Just had to include this shot of the Pisgah Inn from the parkway, showing the backside of it. I wish we could have stayed a couple more nights, but it just wasn't in our budget, alas.Week Five
This is a blog of my five-week exploration of culinary experiences in North Carolina. Baaswell Sheep is accompanying me and offering his own commentary on the trip, although he refuses to go into any place that serves lamb chops.
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Please note that all restaurant names are used simply for referential purposes and links provided as a courtesy. Reviews are the sole opinions of the reviewer: no restaurant has paid to be listed here, and no restaurant is being explicitly endorsed. In other words, go out there, try them all, and form your own opinions!
Every long trip is going to have it's good days, its bad days, and its mediocre days. I'll classify this one as just below mediocre. We had a rough time coming down off the Parkway into Brevard to detour the closed section of the Parkway with heavy traffic and cyclists in the way (cyclists wonder why people don't want to support cycling, but when they refuse to move over into one of a dozen paved pull-overs and instead insist on slowing up traffic on a winding mountain road, well, that's why.). Then, we had a rough time finding someplace to eat. We finally got fed, but forgot to get gas, which made things a little nerve wracking as we were heading back up onto the Parkway (we had 70 miles-to-empty, but I wasn't so sure about how quickly we'd find a station along the Parkway, though my companion insisted we only had something like 40 miles to the end near Cherokee. We got to the Parkway and found it covered in moderate fog, but we made the most of it and got a few patches of clearer weather, and I felt a lot better after we detoured down towards Waynesville to fill up the tank. After that, we did a rather strenuous hike, found thick fog at the top, but hung around and the fog cleared enough to get to enjoy a pretty decent view. After that, it was all downhill, with rain the rest of the way into Cherokee, so we didn't get to watch a sunset as we'd hoped. We got to our hotel in Franklin, North Carolina so late that we just grabbed some food from the Ingles next door and ate in the hotel.
Just had to include this shot of the Pisgah Inn from the parkway, showing the backside of it. I wish we could have stayed a couple more nights, but it just wasn't in our budget, alas.
Subway does tend to be my companion's go-to-in-a-pinch restaurant. This time he tried a chicken salad wrap, having them put their special chipolte sauce on it. He said it was pretty good. I just ate one of his raspberry cookies.
Our last Blue Ridge Parkway hike for this trip, we stopped at the last visitor's center and followed the rather steep trail all the way to the peak of Waterrock Knob. Let me emphasize 'steep' – even the lower part that is paved is quite steep, which might be surprising to visitors who'd expect a paved trail to be for everyday people. From that lower view point there's a natural trail that goes on up to the peak. We got there and there was fog everywhere, but we had plenty of time, so we hung around and the fog started to clear – not completely, but enough that we got to see some great views and get some good pictures, too. The three pictures on the second row below show the progression of fog clearing. The last picture on the first row shows the Blue Ridge Parkway in the distance below us. We finally went back down to find it had been raining below us, and was still lightly raining in the parking lot.
I love little family run restaurants that look like they've been around for half a century or more, and this one fit the bill perfectly. It was so small that there was no place to wait inside, so you wait out on the patio until they can seat you. We got here at nearly two o'clock on a Friday, expecting they would be well past their lunch rush, but we still had to wait about ten minutes due to a full dining room. My companion got the catfish special and said the fish was delicious, while I ate on the fries and coleslaw and found them both to be nicely done, and the iced tea was near perfect, too. The only problem was that it was so filling that once again we had no room for dessert, which may be just as well, as we were completely torn between the key lime pie and the lemon pie.
We'd been through this town a number of times over the years on the way to or from the Cherokee area, but all too often we were passing through after five o'clock, when everything in small towns tends to close. So, it was an interesting change of pace to come through at a time when we could check out the local businesses. Franklin is a pretty active town with few if any vacant storefronts downtown, and we found a couple of local arts and crafts stores as well as a huge antique mall on two and a half floors of a building. Being a rather hot day, we found it easy to decide to visit the Scottish Tartan Museum:wq, especially since my companion's last visit had been twenty-five years ago – why, I hadn't even been born yet back then! It's really as much a museum about Scottish history, and for just $5, it's a good deal. When five o'clock hit, we enjoyed an iced tea in a general store coffee shop operating out of an old bank building (that's a pretty off-the-wall combination). Regardless, the tea was good and refreshing, and they had a lovely lounge for us to sit in and rest our feet and hooves. The pictures below in order show the Scottish Tartan Museum, an 1860's cabin someone preserved on the edge of downtown, and a genuine still-operating Radio Shack dealer: I'd heard there were a few left, but this is the first one I've come across. Unfortunately, they were closed for the day, so I didn't get to go in and look around.
