vip in the city

A Sweet(water) detour

A dubious first: today, I ended up rejecting a hotel room for the first time in my life. Now I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels, and luxury is not a requirement, but a minimum level of cleanliness and infestation is. Suffice to say, the decision to abandon the premises was unanimous.

Unfortunately, since every other hotel in town was booked solid due to the Sale, this meant finding alternate arrangements — and quickly. Garmin to the rescue again: Sweetwater, Tennessee — here we come!

It all worked out in the end. J even found us a grocery/restaurant for dinner that served some “Good ‘Ole’ Time Southern Cooking,” like “aigs & bacon” and “biskits & gravy.” The latter sounded like just the thing to me.  (Check out that gravy portion!)

More 127 Sale photos on flickr.

The world’s longest outdoor sale

And we’re off! After parting with our new friends, we made our way through a winding, kudzu-blanketed landscape over Signal Mountain towards Highway 127. It wasn’t long before we spied our first sale, set up along the side of the road. J made the inaugural purchase (a deck of cards, new in its packaging) — the first of what I hope will be many finds over the next few days.

The two-lane route was dotted with random opportunities; after a quiet stretch, we would spot cars pulled over along both sides of the road and on lawns, where enterprising individuals had segmented and rented out space on their ample properties to scores of groups and antiques dealers, creating mile after mile of makeshift tag-sale bazaars stretching out endlessly before us.

Internet access may be intermittent to nonexistent over the next few days as we wend through rural Tennessee and Kentucky, so check out the flickr set (work in progress) for a glimpse of the treasures we spot along the way.

Eat your veggies

Did we do anything in this town besides eat? Um…

KB and D met us outside The Chattanoogan for lunch at Southern Star. The restaurant was located on the site of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad’s former freight depot, converted into a shopping complex in the mid-1980s.

Today’s blue plate specials (meatloaf and pork chops) looked tempting, but after last night’s meat overload, S and I both (and rather uncharacteristically) went for the restaurant’s “Vegetable Plate,” which offered our choice of four vegetables from among those written on a hanging chalkboard.

Though what constitutes “vegetable” in Chattanooga is arguably not all that much healthier. Not quite peach cobbler, but mashed potatoes (with butter), (creamy) cole slaw, (fried) zucchini and squash casserole (with cheese.)

J could not resist the warm banana pudding, and after a proffered spoon and very little prompting, neither could I.