Spring in January...

This morning rolled in gray and gloomy.  Sometime before 7:00, Mike Witcher our local WBIR weatherman,  flashed across the TV screen predicting ridiculous amounts of snow for much of the country.  But here in the south, he says, we will see only cooling temperatures and rain.  That's okay, because for a brief few days over the weekend, winter took a pause and we had an incredible taste of spring. 

We were out of bed early Saturday morning totally motivated to get out and enjoy the warm, sunny day.  Our first destination was House Mountain for a quick  3 mile hike to the West Overlook.  House Mountain is about about 20-25 minutes from our house and provides the opportunity to hike without taking up the entire day. a nice benefit when a person has other things to do. 

Beverly and John at the trail head

The .8-mile hike to the rock outcrop known as the West Outlook is a nice climb with switchbacks. We noticed the quaint log fences that lined some sections of the trail in disrepair and in many places, replaced with red plastic barriers (above photo-right side).

The West Outlook was crawling with Cub Scouts so we stopped a little below the rocks to take a few photos.  A stiff breeze blowing up the side of the mountain put a bit of urgency in our step as we hit the exposed rock outcrop.  We barely paused before continuing across the ridge top, down the mountain and back to our car.

                                                                      Ridge top trail

                                                        View from the West Overlook

                                            Great Smoky Mountains from the Overlook

Sometime after lunch, I decided to go for a run.  I haven't been running much recently so I knew it would be painful....it was.   I ran away from the house for several miles.  Since I am not a fan of exercise walking I knew that I would run home from the turnaround point just to avoid walking.  It worked, it always does.  The run reminded me just how much I miss doing it on a regular basis.

Evening arrived and we had some decisions to make, movie and dinner or dinner and early sleep.  Dinner and sleep won (although I really want to see The King's Speech)!! We went downtown, parked in the Market Square garage and strolled the city streets.  Everything was busy.  Crowds were waiting to get in the Bijou and the Riviera Theater.  Most restaurants had patrons sitting outside enjoying the nice weather, while others waited for a seat.  Coffee shops were busy, people strolled hand in hand, groups  chatted and laughed  and everyone seemed to enjoy the beautiful evening in downtown Knoxville.

We stopped at Latitude 35 for dinner, our first visit there.  Food, service and atmosphere were good.  This was a pleasant ending to a perfectly beautiful day.

Sunday arrived, we were up very early for early church.  Church, coffee, visit with my parents and lunch with the family and it was mid afternoon.  We struggled with our afternoon activity and finally settled on a greenway ride.      

                    John unloading our bikes in the parking lot across from the Lady Vols rowing center

An incredible number of people were out enjoying yet another spring day.  We must have seen a hundred people (and some dogs) walking, running and riding bicycles.  While we thought it fantastic that so many were out, it was hard to dodge and weave through the crowds.  We rode from the waterfront to Bearden and back and returned home to get ready for the week ahead.   

All good things much come to an end and this morning's gray weather arrived too quickly.  That's okay though, it's not time for spring yet, we are only 6 weeks past the winter solstice. But what a memory we will have of the last weekend in January when, just for a brief moment, we caught a glimpse of  spring 2011.   

A very special birthday celebration...

Last night a groups of over 25 friends gathered together to celebrate the birthday of one our favorite people and hiking companions, Barbara Allen.  Will Skelton hosted drink, appetizer and dessert affair and I must say, the food was delicious! We last celebrated Barbara's birthday in 2006 (click on link)

http://outandbackblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/can-you-believe-it-our-longtime-friend.html 

with several of the same people.  The 2006 affair was a surprise party.  Unfortunately, we did not think we could pull another one over on Barbara so we didn't try.  

I think I have everyone pictured below.  If not, I apologize, the rest of my photos will be on Picasa soon. 

       Host Will Skelton and the birthday girl.  They have been hiking together over 20 years!

Ron Shrieves arriving at the party, followed by his wife, Ginger and hiker extraordinaire, Steve Harvey

                                                       BJ Perlack and Priscilla Watts

Ron setting up the slide presentation that he and Will had pulled together....20 years of  hiking with Barbara! 

The photos started another round of story telling, which resulted in lots of laughter!  Even the dangerous and risky stuff becomes a funny tale when looking back.

