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Knows Not What It Means

April 15, 2007

So, I went to Tennessee two weeks ago to visit some of my in-laws. And obviously, I'm a bad, bad, blog person for allowing a whole month to pass betwixt posts. But, I did just start a new job, and that definitely had an impact. Let's just say the “lunch breaks” aren't quite as lengthy as my previous experience.

Anyway, Tennessee, in one weekend. First off, what a gorgeous state. Rolling green hills, lots of trees—that is, when you get outside of the city. We spent one night (Thursday) in Nashville, due to the fact that it was cheaper to fly into that city and drive to Newport. Our economy car rental wasn't in stock, so they gave us a convertible Ford Mustang instead. Sweet. We had some really, really good pizza at our friend Jason's restaurant to kick off the night right. After that, he took us out to a Predators vs. Red Wings hockey game, where they had beers larger than my head. We capped off the night with a whirlwind tour of various honky tonks and bars running up and down Broadway. What a blast that was.

The next morning, we eased into the day and set out for Newport with the top down. Kim's mom directed us to a kick-ass organic, all natural grocery store in Knoxville where we grabbed a few things for cooking over the weekend. As a side note, her mom and step dad really took to the vegetarian change quite amazingly. They even borrowed a copy of our Mad Cow Boy book that Kim had with her, and proceeded to read it in it's entirety in about a day. The first three chapters of that book are pretty intense, and they definitely seemed to have an impact. By the next meal, they were complaining about eating steaks! So that was a lot of fun, cooking and spending time in the kitchen, and everyone being really open minded about that sort of thing. If only some of the other topics that arose over the course of the weekend had the same result...

Their house is flat out amazing, as you can see from the photos. All of the wood used to build the hardwood floors in the home, and most of the lumber for the frame of the house, were harvested from oak trees on the property. That blew my mind. There are 17 acres of wooded hills that they call their own, all free for exploring, horseback riding, and shooting guns. We did all that and then some. In one day (Saturday) we rode horses, shot at targets and clay pigeons, drank moonshine, and sang karaoke.

That's right, I said moonshine. It has never even crossed my mind that this stuff actually exists, let alone in this day and age. Kim's brother had two flavors; Regular, which is pretty much a really strong, clear, potato-made vodka. And apple, which is actually very smooth and tastes like a mulled cider. We drank that over ice the rest of the afternoon. In fact, the next night we polished off the entire mason jar, and discovered that if you cut regular moonshine with apple juice, it tastes pretty much the same.

Prior to that, we had a chance to play with the two horses they own. That was only the second time in my life riding a horse, or being that close to one for that matter. What amazing creatures. It's definitely intimidating the first time you climb on top of a 1,500 pound animal that is solid muscle. I had a blast and didn't want to stop. But I had to, if I wanted to shoot guns.

So up into the hills we went, armed with a shotgun (guns that fire shots), a 22, and a 38 Special that belonged to Kim's grandfather when he was a detective on Long Island. The shotgun was freaking nuts. We each squeezed off about 12 rounds, and by then our shoulders hurt and we were getting headaches. I hit my first skeet on my first shot, because that's how I roll. The 22 was funny in comparison, like a step above a bb gun. The 38 Special was pretty intense, firing hollowpoints at a target. That thing has no safety at all. Just squeeze the trigger and hold on. I can definitely see why countries like the UK ban guns.

Later in the night, we had a great dinner together, and sang karaoke in the living room. Us boys belted out a pretty rad rendition of Time After Time. I need to get the vids up on YouTube. Stayed up super late on the front porch talking with Kim and Keri.

The next day, we took a one hour road trip over to North Carolina to have dinner in a little town called Asheville. It's a full blown hippie town, with a great little downtown area. Lots of weird cats running around that place, but everyone seemed really nice. We ate at a great Thai place that had tons of vegan / veg options on the menu. Hung out back at the homestead later that night, and stayed up until around 4AM talking with Keri's boyfriend, Matthew. The next morning, we got up and made breakfast, then hit the road for the drive back to Nashville. It wasn't a long trip, but it sure was fun, and it was great catching up with everyone and meeting some new faces. Leaving so quickly was not an easy thing to do. I'd like to spend some more time out there in the future.

Posted by Aaron on April 15, 2007 11:02 PM| Permalink