I have not posted in a couple of weeks as the family and I were on a road trip. We stayed in the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, visited the Dillard Bluegrass and BBQ festival and took in the Aquarium and museums of Atlanta. It was a great trip and we are all a little closer for the experience. Since I don’t have any real wine stuff to talk about here are a few musings from the trip.
Our first real dining experience in Chatty was at a new restaurant with no liquor license. Never fear, the cooler was still in the Suburban! 2003 Spottswoode Sauvignon Blanc with chicken under a brick and lemon risotto. Great combination even thought he SB was slightly corked. Breakfast the next morning at Porker’s BBQ, where the President had lunch in February. Ribs and pulled pork for breakfast, it must be vacation. Rock City is bigger and better than our last visit in 2003. Chattanooga is a town to watch as everything is under construction and there is really good energy.
Next we stayed at one of the cabins at the Dillard house. The whole experience was superb, the food was good and the “cabin” was very nice. The BBQ festival was a bit of a disappointment. Being a smoking fool myself I was hoping to talk with some people and pick up a few pointers. The only guy that would talk with me is Kregg, from Lakeland, as we both own Traeger grills. When I open up my new blog page Smoke Signals in a few weeks you can learn more then about that part of the trip. The rest of the time was antiquing and rock gathering around Franklin, NC.
In Atlanta we visited the newish Georgia Aquarium which was nice. Being season pass holders at Sea World I guess we are jaded. The only real cool thing was the four whale sharks. We also visited Fernbank, the Atlanta museum of Science. Now that is a great museum. The current traveling exhibit has 40+ lizards, snakes and other reptiles. The kids loved the whole thing and wanted to also visit the regular exhibits which we have seen many times before.
The best experience of all was visiting the Michael Carlos Museum at Emory University for an exhibit of early Christian and Hebrew artifacts. The exhibit is on loan from one of the universities in Israel and has some amazing pieces including a part of the second temple at Jerusalem and pieces of one of the dead sea scrolls. There is a display of stone jars similar to the ones that Jesus used to turn water into wine. This got me thinking, not in a sacrilegious way, was it red or white? It was at a wedding so maybe both? If you get to Atlanta don’t miss this exhibit, it is worth the inconvenience of shuttle parking.
On the drive back we hit Smokie’s BBQ in Cordele, GA. It is east at exit 102 off I-75. If you are traveling north do stop. Along with the Sportsman BBQ in Chattanooga it is some of the best I have ever tasted.