Wud Fer Sale.....

Those of you that actually read this must know me, and to know me is to know that little stupid things drive me insane. I like to think of myself as easy going, but little things like misspellings and poor grammar drive me nuts, imagine my horror this past weekend at seeing a sign painted on the side the road that read, "Wud Fer Sale"!!! OH MY GOD! Seriously, that's what you put on a sign?! Okay, I know that I was in Butt F**ked Egypt, (BFE) also commonly known as rural Tennessee, but come on, you are going to take the time to paint a sign showing that you have wood for sale and you can't take the time to figure out how to write wood for sale?!

Okay, now that that is off my chest let me tell you about our adventures through rural North Carolina and then into Tennessee. If you haven't ever seen the movie Deliverance then some of my references might not make sense, but if you have seen the movie then let me rest some of your preconceived notions to rest, YES that movie was filmed in TN and in GA and YES, it really looks just like the movie, and YES they will stand out on the street with their banjo's and play duelling banjo's like they are proud of this fact. The countryside is stunningly beautiful, it is lush and green and it looks like if you stepped 50 feet from the road you would be lost forever and nobody would come looking for you.

I try not be be a snobby Californian while we explore this part of the country, we are going to be here for a little time and I really want to enjoy our time here, but man I feel like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I can barely understand them when they talk, it's like I know they are speaking English but I just can't understand the words that are coming out of their mouths. We spent the night in Spruce Pine, NC and we asked the lady at the front desk for directions to a place to eat dinner, Matt was standing right next to me while she rattled off something that sounded like "y'all go down right then head towards town and there's a good steakhouse on the left." We get back in the car and Matt asks me what she said, and we end up laughing at the fact that neither of us understood a word she said. We found the "good steakhouse" and it turned out to be a buffet! Not my idea of a good steakhouse, we ended up finding a Pizza Hut and had pizza for dinner.

The weekend was wonderful, (the 4th of July weekend) we went hiking in the Great Smokey Mountains and had a great time with DJ and Justin exploring Tennessee with them and North Carolina with the Gem Mountain Mining experience. I have to say that Gatlinburg, TN reminded me a little like Vegas, with all of the cheesy t-shirt and souvenir shops and they had a ton of wedding chapels. The only thing missing was the gambling. Apparently Gatlinburg is a major destination for the 4th and it was fun to people watch while walking around downtown.