From Deep Creeks to Moon Rivers

Friday, August 3 - Sunday August 5 - Deep Creek Bound!

Friday, August 3 - We headed out today for a long weekend in the mountains of North Carolina with the intention of tubing on Deep Creek on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  Unfortunately, a lot of rain the week before had the creek at flood stage and we were unable to tube it, but we still had a great weekend with beautiful weather and some wonderful friends.

The four-hour drive in was at least interesting for the most part.  After getting off the interstate at Lenoir City, we wound along the Little Tennessee River gorge on Highway 129.  We saw this cool motorized glider following the river upstream not far off the water at times.  

Our biggest surprise of the trip was that Highway 129, once you approached the Great Smoky Mountains National Park's southern edge, turns into the famous "Tail of the Dragon" with 318 curves in an 11-mile stretch.  This challenging road is a mecca for motorcyclists and sports car drivers.  This weekend drew in Mazda Miata owners of which we saw a ton of on the road.  We are happy to say our new Subaru Outback was up to the challenge!

The best (and really only) overlook along The Tail of the Dragon is early on when coming from the west.  Looking out over Calderwood Dam and Lake on the Little Tennessee River is a sight to behold for sure.

At the end of The Dragon's Tail we took a two-mile detour from our  designated route to check out the top of the massive 225' Cheoah Dam (built in1919) which was used in the filming of The Fugitive back in 1993.  It is still one of my favorite movies. 

Another great surprise was the beautiful patio and bar along the Cheoah River at the Tapoco Historic Lodge and Tavern where we stopped and had a break from driving with a much-deserved libation.

The historic Tapoco Lodge was built in 1930 and is still a beauty today.  We have already made plans to return here and stay a couple nights for my birthday next April!  

We also took a quick pit-stop in Deal's Gap at the end of The Tail of the Dragon to get a photo op with this cool steel dragon and our "Sue-bee" who just completed the run.

Our rental house in Bryson City. NC, could not have been nicer.  The cabin with it's two king-size bedrooms was outstanding, but the extra "house" on the property, a vintage train caboose, put it over the top.  Our friend, Charly, is a train nut, so we let him and his wife, Wendy, stay in it, but maybe next time we sleep in there!   And there will be a next time since we didn't get to tube here, but loved the town. the surrounding area and this rental.

We were able to walk from our rental house(s) to Mountain Layers Brewing for some beers up on the roof of their place with a great views of the town, the surrounding mountains and the sunset.  We ordered some top-notch Italian food from up the street at Pasqualino's also and reveled til deep into the night.  Welcome to Bryson City!  

Saturday, August 4 - Besides Wendy and Charly, the other couple joining us for the weekend was our long-time friends, Michelle and Patrick, from Chattanooga.  Patrick graciously offers to cook breakfast during our trips together and he did great again today.  I have to give Charly credit for this "breakfast burger" idea of pancake "buns", sausage patties, scrambled egg trimmings and Velveeta slices with a little maple syrup for dipping.  Charly, in turn, admitted he stole the idea from a restaurant near their home in Nashville.  

Since tubing was out due to all the rain the previous week, we made alternate plans including a hike to work off our huge, late breakfast to Juney Wank Falls just inside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and just a couple miles from our rental house.  Here's the whole crew after the short, but steep, hike to the base of the roaring falls.  (L to R, Patrick, Michelle, Ashlee, Charly, Wendy and yours truly).

Bryson City is a railroad town and is in fact the base for The Great Smoky Mountain Railway which we took an excursion on back in 2014 (https://collagebarrage.blogspot.com/2014/11/octoberings.html).  As I mentioned, Charly is our resident train-nut and it was his suggestion to next check out the model train museum in town.  It was great with huge displays of model train layouts and tons of vintage train cars of all scales for sale and display.  I especially liked the one shown above since a waterfall was incorporated into it.  

It was back to the real waterfalls this afternoon and we checked two more off our list that are in the area.  Tom's Branch Falls drops directly into Deep Creek.  The picture above also shows the swollen state of Deep Creek and why tubing it was ruled out of the question for safety's sake.

Just before sunset we reached beautiful Indian Creek Falls.  While the rain earlier in the week ruled out tubing, it certainly helped with the roar of all the falls and our weather throughout the weekend could not have been better. 

We took a drive this afternoon westward about 20 miles to the town of Sylva, NC, to check out a quirky cat museum that was unfortunately closed due to a power outage.  While in the area we did also find the wreckage  site from the famous train vs. bus scene in the 1993 classic film The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford.  Ashlee and I had seen this site before from the previously mentioned Great Smoky Mountain Railway excursion, but it was fun to show the others who had no idea it was here.  No green screens and CGI here, baby!.  This was the real thing and they did it in one amazing take!
 We closed out the day back at the house with some tasty take-out food from CJ's Grille  in town; some "Live PD" on the TV(our collective guilty pleasure); and a roaring fire, s'mores and cigars around the outdoor fireplace at the rental house.  A perfect ending to a perfect couple of days in Bryson City.

Sunday, August 5 - We sadly had to head home today, but we did have all day to get there and some more beautiful weather, so we all headed back to tackle the Tail of the Dragon again (Ashlee even let me drive most of it!!).  We stopped back at Deal's Gap and got some souvenir stickers and found this awesome metal sign that we had to have.  We are sure this was made for more the performance class of Subarus, but  we felt it was for us and our Outback!  

Also at Deal's Gap is the hilarious Tree of Shame where parts from wrecks all along the Tail of the Dragon over the years have been collected.  I am happy to report that none of our three vehicles contributed to the tree!  We also stopped again at the Tapoco Tavern for another libation and showed off the place to the rest of the group who all agreed it would be fun to stay here in the future.  