So, my companion asked this fellow in an outdoor supply shop about local trails and was told that the Appalachian Trail goes through not that far from Franklin: about fourteen miles to the west. He took down some notes and after our refreshing iced tea, we set off to look for the spot and do a little trail hiking. Well, the first eight miles or so were typical outskirts of town. Then, we climbed slowly up a mountain, seeing rental cabins and winding roadway. We reached what seemed to be the top, but there were no signs about the Appalachian Trail anywhere, and no indication of any place to park. So, we kept going and soon realized we were going back down again. My companion stopped and tried to pull up some maps, but there was no cell service out there, of course. Since time was not a big issue, he kept going to see what we'd find, knowing that the road was supposed to go out to Nantahala Lake, and sure enough we ended up there. It's a big, beautiful lake, as seen in the main post picture, but being a resort lake, there really was no place to stop and do anything. We turned around and went back, looking more closely on the top of the mountain and still came up blank on the trail, so we returned to town. Tonight I pulled up some maps online and found that we were definitely in the right place: there's just zero signage, which is pretty darn annoying IMHO.
Having had a long day, and having that grocery store next to the hotel, we just got some food there and ate in the room again. I know, we're supposed to be sampling local cuisines, but it's late in the trip and my companion wants to be a little more thrifty now. But, he's promised a nice big meal tomorrow when we go up to Sylva and Dillsboro.
Remember a few days ago when I said that long trips have up days and down days? Well, this was another of the down days, unfortunately.
So, our plan was to go the twenty miles north to Sylva and Dillsboro, getting lunch in Dillsboro then visiting Sylva and spending any remaining time back in Dillsboro (the two are only a few miles apart). We even had a restaurant for lunch picked out in Dillsboro so we thought it was going to be a great day. Well, we got up there and discovered that Dillsboro was having a street festival, so it was impossible to find anyplace to park. So, we went on into Sylva, but it was jam packed crowded, too. We tried turning around and got lost attempting to get over to US 74, but finally got up there and started heading east. My companion was thinking he'd head on to Maggie Valley, but I got him to pull over and look at the maps, which made him realize that Maggie Valley was up on US 19, not off US 74. As it was getting late, the only thing that made sense was to go back into Sylva, but now we were close to the east side. He found a seafood place out that way that looked good according to what he found on his phone, so we went there, but it was completely devoid of people and just didn't feel like a good idea. Out in the parking lot was a Zaxby's, and desperate for some food, we gave in and went in there, though the experience was lackluster. We ended up at a cat museum until they closed at five and then went back to Franklin, dealing with rain along the way, and tried to find something to do, ending up on a "greenway" that was kind of depressing looking. We finally went back to the hotel room to lie down before dinner, ironically going to a Franklin branch of the same Dillsboro restaurant we'd intended to go to for lunch. If only we'd known about it this morning!
My companion is a fan of Zaxby's in general, but it is a franchised brand, so not all locations are equal. This one he realized was the very same one he'd gone in last year and wished he hadn't: it took them nearly ten minutes to find someone who could unlock the register and take an order. Still, we were here and hungry, so he decided to just give it another try. The food was perfectly fine, but the service was a little slow and the building is rather ancient, appearing to be a former Hardee's location from the 1980s (unusual, as most Zaxby's are built new to franchise specs.) We did get a little amusement in looking out and seeing a dog sitting in the driver's seat of an SUV looking like he was ready to drive the car somewhere! (Unfortunately, none of our pictures came out, as the dog moved too quickly every time my companion hit the shutter button.)
