Anniversary 2010: Great Smoky Mountain Railroad
For our fourth wedding anniversary, I gave Greg the first four seasons of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and he got me a train ride. 
I have been wanting to ride a train for AGES. It was AMAZING!
 |
(Lionel Anniversary Locomotive – because I never met a pun I didn’t like, no matter how weak.)
We drove up to Bryson City, NC that Friday (the 4th), and checked into the hotel. It is freaking lovely in the mountains. (Also, Greg kept telling me – and still does from time to time – “North Carolina has both mountains AND beaches – did you know that?” I think he maybe got it from a NC tourism commercial? It makes me chuckle for some reason.) We watched Comedy Central for a while before going to sleep. (We saw a couple comics – I remember we saw the guy from Cash Cab, Ben Bailey, who was actually pretty funny, and dirtier than I would have expected from the Cash Cab host; Aziz Ansari – I liked most of his stuff, but the Raaaaaaandy! shit kind of fell flat for me; and some comedienne who was just terrible and whose name I can’t remember.) Didn’t want to stay up too late, or party too hard, because we had to get up early the next morning to check out and go ride a train!
It was pretty goddamn awesome. By which I mean “OMGWTFBBQ! I rode a TRAIN!!!!!!!!! SQUEE!” Amazing. And I say that even though we spent the majority of the train ride looking out the window at kudzu. BUT – it was kudzu seen from inside a train, so it was awesome. I loved it. We did the Nantahala Gorge excursion, which lasted four and a half wonderful hours, and included the Tuckasegee River, the Fontana Lake Trestle, the Nantahala River Gorge, and an hour layover at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. We traveled first class (woo woo), but also explored most of the rest of the train, and so got to look at the other cars, too.
 |
 |
(I feel obliged, to assuage my left boob’s wounded pride, to assure you that while my boobs are in fact slightly uneven, they are nowhere near as uneven as they appear in that photo. Not sure what’s going on there, but it’s mostly optical illusion, promise. This has nothing to do with trains or fucking awesome anniversaries, though, so moving right along.)
I told Greg to make a face, and this is what I got:
 |
I love it.
I took a gripload of pictures, and didn’t want to inundate you with all of them, so these are just highlights. You can see all the pictures right here. (I like the slideshow.)
After the train ride, we went to the Lionel Train museum next door, and then pottered around Bryson City a bit. I really wanted some kudzu jelly (it is delicious!), and managed to find some at a giftshop across from the depot. I also got honeyblossom jelly (also delicious), and some honey mead. (Greg and I just tried the mead last night, 6/27, and it was…not bad. He thought it was pretty tasty; I thought it was interesting, but not quite as sweet as I’d hoped. What can I say, I love girly drinks.)
Then we drove to South Asheville, for dinner at Tupelo Honey Cafe. And it was so scrumptious that I *am* going to inundate you with photos. (Well, just a couple, really. Not an inundation.)
 |
They bring out biscuits for starters (and some of the best biscuits I’ve ever had in my life), and then we also had their delicious Tupelo Tofu Wings.
 |
 |
Greg had their Cheesy Classic Grill (double cheddar) and Tomato Soup:
 |
And I had their Sunshot Vegetable Plate, with sweet potato fries, goat cheese grits (drooooool), and Bubba’s brussel sprouts:
 |
I couldn’t actually finish all my food, which was kind of rad, since it meant I had leftovers to grub on later. 
And Sunday, the actual day of our anniversary, we recovered and mooched around the house. And that was lovely, too. (I do like having a day between getting home from vacation and going back to work to kind of decompress and switch gears.)
SilhouetteScreams said,
June 30, 2010 at 4:50 am
WOOOO TRAINS! Seriously, that train looks awesome, all classy and shit.
And NOM. That is all
kayeffjay said,
June 30, 2010 at 8:59 am
“Classy and shit.”
That is exactly how I would put it. (It is, actually. I add “and shit” or “or some shit” to just about everything.) Hee.
Sorcia MacNasty said,
June 30, 2010 at 7:30 am
You were in NC and you didn’t even drop on by and holla at your girl? SAD FACE
kayeffjay said,
June 30, 2010 at 9:01 am
What? Is that missing a “western” or something? I *live* in NC.
Sorry.
Could I use the excuse that I was busy canoodling and being disgusting with my husband?
Sorcia MacNasty said,
July 5, 2010 at 9:04 am
Srsly?! No one tells me anything. Where do you live, exactly? I’m in the Piedmont Triad.
kayeffjay said,
July 7, 2010 at 8:27 pm
We’re in the Triangle (live in Durham, work at UNC), and both grew up in Greensboro.