Jefferson Soda Fountain, Oak Ridge TN

Earlier today, we took a day trip to the Knoxville area, and had breakfast at a place where the scientists and servicemen who worked on the Manhattan Project may well have enjoyed breakfasts while they worked on the atomic bomb. The Jefferson Soda Fountain opened in what was then one of America’s three “secret cities” in 1944. Continue reading “Jefferson Soda Fountain, Oak Ridge TN”

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B’s Cracklin’ Barbecue, Atlanta GA

There were several instances where I questioned whether I really wanted to move to Tennessee. One was when I heard the advance buzz that Bryan Furman would be opening a second location of his popular Savannah barbecue restaurant about twenty minutes from our old house. Continue reading “B’s Cracklin’ Barbecue, Atlanta GA”

Wild Beet Salad Company, Germantown TN

After our breakfast at Arcade, Marie and I took a leisurely drive around Memphis with our son, eventually landing at The Children’s Museum of Memphis, where we had a complete blast. It’s one of our favorite children’s museums in the southeast, and we stayed for two hours of awesome playing, eventually choosing to bow out when the place got a little too crunched with field trips. One of the many great things they have here is a “skyscraper,” sort of a Habitrail for kids that they can safely climb, way above anybody’s heads, from one little box to another. On our very first visit, he was too small, and on our last visit, he was too nervous to try it, but this time he just zoomed up to the tallest point.

A couple of hours into this, we started thinking about our food options. Marie suggested a salad somewhere, and I could totally get behind that, as I was already craving the barbecue we’d eat on the next day, and something a little healthier sounded like a good idea. A little Googling found a reasonably new place called Lettuce Eat which was located not too far from our hotel, where we’d have to go to pick up the girlchild anyway. By chance, we’d been in the exact location of this restaurant when we were in town six years previously. Penzeys Spices has closed their Memphis-area storefront, where we shopped on our 2010 trip, and Lettuce Eat moved in. Continue reading “Wild Beet Salad Company, Germantown TN”

Stanlieo’s Sub Villa, Huntsville AL

Our good friend Helen complains that she is overweight, and that, instead of a T-shirt that reads “Body By Jake,” she needs one that reads “Body By Stanlieo’s.” She protests that when she went to college, she and her friends were regulars at this iconic sandwich shop, and that too many of their Kitchen Sink sandwiches are what did her in. Naturally, I had to try one of these. Continue reading “Stanlieo’s Sub Villa, Huntsville AL”

Big Top Drive-In, Evansville IN

We had a pretty decent night’s sleep at our hotel in Evansville, and then we went out to take some pictures and do some shopping, and, at nine, arrived at the Children’s Museum of Evansville just as they opened. It’s a really great museum that uses its space very, very well. It occupies the former home of the city’s main library, the building having been constructed in 1931, and dedicated to the memory of a local temperance crusader. So no drinking in today’s chapter, okay? Continue reading “Big Top Drive-In, Evansville IN”

Taco Casa, Tuscaloosa AL

Other than eating, the first thing that we did in Tuscaloosa was visit the campus of The University of Alabama for our daughter, and the next thing that we did was visit The Children’s Hands-On Museum for our son. We had such a good time here! Like the similar, but unrelated, Hands-On Museum in Johnson City TN, this is a two-story museum (three in the summer) that took over some old, unused storefront space on the main drag in the city. Continue reading “Taco Casa, Tuscaloosa AL”