                                From the left:  John, Steve Harvey, Bill Adams, Silke Hecht

                                                       Lighting the candles on the cupcakes

From left:  Ron Shrieves, Robin Ferguson, Kim Robinetter (almost hidden), Will Skelton and Barbara

At this point, the cupcakes are lite and Will is making the first of a number of birthday wishes and toasts to Barbara.  Everyone is keeping one eye on the cupcakes and one eye on the group.  In the back of everyone's mind?  Can we get through the speeches before the cupcakes catch on fire???!!!

From left: Gary Cox, Steve Dyer, Terri Cox, Kim Robinette, Bob Hill, Ron Shrieves, Robin Ferguson

Barbara opening a present with BJ to her left.  Behind them is Bob Perlack. Sitting on the couch between John and Robin is Linda Morrison.

                                                          The Smith-Dunlap family
As I looked over the group in the room last night, all talking, laughing and celebrating, it occurred to me that our lives are forever bound together by so many shared adventures on the trail.  Among this diverse group is a lawyer, a couple of veterinarians, several small business owners, several scientists, a professor, a retired military officer (female no less!), a nutritionist, a retired nurse (early retired :-), a retired school teacher,  a retired engineer, a secretary or two and a couple of stay at home moms  Some of us have traveled around the globe together, even more have traveled to the far reaches of the North American continent together.  All of us have scrambled up mountains or backpacked deep in the forest together and lived to re-hash the stories together, over and over and over...I could have listened all night!   Happy Birthday Barbara!  It is an honor to call you friend.  I hope this year will be your best yet! 

Whew, done...

Dinner tonight at Barley's in the Old City with John's boys.  Barley's pizza is always good and it's nice to catch up with Daniel and Lee, listen to their stories about school and work.

Finally, the cupcakes for tomorrow's party are done.  I started out with the idea of swirling the icing but decided random peaks would go faster.  While I have a ways to go on food photography, the pics below reflex some hours of mixing, baking and frosting! 

Header's back...

Amazing, header's back! After resizing and uploading the same pic for over an hour on Sunday, tonight I just popped it in. No accounting for "technology."

Our little city is back under the grip of winter today. Big, wet, beautiful snowflakes fell around noon lightly covering the ground and giving us false hope for a few inches of the white stuff. Several hours later, the storm has moved out, the temperature is above freezing and there is no sign of snow.  I am still waiting for the "big one."

This weekend we are co-hosting a birthday party for one of our favorite friends and hiking buddies, Barbara Allen.  It's an appetizers, drinks and dessert affair. In preparation, John and I are baking cupcakes tonight. Actually I am baking (I love, love, love to bake) and John testing.  After taste testing 1-2 of each flavor with a big, ice cold glass of milk, he gives them the thumbs up.  Tomorrow is icing night!

This batch is devil's food, compliments of Duncan Hines.  Our local cupcakery advises that Duncan Hines is the best boxed brand. After sampling, we agree.

 This batch is yellow cake.  We will ice the yellow with chocolate butter cream and the chocolate with vanilla butter cream frosting.   Yum-yum!!



Header gone missing...

If you read this blog regularly, (all 2 or 3 of you), you will notice the photo header is missing.  Sometime between the header I put up in November and last night when I tried to replace it with a photo of sunrise over Mt. LeConte, something has changed in the upload process. So, for the time being, the blog is without a photo header...until I can figure out what is going on!  Have a great day!

Another fabulous weekend in the mountains, in TN this time...

Friends Sonya and Mac Cissna and their son, Micah hosted us in their mountain home this weekend.  Like our usual mountain trips (backpacking), this one had a beautiful sunset, a colorful sunrise, a nice blazing  campfire and memorable time spent with friends.  Unlike our usual trips, this one had a warm king sized bed, a nice couch for sitting, dinner in downtown Gatlinburg and a rollicking game of hearts.

Sunset over the Smoky Mountains

We arrived at the Gatlinburg Visitors Center around 4:15, delighted that traffic through Pigeon Forge on a Saturday afternoon had been quite reasonable.  Mac met us at the Center and led us through the winding roads up the mountain behind the Center (spots still showing signs of last week's ice and snow). The temperature dropped about 8 degrees between the foot of the mountain and their beautiful  home.  We were happy to see a warm fire blazing in the fireplace and Sonya waving on the deck!  After some catch up chatting (re: everyone talking at the same time), we watched the sunset over Mt. LeConte.  Beautiful! 

