Friday, October 23, 2020
On Friday morning, we continued driving out from Grandfather Mountain westward toward Cherokee, North Carolina. Near Cherokee, we stopped in to photograph the Mingus Mill (Mingus Mill Trail, Cherokee, NC). This 1886 grist mill isn’t functional anymore, but the sluice and turbine are still working. It’s usually staffed by a person knowledgeable about how the equipment operated, and about the history of this particular property. It is more photogenic than anything else, but there is some valuable information on the signage and the available from the overseer.
From the Mingus Mill, we headed north into the Smoky Mountains along Route 441. The clouds were beginning to roll in at this point, after a week of perfect weather. The Smoky Mountains certainly lived up to their name; the smoky haze lifted, it seemed, from the mountains themselves directly into the clouds – though I’m sure it was the other way around.
The colors were stunning, and because of the overcast day, the tomes and saturation in the foliage was almost palpable. It was as though the color would ooze out of the leaves and drip on the ground at times. We got a little sprinkle from time to time as we moved through the mountain, but by the time we made it to Paula Deen’s Family Kitchen (131 The Island Drive, Suite 8101, Pigeon Forge TN) for dinner in Pigeon Forge, the sky had cleared again.
Now, I’m no restaurant critic, but let me tell you this about Paula Deen’s: It is AMAZING. As we were eating, I remember telling my wife: “It’s as though someone sat down with the chef day after day and took one dish at a time – from the rolls to the desert – and said: Now, I want to make this the best thing on the menu. How do we do that?” It was that good. EVERYTHING was THAT good. Holy cow. Good thing I don’t live any closer to that place; I’d weigh 300 pounds.
While we waited for a table at Paula Deen’s, we sat in rocking chairs out by the fountain at The Island. Beautiful place; sort of a Bellagio Fountain set in the hills of Tennessee. Tons of people, kids everywhere, but everyone was gracious and well-behaved. The whole city was clean, safe, and – at least the evening we spent there – orderly and efficient. We sat across from Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Island Hotel. Art galleries, ice cream stores, souvenir shops, the fountain performing in cadence with music playing softly on the breeze. I could have remained there much longer, but I was hungry and when the text message came in saying our table was ready, we wasted no time giving up our seats there by the fountain. Later that last night it absolutely poured. I was glad we weren’t planning to start for home until the following morning. The visibility would have been poor, the wind was howling at times, and we’d have been miserable for hours picking our way carefully onto the highway and through the mountains.