NOTE: This page was updated in 2012 to make it easier to read. Click
HERE for the updated version. |
We made a landmark journey to the American
South for our holiday in August 2001. The journey was important because it was
the first time for Nick and my parents to meet, and we also had plenty of other
adventures along the way. |
We arrived in Atlanta on the evening of August 11th, rented our
little red Suzuki two-door, and threw ourselves into the six-lane, 70 miles per
hour Highway 85 traffic for the two hour drive to South Carolina. We arrived at
my parents' house later than expected due to getting lost in Walhalla, their
small town with one main street and a population of 3755. Well it was dark!
|
|
|
|
Walhalla
by night |
|
|
Any worries of poor reception from my parents were banished as soon
as we saw them, and throughout our visit, they seemed completely accepting and
genuinely fond of Nick. The four of us cooked and ate together, visited
Highlands, North Carolina and several waterfalls along the way, and went
shopping at one of Georgia's outlet malls. My father showed us about Ebay when
we put one of his antique thermometers on the site for auction, and my mother
generously gave the two of us an antique set of sterling silver flatware as a
"couple gift". On our final day with them, my father gave Nick a
couple of old Indian arrowheads he had found as a boy and my mother told Nick
that he was an asset to the family. I have to agree. |
|
|
One of the delights of visiting my family was
seeing my Uncle Kenny's cabin on Lake Chatooga. We went there one afternoon
with my father and he fished for little three-inch perch while we swam, canoed,
and floated in inner tubes on the still green lake. We knew that the cabin
would be a wonderful place to spend the night and we were able to stay there
for three consecutive nights. We brought beer and sat on the porch swing
listening to the synchronised thrumming of the cicadas and watching for
fireflies. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The second night we were there, we accidentally locked
ourselves out of the cabin, but after a mild panic thinking we would have to
phone someone to rescue us and having to explain why we were wearing what we
were wearing, we found a way to remove the screen and crawl in through the
kitchen window. The rest of the time there, we explored the two storey cabin
taking photos, perused our new Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue (so racy we had
to show proof of age in order to purchase it), and swam some more. |
|
Just up the road from the cabin was the launching point for our
white water rafting adventure on the Chatooga River. We went with the company
that my cousin Jody guides for, but he wasn't working that day and our guide's
name was Mike Meyers (not the Austin Powers actor). Our journey down the river
took about seven hours, longer than usual because the water was low and we had
to fight our way over shallow rocks and one of the other rafts got submerged
going over Screaming Left Hand Turn. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
At the
halfway point, we stopped for a swim and for a buffet lunch that was spread out
beautifully on a blue and white checked cloth atop an inverted rubber raft. It
was here that Nick ate his first ever peanut butter and jelly sandwich and we
both sampled some excellent "gorp", a mixture of granola, peanuts,
and M&M's. |
We travelled on, encountering the falls where
Burt Reynolds broke his leg in the 1971 adventure film Deliverance and the even
larger Bull Falls where we were photographed looking suitably terrified. At one
point, we got to float on our backs downstream, carried by the current from one
of the falls. |
|
Many of the highlights of
our trip happened during our couple of days in Tennessee. We drove hours and
hours through the Blue Ridge Mountains to our campsite at Timberfell Lodge,
right in the northern tip of Tennessee, just south of Virginia. Timberfell is a
gay resort where "clothing is optional" and we had a wonderful time
there swimming in the pool, using the Jacuzzi (despite the signs posted saying
PLEASE DO NOT HAVE SEX IN THE HOT TUB), leafing
through magazines, and meeting the very friendly guests who had come from many
surrounding states to be there. |
|
One West
Virginian was keen to show us the merits of his pair of overalls and we were
inspired to go out and buy some of our own after that. Our Ohio neighbours
invited us over to their campsite for S'mores, another culinary first for Nick
and a great reminiscence for me, and the guy in the tent next to ours offered
us bourbon and Diet Coke, a local favourite. Another first for Nick was when we
sang Stand By Me at the bar during a Karaoke evening. |
|
|
|
|
|
Now the reason we went to Tennessee in the first place was to
visit Dollywood. Back in England, we had seen a television special about the
amusement park and we wanted to see it first hand, especially to experience for
ourselves the huge barbecued turkey legs that we saw featured as appetisers on
the program. To be fair, the show portrayed Dollywood in a very cynical light,
all fat people and greed with dim-witted hillbilly employees admitting that
"naw, we ain't never seed Dolly in person," but we found the park to
be very different. In fact, it was clean and well organised with helpful
attendants always ready to trade a dry map for our sodden one after we emerged
from the log flumes. |
|
We noticed that the park was a very good place for retired
people to work as well as the usual summer youths, and there were craftsmen of
all ages making brooms, iron tools, lye soap, corn meal, and baked goods for
sale. There were a few thrill rides and we rode them all. Thunder Road was a
surprisingly stomach-churning interactive film experience, we got soaked on
both the Mountain Sidewinder and River Rampage, and the mountaintop Tennessee
Tornado roller coaster made us scream with each of its three loops, tunnel
drop, and 70 miles per hour turns. We went to see an all singin' all dancin'
musical presentation about Dolly Parton's life (while still wet from the water
rides), ate nachos and hamburgers beside a water mill, and photographed the
Holy Grail of our journey, the barbecued turkey legs found at the BBQ pit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The turkey legs were one of the 49 items to be spotted and
crossed off Nick's Bingo Card. We made cards for each other with Southern
things to find and we got appropriate prizes for completing rows, T-shapes,
diagonals, and full blank outs. (Each of us only completed rows, foiled by
elusive items such as a Weakest Link T-shirt and a turtle). Some of the items
to find are not repeatable in mixed company, but a few of the things we had to
find were:
- Banjo (seen and heard at Hillbilly Country Store on Bluegrass Saturday
Night)
- Fraternity letters (Sigma Phi Epsilon painted on the highway on the way to
Greenville)
- Cute cop (more difficult than it sounds as most spend a lot of time eating
donuts. The winning one was spotted in Atlanta Underground, sitting astride a
mountain bike. We later saw two more near our B&B, also on bikes. Perhaps
exercise is the remedy for donuts?)