       From left, Mac: Sonya and Micah Cissna, me and John at No Way Jose's in Gatlinburg

Sometime after sunset, we headed down the mountain to downtown Gatlinburg for dinner.  No Way Jose's was our restaurant of choice and we were not disappointed.

         My dinner selection, Jalisco Trio,  included 3 corn enchiladas - shredded beef with ranchero sauce, chicken w/ tomatillo sauce and white cheese with onion and green tomatillo sauce.  

After dinner we strolled through The Village in Gatlinburg and enjoyed the holiday lights.  Then we  headed back to the car and up the mountain for a game of heart, yep, 500 points of testing our brains.  John and I haven't played hearts for several years and we required a pre-game refresher.  On top of our rusty skills was the fact that we were playing with a deck of pink (save the ta-ta's) cards.  Diamonds and clubs were fairly easy to distinguish but the hearts and spades caused me a couple of screw ups.  Finally we got to bed and watched a few minutes of Saturday Night Live before falling into a restful sleep.

                                          Sunday morning sunrise from our bedroom window

 We woke to the sounds of Mac stoking a fire.  When we finally extracted ourselves out of our cozy bed we enjoyed coffee by the fire.

                          The wall of windows reflect the morning view of the mountains and trees

                  Inside looking out from the wall of windows, Mt LeConte is visible in the distance

                                         View of LeConte and the snow covered mountains

The trip ended all too quickly and we headed back to Knoxville to start thinking about the week ahead.  Sonya, Mac and Micah, thanks so much for your invitation, your warm hospitality and your friendship over the years!  We had a great time!

1st Anniversary Weekend...

We had a busy 1st anniversary over MLK weekend.  Friday night we joined friends Will Skelton and Kim Robinette at the Sunspot for an early celebration.  We had expected a smaller dinner crowd based on the long weekend but, much to our surprise,  the restaurant was busy and we had to wait for a booth.

As usual, we over indulged in appetizers-oh so good chips, verde salsa and chickpea fritters before our meal so we struggled a bit to complete our main courses.  Time flew, we finished dinner, ate dessert, laughed a lot and realized 3 hours had passed. Time to grab our coats and head out into the cold, the place was closing and we had overstayed our welcome.

On Saturday we were off on our 3 day anniversary get away to Asheville and the elegant Inn on Biltmore Estates.  We had been planning a celebration for several months, ruling out the Snow Inn at Yellowstone and Yosemite.  The Biltmore Inn suited our criteria, close (so we could maximize our time off), elegant and relaxing.

We stopped in Asheville at the REI and  Liberty Bicycle then headed to the Inn.  Apparently the reservations office and I had some confusion with the package we thought we had purchased but we ended up in a  beautiful 6th floor room with an incredible view of the mountains.

Inn at Biltmore Estates

Once we drove through the Biltmore main gate and a hotel guest sign was placed in our front window, we were saluted and ushered  through various guards. The 2+ mile drive along winding estate roads instilled a real sense of a get away from city life.   Through our car windows we gazed at partially frozen creeks and pristine snow covered grounds. It was all very beautiful.

Our room, subtle and elegant

Our 6th floor room was low key and elegant.  The bath was marble and tile and quite large.  If we had any real complaint, the hotel seemed to pump in warm, dry air in massive quantities ...in the room, in the lobby, in the hallways, the restaurants and elevator. Sorta felt like visiting a nursing home. During the 2 days we were there, we could feel our skin and hair dry out.  Turning on the a/c made very little difference.  John's other biggest complaint was the fact that he was address as "Mr. Smith" the entire trip.  I had make the reservations in my name and the hotel had no way of knowing our names are different.  It made me smile but him, not so much.

Sunset watching from the large bay window in our room was sacred time, we didn't miss it either night.

Sunset the first night was the best!

Our room overlooked Antler Hill Village with the lights of Biltmore Village visible (to the right of above photo). After sunset, we headed to Antler Hill Village for dinner at Cedric's Pub. 

The hotel concierge did not think we would need reservations on a slow weekend in January but he was wrong.  Biltmore has a very captive crowd with the on property Inn, wait times and prices reflect this.  We finally settled into a first come, first serve table at the bar and dined on salad and fish and chips.  The food and the service was very good.

 Sunday was Biltmore Day

Us on the grounds in front of the house...estate...mansion...

