20.08.2012 – 20.08.2012  26 °C

We woke this morning to a really top notch free brekky.. It is the first brekky that I can recall where I was able to have home made yoghurt with museli! I was in seventh heaven!!! Muesli, yoghurt and bagels.. About the best brekky I can have! After gorging myself with brekky we all hit the road to go for a tour thru Gatlinburg’s arts and crafts district. Gatlinburg boasts 8 miles of crafts so for M this was her version of a theme park!!!

The drive was probably to be expected, shop after shop selling all sorts of arts and crafts. The highlight of the tour (for all of us) was this huge pottery shop selling all sorts of crockery. The guy who owns the store’s speciality design is to imprint a maple leaf into the stoneware during the drying process, meaning that the pot is left with a really gorgeous leaf impression. This leaf imprint is then covered in wax so that when the pot is glazed the leaf impression part is plain clay coloured. On top of this, his glazing style is to use one colour as his base colour (say pale blue) and then he dips the top of the pot into another type of glaze (say bright blue) and then lets the glaze drip down the sides. The end result is really unique and in my opinion pretty nice!

The owner also makes big jugs (the style that Moonshine used to be produced in) that he turns into caricatures.. Pretty funny! If I didn’t have to carry around the jug, and had the room in my bag, I might have got myself a Moonshine jug!

The only other store that really caught my eye was this wood carvers shop. The owner no longer carves plain wood. He actually gets different types of woods, cuts the wood into fine strips and then weaves different coloured strips of wood together to create these very unique looking hexagonal bowls. Again, if I had the room…..

We soon got sick of looking at the same sort of stuff (even M) so we decided to spend some more money down at the outlet mall. I had accidentally left my thongs behind in Williamsburg (the first thing I’ve actually lost in almost two years of travelling!!) so I was keen to find some sort of thongs that would be water safe. My last pair were super duper comfy, but didn’t like going to the beach too much.. This time I was keen to find some that were not only comfy but were beach safe.

I found a pair in one of the numerous shoe shops, and they actually had a deal where you buy one pair get the second for half price. D had also been considering throwing his thongs (due to wear and tear) so we both ended up with a pair of thongs.. Me with a beach safe pair and D with a super comfy but not super water resistant pair. M found a lingerie shop that sold her style of underwear at bargain basement prices, so we all managed to walk out of the mall happy shoppers!

Our afternoon was really pleasant. We started out by cooking ourselves some home made hamburgers for lunch and followed this up with a relaxing arvo reading or in my case blogging and organising my Grandmother’s holiday for the following year.

Dinner was a real treat for us all. We headed down into Pigeon Forge to attend the Hatfield and McCoy show. I hadn’t heard of the Hatfield’s or the McCoy’s before I came to the USA. The H&M were two families that had a very public and very famous feud. It started just after the American civil war with one of the family members being killed because he supported the union. From here the feud grew with multiple deaths on either side. I’m not sure of all of the details but the feud continued for years until eventually it petered out in the early 1900s.

This version of the feud is a musical comedy dinner show. A real stand up on the hill billy, backward Virginian, complete with poor spelling, and a really thick hill billy accent! If I describe the building that the show is housed in, I might be able to give you a good idea of what sort of show we saw! When you drive up you are greeted by three oversized houses that are all falling on each other. Out the front is parked an oversized old pickup truck, an oversized still producing “moonshine”. A dude sitting out the front resplendent in; breeches, felt hat and wheat stalk hanging out of his mouth surrounded by three grazing goats! (The guy and the goats are real, not mannequins.)

When we entered we were greeted by ‘Ma McCoy’ the matriarch of the McCoy clan and ‘Pa Hatfield’ the patriarch of the Hatfield clan and were ushered to our seat by cuzin’ Art! J Dinner wasn’t too bad either (all cooked by Ma McCoy herself!); starter was possum soup, main was pulled ‘hogg’, maash and ‘slaaw all topped off with a tasty muud pie (chocolate mousse). Surprisingly, there was no moonshine on the menu (or any other alcoholic beverage). When I asked cuzin’ Art about where Pa’s moonshine was he explained that Pigeon Forge is an dry town.. no alcohol can be sold in the town. Apparently, it is because Pigeon Forge sells itself as a family destination and they don’t want to tarnish their image by selling alcohol. In the heart of Tennessee Hill Billy country you can’t buy a drop!!! J

The show itself opened with members of the cast playing music (whilst we finished dinner) and some gags about the food etc. The show itself was the story of the new sheriff in town who has rented a barn from the mayor. The mayor has stipulated that if any damage occurs to the barn the sheriff must pay up $1000 to pay for repairs. The new sheriff is staged as a real ‘country bumpkin’ who stupidly agrees to have a barn warming party and is told by the mayor to invite the two influential families, the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s, of the area to his party. The mayor does this knowing that the two families will immediately start fighting and trash the barn. Of course, the story continues, the barn is trashed (with plenty of sore heads on both sides) and the new sheriff has to pay up the cash. Meanwhile we find out that Ma McCoy and Pa Hatfield used to have a budding relationship  and that their romance is at the heart of the feud, we also find out that they both owe money on their farms and the mayor is calling in the debts. So we have three groups who all need a $1000.. it just so happens that the town is holding its annual talent contest and the prize is surprise, surprise a $1000… The end of the tale is both families join sides to win the money and Ma and Pa live happily ever after. The story line was pretty lame, but the actual music (blue grass of course) and the comedic interludes made it a really great night out and well worth the entry price.

Song of the Day– Rednecks, Cotton Eyed Joe