- Guy named Josh (waiting in line for the restroom at Club 621 in Greenville)
- Confederate flag (everywhere)
- Twinkies golden sponge cakes (Wal Mart)
- 10 Gallon Hat (one of the many annoyingly Texas-oriented things that Nick
made me find, but this one was in a hat store at Dollywood and I wish I'd
bought it!)
- Pickup with dog in back (seen on Highway 85, direction Knoxville, going 70
m.p.h.)
The cards were a fun idea and we plan to
continue the tradition on our future holidays together to places like San
Francisco, Berlin, Paris, Freiburg, and of course
Mykonos
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the way
back from Tennessee, we drove through the Blue Ridge Parkway, a winding journey
that offered beautiful views and an elevation of 6053 feet at its highest
point. Amid all this splendour, we laughed at Nick's Beavis and Butthead urge
to be photographed mooning the camera with the mountains in the
background. |
|
|
|
|
We enjoyed Tuesday and Wednesday nights by going to Club 621 in
Greenville, the town I lived in when I was very, very young. The club was nice
and had an outdoor porch with barbecue potential and a disused swimming pool
that must have been a lot of fun in its day. |
We left South Carolina on Thursday in order to spend a couple
of days in Atlanta. On the way, we stopped in and bought a nice set of luggage
from the Samsonite outlet store in Commerce with money that my mother had given
us as a gift. We needed the luggage to transport our new silverware and clothes
and it will remind us of my mother and our first trip home whenever we travel
with it. |
|
|
|
Nick drove
most of the way to Atlanta, including the six-lane downtown rush hour traffic
when we arrived. Our bed and breakfast was a wonderful restored Victorian house
called the Abbett Inn in College Park, right near the airport. The
neighbourhood was quiet and lined with pecan trees and we could easily walk to
the MARTA train stop, so we returned our rental car and carried out the rest of
our holiday on foot. Our innkeeper was a West African man named Donald who had
renovated the inn with his partner, John. We were so pleased with our room,
with its plum coloured walls and dark wood and iron furnishings. Donald has
very good taste. The bathroom was marble tiled and sparkling and the whole
house was filled with interesting pictures and trinkets. |
As soon as we
dropped off our stuff, we went into Atlanta to see the sights. Starting out at
Underground Atlanta, Nick finally found the size 13 Converse baseball boots
that he'd been searching for the whole trip. He had a pair when he was younger
and toured Europe in them and I'm sure this new pair will see just as many
interesting and fun places. He bravely asked a likely looking face painter
where the gay areas were in Atlanta and the man recommended that we begin at
Outwrite Books on 10th Street. We went there and were amazed by its selection
of books, cakes, cards, magazines, and cute clientele. We bought some wonderful
souvenirs at this shop, including some 3-D nudie cards complete with glasses
for viewing, a new novel by David Sedaris called Me Talk Pretty One Day, and
another interesting catalogue. After the bookstore, we walked to Ansley Square,
a little gay village about a mile away. We found a bar called Scandals where we
had bourbon and Coke, and then went to Brushstrokes, a very well stocked store
where Nick bought some rainbow shoelaces for his high tops. The next day we
returned to the square and went to the friendly Burkhart's bar, with its
outside seating and free bowls of popcorn and peanuts. After we had a couple of
drinks there, we asked where was good to eat and they recommended Cowtippers
for delicious hamburgers, baked sweet potatoes, and armadillo eggs (stuffed
jalapeño peppers). The restaurant was friendly and relaxed. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Atlanta was definitely a place worth revisiting. Home of Coca Cola,
we explored the interactive exhibits there and tasted over 50 different
varieties of soft drink products including a bitter Italian one called
Beverley. Shopping in areas such as the Virginia Highlands is fun and
different, and the food is universally good. We had some tasty smoothies at a
place that is obviously the watering hole for Atlanta's beautiful and muscled
and this gave us the idea to drink more blended fruit at home. Of course, we
didn't always eat healthily. We devoured our first-ever fried Snickers bar at
an old-fashioned drug store fountain in Little Five Points. |
|
|