We took the basic Biltmore audio tour, it was so nice.  I haven't been to Biltmore for 11 years, John hasn't been for over 20 years.  We both saw new things and learned a lot through the tour.

One of many elegant windows framing the greenhouse

If you know me, you know I love flowers, gardens and just about anything outside.  So after the house tour we walked down to the greenhouse and strolled through the rooms and aisles.  Pots of Amaryllis and Christmas cactus had been planted among the greenery, it was all quite beautiful.

John looking at the lush greenery

Can't you just imagine having this in your backyard?

Amaryllis, one of many varied and beautiful blooms

The Library at the Inn on Biltmore Estates, where tea and drinks are served

View from The Library windows

After the tour, we headed back to the hotel for a drink in the lobby, sunset view in the room and a delicious 1st anniversary dinner at The Dining Room.  Can you believe that last year, at this same time on our wedding evening, we had stopped to eat dinner at a gas station Arby's on the way to Berea, KY? Anyway, back to this elegant dinner, the dress is jacket and collar shirt for men and business or dressier attire for women.  Some guests conformed to the rules, others did not. 

We had a delicious, 3 course meal.  For the course, I had she-crab soup, John had duck terrine with a glass of Biltmore wine.  For our second course, I had a seared King salmon fillet and John had a fillet.  We finished dinner with coffee and seven layered chocolate cake.  It was all delicious!!

John in the lobby reading the Monday morning paper

         The lobby of the Inn on Biltmore Estates

Monday, after checking out, we went back into Asheville.  We had a light breakfast at City Bakery and went shopping at Tops, Malcrops Bookstore and the New Morning Gallery.  Overall, we had a great trip and loved the Inn on Biltmore Estates and would recommend it to anyone interested with one concern noted below.

Aside from the confusion with the reservations, we had one incident that really left us feeling a little sad about the experience. Today, I received a "thank you for your business" email with a note at the bottom about a $300 smoking charge added to our bill.  Neither John or I smoke!!  After a phone call with Lyle Stover, assistant housekeeping manager and a few accusations about smelling smoke in the room and cigarette butts in the trash, we were finally credited with the $300.  We still have lingering issues with being accused of smoking and the fact that we did not receive an apology for the accusation.  Your guess as to what happened is as good as ours, we are mystified.   

In the grip of winter...

Our little southern city remains in the grip of winter. We had a light dusting of powder overnight added  to the 3" on the ground. Roads are mostly clear outside of neighborhoods but work is erratic, opening and closing at odd hours.

Knoxville gets a real winter storm every few years but rarely to the degree of cities to the north.  Yet it is enough to snarl traffic, close schools for days and send our local reporters to points north, south, east and west  to do emergency roadside remotes,  ad nauseum.  And so the winter storm of 2011 continues...

Another snowy day...

We started our day listening to the news and phoning for  weather updates.  The predicted snow materialized in the early hours of the morning and we woke to about 3", big snow for Knoxville.  UT texted a 2 hour delay to employees and students then closed all together.  My work status was less certain, first  a 2 hour delay, then 3 hours and finally 4 hours. We opened at 12:00 and closed at 3:00 PM, making some people happy that we showed up and some unhappy that we arrived late and closed early.

With work out of the way, it was time to play. Well, at least for me.  John grabbed a snow shovel and cleaned off the driveway.   

He is a methodical shoveler,  pushing snow in one direction and going back to scrap at ice spots caused by our boots. 

Looked like fun so I decided to help him but the minute I picked up a shovel, he started in on Ice Scrapping 101.  I got tired of this lecture quickly, especially the part about extra scrapping on the ice spots so left the work to him. 

Meanwhile, back at the garage, I grabbed one of the sleds and decided to take a few runs down the back yard.  Only problem with the backyard is that at the property line, just before the alley, we have a row of scruffy trees and bushes.  I began to have visions of loosing control of the little plastic seat in which I would be riding and going face first into a tree.  

Okay, here I go!  The first run was pretty slow, as a matter of fact I had to scoot a bit.  The second run got faster and, as the snow packed down, the runs got faster.

The backyard seems pretty big when mowing but on the sled, not so big.  As the runs got faster, I would stick my feet out sooner to slow down.  As a result, the runs got shorter.  I finally had enough.



After an hour in the snow, time for a cup of hot chocolate and some serious computer time.

Finally, we got the following card in the mail this week.  Can you believe it , our 1st wedding anniversary is coming up this weekend.