Dreaming

So we took the kids across the border to my parents' house for Christmas, and we got to be part of the Canadian coast-to-coast white Christmas of 2008.

We drove up I-5 through Washington, and enjoyed the long snowy drive:

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

The weather when we arrived didn't disappoint: there was a good deal more snow at home than at home, so to speak.

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

The kids got some sledding in, which was a nice bonus

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

And of course there was feasting and fun.

From Public Christmas 2008 Pics

All in all, a good use of time and money to drive up here.

Hope everyone else had as good a time as we.

Happy Christmas!

Maintenance

"It's only 90 degrees today," said Ames with some surprise. A steamy 90 degrees: it rained last night, and the sun has managed to turn the great outdoors into a sweatbath.

Well, with the Fourth of July on a Wednesday, I decided to just take off Monday and Tuesday too. As a per-hour contractor, I can still do a few hours here and there from home Monday or Tuesday to help pay the bills, but I'm now on a last-minute, unplanned, five-day weekend. Maybe we can get some barbecue and some canoeing in? I hope so...

Last night, after a singularly disappointing visit to a new restaurant we had heard about, we stopped in at Lowe's and I bought some much needed grill maintenance stuff: a can of high-temperature enamel grill paint; some concrete "stepping stones" to build out a fire-proof section on the deck; a grill cover for the Santa Fe (the old one finally wore out); some S-hooks; and another flame-resistant grill pad (one of those little rug-like things you put under a grill to keep the grease and embers falling on your deck).

First order of business was the Santa Fe. It had been getting a little rusty, but a few minutes with sandpaper and the can of grill paint cleaned that up smartly. Here's a before-and-after:



Well... those pictures aren't totally honest. The "before" was shot on a hotter day with my cell phone camera. The "after" was shot with my actual camera. But you get the idea. A little sandpaper and some spray paint make a ton of difference.

Turns out my brother-in-law is interested in my Santa Fe, so I guess the offer of a free charcoal grill is over. But since he has no concrete plans (or at least none that I've heard) to actually claim it; I intend to get some more use out of it until he actually takes it away. So hurry up, bro., if you don't want me to waer it out before you ever see it!


I also cleaned up my Bar-B-Chef a little. It's stainless, so it doesn't require a ton of maintenance, but the hand-crank and the charcoal bed are moving parts. They soaked up a bit of oil today. I also finally removed the vanity cover from the cart, and I can't help but think it's a huge improvement:



I now have a functional shelf under my grill! I'm still thinking of taking the grill off the cart and remounting it backwards: that would let me put the vanity cover back on as a backstop to the shelf. But that grill's heavy, and will require some man-handling.

I also noticed a lot of the grills I see in stores now have S-hooks on towel racks to hang tools. I think that's a brilliant idea. Towel racks on grills are great, but hooks are a bona-fide necessity. I installed the hooks on my Santa Fe (I scavenged the hooks from my gas grill), but my Bar-B-Chef had a few already from the store:

But those hooks are tiny, and too close together. So last night I bought a couple S-Hooks, and they seem to be the barber. Except, of course, I bought them too small. So I'll get some larger ones next go 'round. This one hook took me far too long to coerce over the towel rack:

Still, it's a brilliant idea and a huge improvement.

I also wanted to share thes photos: these are the venturi tubes I melted off my late gas grill. I know I've said several times that I melted them right off the grill, but I think these photos might make that claim more real:



That's the same venturi in both pics. I only ever found one of them, and if you look closely, you can see where there is still a seam from the casting... I can't find a picture of the bottom of the gas grill, but the hoses actually melted from the grill body, and there was a one- or two-inch gap where each venturi had been.

I now treat chicken leg quarters with more respect.

Gatlinburg

Well, I took a week off work (the week before Memorial Day), and we left town for a few days.

We went to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, both in Tenessee. No, we didn't go to Dollywood, but we spent a little time as tacky tourists, did some hiking, and took some good pictures. We have some friends from when we lived in Grand Rapids, and they like Gatlinburg; so they proposed we meet them there. So this was primarily a trip to meet family friends, rather than a trip to see the sights.

We stayed at the Music Road Inn, which was actually rather nice, and has very nice family-friendly facilities: an excellent pool, several waterpark-like features, a balcony in every room, etc. Our room was right next door to that of our friends, which made it convenient for visiting, etc.

For the first day, we didn't realize Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg were separated by a five-miles swath of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Thus, we drove through Pigeon Forge and thought we had seen the sights; the next day, we realized we had seen less than half of what there was.

Pigeon Forge is much like Myrtle Beach or Niagara Falls: it centers on a "Strip", a road that runs through town, and is covered in neon signs on both sides of the road. But unlike Niagara Falls and Myrtle Beach, the attractions are pretty much family-friendly. That is, where the attractions along the strip in Myrtle Beach are bars and tatoo parlours, or where the attractions in Niagara are lingerie shops an adult clubs; the attractions on the strip in Pigeon Forge are largely restaurants, mini golf, and go-karts. There was one "adult store", but I only remember seeing the one.

Gatlinburg is more like Banff (although it's not nearly as pretty as Banff is): it's more crowded than Pigeon Forge, and the main road winds somewhat. It's still crowded with shops, but they're all jammed next to one another, and parking is sparse and expensive. Gatlinburg is much more aesthetically pleasing: I'd rather see a crowded row of shops than a sea of neon any day.

The two towns sit on the edge of the Park, and there is plenty of hiking and wildlife just a few minutes out of town. We took a day in Cade's Cove, which is a wildlife reserve in the Park. The Cove has one-lane circular road that goes for 11 miles at 20 mph. Cars drive slowly through the park, and people see the animals, etc. spread through the woods and on several fields.

So all in all, Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg is not a bad family vacation spot. It's slightly over-priced, of course, but not so bad as Blowing Rock. And while it's full of tacky tourist traps, that's only to be expected. If we were looking for a quiet escape from the city, I would look at Blowing Rock instead. But for a family trip to just sort of get loud and tacky, it was an excellent choice.

The most important feature of Pigeon Forge, of course, is the Elvis Museum. I mean, how could you not make a trip, just to see that?

Elvis Museum

One thing we noticed almost immediately is, the people of Pigeon Forge are proud of their pancakes. There were at least 8 pancake houses along the 5-mile (or so) strip. Funny, some of the normal restaurants (i.e. not breakfast places) would even advertise pancakes. Even more interesting, the pancake houses typically close shortly after noon. So they're in what has to be a high-rent area, but they're only open half the day. We took some photos of signs advertising pancakes, since I was quite amused by the frequent pancake ads:

Pancake Houses

You might notice there are two identical signs: "Smoky Mountain Pancake House". Yes, they are separate restaurants, and they're less than a block apart. There's got to be a story behind that one!


We spent a day in Cade's Cove, and got some good pictures. A lot of people had stopped to watch a bear munching in the bushes on the edge of a field. We were happy enough to have a 300mm lens on our camera, so we might have gotten the best pictures of anyone. Unfortunately, we didn't have a tripod, so the pictures aren't perfect, but we cropped them down enough to get a decent look at the bear. We also got a couple decent shots of wild turkey:

Cade's Cove

That was a good day.

I suppose these pictures aren't too impressive to those of you in less populated areas, but for us in North Carolina, they're pretty spectacular.