Chattanooga for the Win

After over a year and a half of pandemic life without travel, Eric and I went, with a Ziploc bag full of cleaning products for the hotel room, on an overnight excursion to Chattanooga. The ‘Noog holds a special place in our hearts, as it is the first place that we traveled together as friends back in 2008. Since then, we’ve made many getaways to Chattanooga...for beer festivals, for Chattanooga Choo Choo Christmas lights, for concerts (Jason Isbell and Band of Horses), for minor-league baseball, and for major league food (Urban Stack, St. John’s, Public House, Tupelo Honey). This occasion was for Eric‘s birthday.

We had a late start, what with me dropping Booker off at sleep-away camp (his vet), and Eric waiting in line for the first-Saturday-after-the-third-Monday ABC Store bourbon allocations (I’m not making that up). Then, there was traffic. So much traffic.  We were staying downtown at the Courtyard by Marriott, overlooking the river, and close to everything:  food, baseball, attractions. As I was checking into the hotel and Eric was parking the car, I discovered that the Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon (a triathlon Eric has in the past competed in) was scheduled the following day.  It just so happened that the START / FINISH line was located one block away. Our hotel was full of athletes and bicycles.  It took me almost a half hour to get our luggage and Riverside Wine and Spirits’ purchases up to our seventh floor room because there was only one working elevator. Eric had to circle away and around to find a public parking lot that wasn’t already filled to capacity...eventually we accidentally ran into each other in the lobby.

Agreeing upon a shamefully early and incredibly safe dinner, we ducked into the Mellow Mushroom for one of our greatest hits from the past, a Greek salad and gluten-free Philosophers Pie (which is no longer on the menu, but they happily offered to make for us). Post dinner was spent walking across the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge, venturing down on the north side of the shore, and then trekking back across the bridge to our hotel room for a quick rest before the ball game.

Philosopher's Pie, Mellow Mushroom

AT&T Field, which is home of the Chattanooga Lookouts, was one block away from the Marriott. The visiting team was Alabama’s own Huntsville Trash Pandas.  Our carefully researched seats behind home plate (good view and netting to protect against wayward baseballs) gave us one of the best vantage points that we’ve ever had at that field. With a blue sky rapidly filling with storm clouds,  both teams took turns scoring until, during an impressive stadium wave started by persistent Trash Panda fans, the Lookouts hit a home run, resulting in three runs being scored. The Trash Pandas attempted to make a comeback, but their momentum seemed to have vanished. Rain scattered fans into the tunnels below the bleachers, sending some running, never to return.  But the game continued until the top of the ninth, which is where it ended with the Lookouts victorious. We triumphantly poured with the crowd out of AT&T Field and made our way along the streets back to our hotel room, where we were able to catch (without wait) the one operating elevator.

The next morning, as some brave-hearted individuals triathed their way throughout the downtown area, we researched popular gluten-free breakfast options.  We landed on the well-reviewed Bantam + Biddy, known for their gluten-free chicken and waffles. As we approached the restaurant, a gentleman with a mohawk and a bouncer / manager-vibe opened the door for us.  At the counter, I launched into, “I have a severe gluten allergy, and I read on the Internet that you guys have the best gluten-free chicken and waffles. I don’t see that listed on the menu as being gluten-free, but I was curious to know if that’s something I could…”  I trailed off hopefully.  The server’s immediate response was, “That’s what we do here!'' Which was seconded by the mohawked-bouncer-manager-doorman’s confident, “You came to the right place.”

Gluten-free Chicken & Waffles, 
Bantam + Biddy

So, gluten-free chicken and waffles for each of us!  With a bourbon pecan maple syrup chaser!  The chicken was perfectly fried...lightly crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside.  The waffle tasted like it was full of all the gluten in the world, which it was not.  And the bourbon pecan maple syrup was like liquid bourbon pecan pie.  If I could’ve bottled that meal up, I would've worn it as perfume. Instead, I boxed it up and took the leftovers home, getting two more meals from it. And just like that, Bantam & Biddy made it to our major-league food list!