After lunch, we drove back through downtown Sylva, but even on the backside of Main Street we couldn't find a single parking space, so we went on back to US 441 and headed back to Franklin, but decided to stop along the way at the American Museum of the House Cat. My companion had stopped there last year on the end of his multi-week Virginia vacation, but given that he had no other ideas for the afternoon, he figured another visit wouldn't hurt. They now have three resident cats, so he spent plenty of time trying to absorb some good cat-karma from them, though none of them would come over and get in his lap. He figures they deal with so many people visiting the museum that they've likely become adverse to being overly friendly with anyone, even those who try to respect them properly. Still, it was an enjoyable visit, as he took his time wandering slowly through museum, which is packed with probably more than 10,000 individual cat items, including little pieces of cat jewelry, thousands of figurines and plushes, hundreds of framed pictures, prints, paintings, drawings, etc., a cat themed pinball game, and multiple cat-shaped carousel figures. All that seemed to be missing was one of those Japanese cats that wave at you, but as he was leaving he discovered there was one across from the admissions register!
After a day of ups and downs, we went over to the Haywood Smokehouse, having seen a sign for it on the way back to Franklin this afternoon. That was the name of the restaurant we'd been planning to go to in Sylva – turns out they have a second location in Franklin. Oh how my companion wishes he'd known about that before we set out this morning. Well, as they say, better late than never. He got a pork BBQ sandwich and got me some collard greens, and it was all quite good. We also enjoyed the classic 90's country music, which lifted his sprits a little.
As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and so it is with our time in North Carolina. Today we head south and return to Georgia, but we're not going home just yet. We'll be spending three nights in the scenic town of Blue Ridge to decompress and re-acclimate ourselves to the hotter Georgia weather before our return to the metro Atlanta area on Wednesday.
It seems we couldn't get out of Franklin without one more small run-around. We went down the road to a Bojangles, but found the drive-thru line wrapped around the building. As that Haywood Smokehouse was in the same shopping center, we got around the line and over there, only to find that they're not open on Sundays. So, we went back to the Bojangles and prepared to wait rather than keep running around looking for anything better. The store was relatively new and clean, but they definitely could have used an extra worker or two. I kind of felt sorry for them, and we did our best to be patient. My companion got a bacon-egg-and-cheese biscuit and said it was very good, I enjoyed an order of two Boberry Biscuits (blueberry infused biscuits with a frosting sauce poured over them), and we shared our last fountain Cheerwine for a while.
Our lasts stop in North Carolina was the town of Murphy, which has a small but pleasant looking downtown and a decent number of active shops. However, it gets one strike against it, as the visitor's center was not open on Sundays, so we followed "Public Restrooms" signs around the block to what appeared to be the back side of that building, only to find the door locked. But, we went around some more and decided to visit the Murphy Art Center (AKA the MAC) and fortunately they had a restroom we could use, and plenty of local arts and crafts to look over. My companion hoped to find something interesting to buy, but the only things that interested him were well beyond the limits of his budget.
Our first stop back in Georgia was a place we'd heard about a few years ago but had never gotten around to visiting. This place has those sheet metal animal figures that you see in other rural outdoor art places, only they have more than we've ever seen anywhere else. Just about every common animal imaginable, including dinosaurs, dragons, unicorns, Sasquatches, gnomes, and other oddities. (Our understanding of these things is that they're made by artisans in Mexico using old signs and other similar items, which they cut and reshape into these animal figures, then paint to complete the effect.) My companion has a red fox in this style, and looked around for an opossum, but all they had were mean looking opossums with black bodies, which was not what he wanted. It's interesting that they had a lot of rather large figures, more than a few with four digit prices, and most of those big ones looked like they'd been sitting out in the weather for a decade or more, leading one to wonder if anyone ever actually buys the big ones. It also makes you wonder how much money the owner(s) have put into that place – quite a bit, even if you assume a fifty percent markup built into the prices.
We may be back in our home state, but we wanted to end the day in style, so we went to Harvest on Main, a farm to table restaurant in the heart of Blue Ridge. To my joy we got a vegetarian meal of a farm salad and a side of creamy macaroni and cheese. The food was delicious, but both items were much bigger than we imagined, and even between the two of us we couldn't finish it all. Not a bad way to end the day, especially after the headaches of the previous few days.
My companion had to return to his remote work today, so no more big adventures for a while. But, I'll cover the food scene in Blue Ridge for our last few days before I sign off completely.