Before splitting ways, we all gathered once more in front of the Calderwood Dam and Lake overlook for a group pic.  We stopped in Lenoir City for a tasty late lunch at Aubrey's along with Charly and Wendy, and then headed home with another great little trip under our belts.

Sunday, August 12 - It was beautiful weather with low humidity tonight as we saw three musical legends: Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam - on their collective "LSD" Tour at the Ascend Amphitheater in downtown Nashville with our friends, Wendy and Charly.  It was nice to hear some outlaw country echo through Music City knowing it wasn't always accepted here and still isn't as popular as the puke-inducing bro-country is currently.  This was our first time seeing the distinctly-voiced Williams and our first time seeing Earle together (I have seen him several times, but Ashlee isn't a big fan) and we've seen Dwight several times including a meet-n-greet back in 2016.

Tuesday, August 14 - Ashlee and her mom, Evelyn, tricked me into going shopping tonight, but they did make me an offer I couldn't refuse: a delicious dinner  (and 2 for 1 half-pints of beer for me!) at Homegrown Taproom over in Donelson.

Saturday, August 18- Ashlee's old friend and work colleague, Scott, was in Nashville on business, so we took him out on the town tonight and had a fun night.  We started with dinner at the always-delicious high-end Chinese restaurant, Tansuo.  Afterwards, we Ubered over to the unique Bobby Hotel to check out their cool roof-top bar with the centerpiece being this large bus that they've turned into a cocktail lounge.  

The Bobby Hotel rooftop bar was super-crowded, so we walked a couple doors down to the Noelle Hotel which also has a nice roof-top bar that we've been to before called the Rare Bird.  We were able to get a drink here, but the muggy night made it more enjoyable to sit inside and downstairs in their ultra-cool lobby bar area and enjoy the A/C with our libations.  We finished the night back in The Gulch at the excellent bar at The Mockingbird next door to Tansuo.

Sunday, August 19 - We saw the solid romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians tonight at The Roxy Theaters (recliners!) here in town.  

Friday, September 7 - We were headed to Chattanooga this afternoon for a music festival and a family visit, and decided to return to The Bat Cave on Nickajack Lake with our friends, Danny and Brenda, who had not been before.  It was a beautiful night and the 100K bats did not disappoint!

So small and so fast, the gray bats streaming out of Nickajack Cave at near dark appear merely as smudges on film.

Saturday, September 8 -  We were very excited to attend the first-ever SOLD OUT Moon River Festival in downtown Chattanooga this weekend.  Hosted by one of our favorite Nashville-based musicians, Drew Holcomb, this young festival moved from Memphis this year to the Scenic City.  The set up in the riverside Coolidge Park was just about perfect and the line-up was stellar.

The weather was a concern all weekend, but it didn't stop us and the throngs of  other people from attending.  That's Ashlee's sister, Paige, in the foreground and her daughter and our niece, Ella.   They were both rookies at music festivals. Our friends, Danny and Brenda, are farther up in line near the left support of the entry sign.  That's Danny waving like the goof he is...hard to believe he's a doctor!    We got to hear a little of the band I'm with Her play before lightning in  the area suspended the festival temporarily.  We ducked into the Brewhaus up on Frazier Avenue to wait out the weather with some tasty food and adult beverages.  Cheers!

One of the biggest thrills of the day happened as we were going back into the festival after the weather cleared and there stood, James Trimble, the lead singer of one of our favorite regional bands, The Dirty Guv'nahs.  James really liked my custom UT jersey and wanted a picture with it and thanks to Ashlee I got a picture with James!   The band even retweeted my message on Twitter. See you on stage tomorrow, brother! 

The afternoon and evening was filled with great sets by The Secret Sisters,  the progressive bluegrass band, Trampled With Turtles (song memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hicQqueoEIQ),

and festival organizer, Drew Holcomb, and his band the Neighbors (including his very pregnant - due next week - wife, Ellie for several songs).
After a long, humidly hot day, we called it a night after Drew's set with the all-girl band, Joseph, and then head-liner, The Head and the Heart, playing in the background as we climbed hilly Forest Avenue back up to Ashlee's mom's house which was very close to the festival and gave us a perfect and free place to stay.

I stole this great drone pic from the Moon River Festival Facebook page, but figured they wouldn't mind since we were among the huge crowd listening to Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors as the sun set on a great first day of this event.
 (song memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX2quBDZX0k)

Sunday, September 9 - Moon River Festival - Day 2 

Another stolen pic from the Moon River Instagram Account, but I just had to have it because I just love it.   Since we got to the festival a little late today due to family obligations and more iffy weather, we were very fortunate to catch the end of the early afternoon set by the fabulous, Mavis Staples, who is 79-years-young and still getting it done in a grand  and soulful fashion.  Since we missed out seeing the now-late and great Aretha Franklin (RIP) earlier this year down at the  New Orleans Jazz Fest, this was a pretty darn good consolation prize. 
Rain set in again after allowing Ms. Staples to finish up, so we headed over to Totto Sushi on Frazier Avenue from some delicious food and more adult beverages.  Cheers!

One of the most crowded and enthusiastic sets we saw at the Moon River Festival this weekend was from the Nashville-based millennial sensation, Judah and the Lion.  They put on a great show and even brought Drew Holcomb up on stage for a rockin' cover of "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers.
(song memory:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oomkO5nHxnY)

When The Dirty Guv'nahs announced last year they were getting back together for a few shows, we knew we had to catch one ASAP.  That happened tonight as they were added to the bill for the Moon River Festival. 
(song memory:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt1aRPYL7xA)

We closed out this great little music festival with their excellent set and walked back up Forrest Avenue again headliner and festival closer, The Avett Brothers, serenading us in the distance.   What a great weekend and a fun, fun festival.  We sure hope its found a permanent home here.