Knoxville, BBQ and Moonshine

Finally, a post about our trip. I’m sure your are just on pins and needles waiting to hear about it.

No?

Well, humor me and read it anyway.

It’s actually going to be four posts. It would have made for one very long, long post, and I’m sure I would have lost you around day two. So I split it up for your reading pleasure.

We hit the road about 7 am Tuesday for Knoxville, Tennessee. It was a pretty uneventful drive. It’s an easy trip, following interstates most of the way. We arrived in Knoxville around 5:30 that evening. We might have gotten there even sooner, except it seems that life moves a little S-L-O-W-E-R in Kentucky. I swear, between Cincinnati and Jellico everyone on I-75 was driving five to ten miles an hour under the speed limit.

I was concerned about how David would do spending some nine hours in a car, but I was surprised. He was so good. He never complained about being in the car, and didn’t get really wound up. He was a lot more patient than I thought he would be.

We kept him entertained with snacks and toys. We tried letting him watch a movie on the laptop. That made for a couple nervous hours while he sat in the back seat by himself holding my computer. He’s already done in one laptop around our house. To be honest, I was grateful when the battery went dead, and I got it back from his sticky little hands. He napped part of the way too which was wonderful. One we started to get into the hills he occupied himself by looking out the window.

After we checked into our luxury suite at Motel 6 –

You know it wasn’t bad. It was clean, it was quiet, it was comfortable and it was cheap.

Anyhow, after that we went to dinner.

Before we left, I did a little on line research of BBQ joints in Knoxville. Dave and I have spent a lot of our 10 years of marriage in search of the perfect BBQ. We headed over to Buddy’s, voted best BBQ in Knoxville several years in a row.

It wasn’t quite what I expected. Buddy’s was inside a gas station, and it was more of a fast food restaurant. Think KFC but with pulled pork. But it was good. We went back for breakfast the next morning too. If you’re in the Knoxville area, there are several Buddy’s. Definitely check them out.

Besides the BBQ, I also appreciate the fact that they actually drink Sweet Tea in the South. My mother always made sweet iced tea. Growing up I thought everyone in the Midwest made sweet tea. Apparently my mother is the only Midwesterner to do so. I do not know why you all suffer that nasty, bitter stuff.

Put some sugar in it. It’s yummy.

Tuesday night was also our introduction to the extreme devotion Knoxvillians have to the University of Tennessee and the Volunteers. First, let me just say that I know very little about college football. Until last week when I heard “UT” I thought they were talking about Utah. I also did not know that Peyton Manning once played for UT.

Everything in Knoxville is orange and white, UT’s colors. And many, many businesses use the word Volunteer in their name like Volunteer Gas, Volunteer Bank, Little Volunteer’s Daycare. You get the picture. We even saw a barn painted orange emblazoned with the UT logo. Dave eventually bought a UT hat and wore it around. I felt it was necessary for our personal safety.

I was also shocked when I saw the gas prices.

We haven’t seen gas as low as $3.39 a gallon in Michigan for over a year probably. And that was with the shortage Tennessee is still experiencing because of Ike. It was about 50 cents cheaper than it was here when we left. If only we’d brought at 50 gallon drum with us.

Now with the exception of all the orange, the big rolling hills and the accent Knoxville didn’t seem that much different from home. Oh, and strangers were more friendly. Very polite and conversational. Southern Hospitality is a real thing.

Speaking of beverages, there was this one headline in the local paper…