Get out!

Happy New Year!  Do something adventurous this year.

Great Smoky Mountains

The Smoky Mountains in Tennessee are one of my favorite places in the world!  Here’s a view from a hike I went on this summer.  An incredible time on a peak right up there with the clouds. Amazing!  The Smoky Mtns are special to me for all the great memories. Trips, Rock Hopping, Hikes, and my all time favorite–I proposed to my bride, she said yes, and my life was forever changed!  That was a good day.

Here’s some pics of our hike from this summer:

The Big Nasty

When I am in Tennessee, my friend and I go see our friend Adam Tyler.  I’ve known Adam since he was in high school.  Then he went to culinary school because he loves food. After a few years of doing this and doing that, meeting this famous person and cooking for that famous person, today he is the Chef at Gourmet’s Market in Knoxville, Tennessee.  It wasn’t enough that he already had amazing breakfasts like the Toad in a Hole, the Frog in a Ditch, and the Cinnamon Raisin French Toast but then he went and created The Big Nasty.  I love this dish so much, I bought the T-shirt!   So, add The Big Nasty to your bucket list and take a road trip to Knoxville.  You can thank me later, but also, be sure to get Adam’s grits. These aren’t your Mama’s or Gammy’s grits!!  You’re welcome.

Blondes and Tennessee

A few years ago, one of my best friends in Tennessee introduced me to Blonde Oreos and I have loved them ever since.  Many years ago, my basketball coach  in Tennessee introduced me to another blonde and I have loved her ever since. I married her 31 years ago this last week!   If you go by the pictures, we were 13 years old when we married…I am a man of many cookies, but only one wife.  How blessed am I?

The French Market, Y’all.

I live in the Northwest where coffee is a big part of our culture and I like that.  On our annual visit to East Tennessee, I broke down and found myself settling even for Starbucks…In a land of all-you-can-eat pancake buffets, and deep fried everything I found a very nice place in downtown Knoxville called The French Market Creperie. The crepes were amazing and the coffee was great!

Tennessee

I’m always amazed by nature and the glory it gives to our Creator.  And I doubt we will ever come to the end of all there is to see. What I do see, is the imagination and creativity at a whole new level.  I found this on my recent trip to Tennessee, waaay back in the mountains. I literally reached down to pick up what looked like an amazing tiny carving of a  wooden shield with a cross on it. (In Tennessee, they’d call it, “whittling” or as they would say, “we-ut-lin” ) Just as I’m thinking somebody has lost an unbelievable piece of work, all of a sudden, it flies away. After some research, I found out it’s called a Clymene Haploa Moth. 

15F

 

I really enjoy traveling, especially when it’s to see good friends, and you know it’s going to be a great time. Check and check. Here’s my seat at 15F.

LeConte Lodge

This is the second sketch I’ve done of LeConte Lodge in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Someone saw the other one I’d done on google and contacted me and said this is where they were engaged and asked if I would do another one with their engagement date on it.  It’s always a privilege to be a small part of the special occasions in people’s lives. This is one of the reasons I enjoy drawing.

 

LeConte Lodge

Up on Mt LeConte in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is LeConte Lodge. At 6400 ft it is the highest guest lodge in the eastern United States and you can only get there by hiking. The trails range from 5 miles to 8 miles long. I drew this for a friend of mine. I personally have never been to LeConte Lodge, but I did talk myself out of a speeding ticket once in the National Park, doing 70 in a 25mph zone. It was almost midnight and it was an honest mistake…

Parkette’s Drive-In

Each summer, my wife and I get the privilege of going to Tennessee and spending a couple weeks with some life long friends which is invaluable and eternal. The down side, is they are foodies. This means I put on 60-80 pounds in a matter of 2 weeks…As foodies, my friend likes to watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Guy Fieri, and then takes road trips to these places and eats there. (Well, he doesn’t watch it WITH Guy Fieri, Guy, is the host of the show…) The fun is the road trip itself, the journey, the eating is the excuse to go. So this summer we headed to Lexington, KY to Parkette’s Drive-In.  Let me just start off with no misconceptions, this is man food. Fried chicken and gravy, home made rolls and gravy, butter and gravy, onion rings and gravy, french fries and gravy. Gravy by the tub that flowed like wine and our server made sure we understood clearly to dunk everything in the gravy. Everything. I’m sure the gravy is illegal in some states. For dessert, they brought out deep fried funnel-cake fries with powdered sugar on top!!! Are you kidding me?? Brilliant!!

Not only was the food an out of body experience, but the owners are amazing people as well! We needed several seats and the place was already packed out but they were building a new section for seating in an area not yet open, that they made look like a garage from the 1950’s. It had yellow caution tape around it, but they let us be the FIRST to use it!! We were the only ones in “the garage” and had it all to ourselves. They were so accommodating! I can see by the service and the food why it was featured on the show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Vic & Bill’s Deli

Vic & Bill’s Deli is a neighborhood Deli in Knoxville, Tennessee. I was introduced to them and their amazing sandwiches by Nate Karnes’ dad who was my coach. Go to his website to see an incredible artist at natekarnes.com and the very unique style and creativity he has. I’ll wait till you come back…So Vic and Bill’s is one of those places I wanted to draw and this summer I did, but what is really interesting is they had decorated their walls with pictures from the past and they were all recently stolen! So I send my friend this pic and he shows it to them and they loved it so much they put it up as one of their Facebook pictures! www.facebook.com/pages/Vic-Bills-Deli/113899905298751  Check it out. I guess Facebook is this really big thing.

I’m going to send the original to them for their bare walls…to me, having my artwork in places like this is WAY more cool than some hoity-toity museum in France…Everyday, people will enjoy their Reuben or Turkey Club, glance up at that picture and think, “…oh, that’s different…”  mission accomplished!!

Hang Your Hammock!

Just another sketch of hammocks that gathered in the mountains of Tennessee.  It’s amazing how much these have grown in popularity. Someone brought their rain fly to use as shade…turns out it was used as a rain fly most of the week to keep us dry.  These hammocks are so much fun. If you go to their website, they have a picture gallery of all the different places people have hung their hammocks. It’s pretty cool.