The upside to bed and breakfast inns is that your room comes with a fresh cooked breakfast in the morning. The downside is that breakfast is usually at nine in the morning, if not earlier – not fun for self-avowed night owls like my companion. But, he's willing to make do with the inconvenience for a place as nice as this one. The inn is an 1800's Victorian house set in the middle of downtown Blue Ridge, putting the downtown shops within easy walking distance. Views out the back include the Blue Ridge Scenic Railroad, which does tours up to McCaysville on the Tennessee border. All that said, my companion's favorite feature of the inn is Blue the cat, who roams around the outside, going from the front porch to the back porch. On his first visits, my companion found Blue to be a bit aloof, like so many cats, but Blue has warmed up to him and will now come nap in his lap as he sits on a front porch rocker. That's fine and well, but I ask, what can a cat give you that a sheep can't? Anyhow, we were unfortunately so tired when we went down to breakfast that neither of us thought to take a picture of the food, but we'll do our best to remember tomorrow.
Right behind the Blue Ridge Inn is a nice southern restaurant with a slightly modern approach to its food. Whatever you want to call it, it's popular with the locals and the visitors, so expect to have to wait for a table. My companion decided to try the popcorn shrimp, along with cheese grits and broccoli. I found the grits and broccoli were good, but this time my companion got the bad end of the deal: the shrimp were perfectly fine, but he said the cocktail sauce tasted like they'd dumped half a bottle of horseradish into it. Cocktail sauce is supposed to have a little bit of that horseradish kick, but this was way over the top. He didn't feel like complaining, so we don't know if that's just the way they do it, or if this batch got mixed up incorrectly. In any case, he made do and got more than enough to eat (he could have done with about half the shrimp they served.) The ironic part of these oversized meals is that restaurants are costing themselves in the long run, because people then don't have room to buy dessert.
My companion continued with his remote work today, but he got over to an interesting place for dinner. Unfortunately, we once again forgot to snap a picture of breakfast at the inn (he's definitely not a morning person), but maybe tomorrow … we'll see.
My companion had seen this place in it's old location last year and has been back in Blue Ridge a couple of times since they moved to a bigger space just down the street from the Blue Ridge Inn, but for various reasons never got over there until today. It's an interesting mix of a bar and restaurant with about thirty pinball games and a handful of 80s/90s era arcade games (Centipede, Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac Man, etc.). The pinball games range from a few classics from probably the 1960s or 70s to some 80s/90s units and some early to mid 2000's units with early flat panel displays in the backboards. Those newer ones had a lot of fancy features, which made it hard to understand how to play them, so my companion found he preferred the classic games that were more straightforward. As far as the food, they claim to have the best smashburger in north Georgia, so he gave it a try and got me a chips and salsa. Being a regular at good Mexican restaurants, the salsa seemed a bit bland, but the chips were good, and my companion said the burger was pretty decent, though he prefers being able to get healthy toppings like lettuce and tomatoes.
The end is near now as we check out of the Blue Ridge Inn and make our way back home. It's been quite an adventure, and it will be strange not to post any more blog posts for a while, but that's the way life goes. When we decide to do another adventure at some point in the future, we'll likely start another blog.
My companion finally remembered to snap pictures of breakfast at the Blue Ridge Inn. It always starts with vanilla yogurt with fruit, plus the muffin de jour. After that course is the main course, which is some kind of egg based dish with more bread. The food is always good, but filling, and it might be nice to have a little less bread and a little more fruit. I include one last picture of Blue the cat as we said goodbye to him this morning.
So, my companion and I wanted to end this journey on a bang rather than a fizz, so we came down to Jasper and had our final meal of the trip at The Old Mulehouse, which according to my companion has a wonderful beer battered fish and chips. I wouldn't know about the fish (I'm a vegetarian, in case you haven't figured that out already, but the chips were really, really good, and he said the fish was great as usual. He got a locally brewed root beer to go with the meal, which was quite good, even if it is a little pricy compared to a typical fountain drink.
Well, that's it for this culinary adventure. Thank you for following along with us, and hopefully you'll join us for our next big adventure, details to be determined in the hopefully not too distant future.