yolks
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1/2 Cup butter melted
Combine the egg yolks and lemon juice in the blender
Slowly pour the melted butter into the blender on high
Pour sauce into a bowl and rest bowl in hot water until you are ready to pour over eggs
* Note you can kick this up a notch if you're at home and have a full pantry.  Add a couple drops of Franks red hot, or 1/2 tsp worcestershire or dijon mustard or use paprika as a garnish over the finished dish.
Frizzled Ham
1/4 lb thinly sliced deli ham per person
1/2 tsp butter per person

Start the butter melting in a frying pan over med low heat.  As the butter melts, tear the ham in to bite size pieces and add.  Stir occasionally as you are preparing the rest of breakfast.

Poached Eggs
This is the easiest method I've found for poaching eggs.You've already started the water for the eggs in step one.
When you're ready to poach (english muffins are mid toast, tomatoes are sliced, water is boiling) add the eggs one at a time.  Immediately turn off the heat and cover the pan.  Check after 3 minutes (just enough time to butter your english muffins and set up your plates).  You can tell if they are done enough by the firmness of the yolks.
Remove each egg with a slotted spoon and place on top the tomatoes and english muffins and top with the hollandaise.  Serve with the frizzled ham.

The Set-Up...

"Marriage is what brings us together."

"There can be only one."
-Highlander


Long distance relationships bring their own unique stresses and strains.  Driving and talking and driving and talking.  Its not necessarily something that you consciously involve yourself in.  One weekend leads to another foray leads to another phone call.  And in our case, before long you're engaged and estimating that you've driven close to 35,000 miles in an effort to be with one person.  So, on Labor Day, the unofficial close to a summer that saw us condensing apartments, moving one of us to a new city, pulling together all the diverse strings for a wedding, and seemingly endless rounds of packing and unpacking cars, we find ourselves setting out on a honeymoon that will last close to two months and take us across the country and back.  At this point, we have the broad strokes:  this Friday we head to the Outer Banks for a week before setting off on the heart of the trip.  We haven't filled in all the specifics, but we plan to eat, drink, and camp a fair amount.  In between, we're going to try and see some of the major - and dis-major - cities in this country and a good number of the national parks.  Any suggestions as to places to stay and where to eat are of course appreciated.  For those of you we won't probably see for awhile, god bless, and we'll see you in two months.  Drop us a line when you can and look forward to seeing you again soon.....

- H+K