On Saturday we walked to an old brewery, Pearl Brewery, that is nearby. It has been turned into restaurants and specialty shops. They had a farmers market on and we wandered through this in the hope of buying some fruit but didn't find anything. On the way back we checked out a local outdoor bar where we think we might have dinner. Peter had found information about a local gun club, the oldest in Texas, that is in an area not far from downtown so we caught a tax...

We drove up to Chimney Rock before we left the Lake Lure area and admired the stunning views over the lake and surrounding country side. We didn't have many miles to drive to Charlotte so decided that we'd get off the interstate and go through some smaller places like Rutherfordton, which wasn't small, and Shelby where we stopped for lunch. We planned to stay the night outside the main Charlotte city area but were only a couple of miles from there and the airport...

We left Pigeon Forge yesterday morning and drove into the Smokey Mountains National Park. Our first stop was Cade's Cove on the north west side of the park. On the way there we saw a couple of yearling black bears grazing in tall grass. You can always tell where there's a bear as the traffic grinds to a halt! In Cade's Cove we saw a number of old buildings which had belonged to people who lived in the area before it was declared a National Park. There was a grist...

We left Nashville yesterday morning and headed east towards the Smoky Mountains. After a homely lunch at a chain of restaurants called Cracker Barrel we stopped in at Knoxville to visit my friend Susan who I met online doing internet projects between our classes back in 1995. The only time we met face to face was when we came over here in 1998 or 99 when we were on a busy trip that stopped in Phoenix, Arizona. She's retired since then and she and her late husband...

We enjoyed our night at the Opry and saw 12 artists perform in a 2-hour program. While we didn't really know the names of any of them, the music was good and some of the ones that we enjoyed were Riders in the Sky who were a band of 4 and did a great rendition of Rawhide, Kalisa Ewing, Chaley Rose who sang 2 beautiful songs and The Willis Clan who are 6 (of 12) siblings who sing and play a variety of instruments. Today we drove to see Antique Archaeology that fe...