Asheville, NC: Top-secret Surprise Holiday Trip Part I

I was the recipient of a special top-secret surprise holiday trip this year, planned and orchestrated by Eric. And, as I posted on my Facebook wall when we returned from said special top-secret holiday trip, “There was food.  Much food.   Delicious food that was gluten free.   And art.   Art everywhere.”

Eric planned the trip about three months ago.  I was told the dates of the trip so that I could ask off from work, what the projected weather forecast for our destination was, and what clothing I might want to wear (some walking, possibly some hiking, definitely some eating).  The only other information that I received was clues, one clue every week for the six weeks before the trip, clues that included unmarked maps, anagrams and riddles.  And, as to be expected, I was completely unable to figure out where we were going because the clue-sharing was too much like game-playing (which everyone knows makes my  1) palms sweat, 2) elbows to break out into hives, and/or 3) brain to think that my body is in a fight or flight situation and I have to leave the room or else start biting people).  Yep, Eric’s secret trip location remained a secret (despite all of my trickery to fool Eric into slipping up) until we were about ten miles away from our hotel, that hotel being in the picturesque city of Asheville, NC.

20 December 2012

When we arrived, hungry in the pouring rain (essentially it had rained the entire trip from outside our door in Gadsden to the door of the hotel in Asheville) we opted to check in quickly and find some food in the famed foodie town.  Being late afternoon, most small local dining spots had not reopened yet from lunch, so we opted for a meal at one of our favorite-anywhere restaurants, Mellow Mushroom.  We split a Greek salad which consisted of Romaine and iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots, red cabbage, onions, cucumbers, green peppers, mushrooms, feta cheese, Kalamata olives, Roma tomatoes, pepperoncini and banana peppers covered in the Mellow Mushroom’s signature Esperanza dressing which tastes very much like a bright Caesar dressing.  For entrees, I chose the gluten free Philosopher’s Pie (grilled steak, Portobello mushrooms, artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives, provolone, feta and mozzarella cheese) while Eric ordered a gluten-filled calzone.   There was enough leftover food to snack on for days, so we took the remains back to the hotel and did just that.  I’ve never been opposed to eating pizza for breakfast…

Philosopher's Pie at Mellow Mushroom, Asheville, NC.

Calzone at Mellow Mushroom, Asheville, NC.

Woodland Park Part I

Back in 1991, as a Jacksonville State University student, I helped excavate a Woodland Indian site near Anniston.  The area was doomed for modern recreation, to be turned into a sports complex.  It was only my second excavation, my first being the excavation of the old Davis Farm (now almost completely obscured by the boom of the Oxford area near I-20).  I was still learning what debitage and debris meant when it came to lithics, what naturally occurring tempers would have been used in ceramics of that area (sand, grit), and how to tell a mound from a regular old hill (I still struggle with that some times). 

For two full weeks that May, I spent Monday through Friday from eight in the morning till four in the late afternoon digging, sorting, and processing at that site which was located back through the woods in a field by a pond (the pond by which I camped for the first time in my life, waking up to the sound of my crew chief Chris Hill frying up his breakfast). There was an old two-story house with a barn close by, and a hauntingly beautiful blue hole within walking distance.  Two mischievous ponies with the names Timmy and Al (aka Evil) lived on the property and they made a point to behave sometimes in ways that would result in their being run off.

It was my first experience of digging a site that I knew was marked to fall under the bulldozer of progress.  Our field school represented the last chance to preserve the cultural artifacts that were left there upwards of three thousand years ago by prehistoric Native Americans.  In the end, the process of backfilling our meticulously excavated units was a painful closure.  We had removed as much as we could.  When we left at the end of June, I thought I’d never see the place again.  And I maybe wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Bamacross.

Last weekend, Mellow Mushroom Racing hosted a two-day cyclocross race in Anniston.  It was part of the Bamacross series…and it was held at Woodland Park Softball Complex.  So, after going to my nephew’s skating party at Merry Go Round Skate (which is another story entirely, and involves me roller skating again for the first time in about thirty years), I headed over to Anniston.

Taking the old way that I used to drive back when I was a fledgling shovel bum, I was struck by how little had changed on those curvy county roads.  I could almost swear that the same skinny country boys were still driving the same late-model muscle cars just as fast as they did in the 90s, and the same old trailer park was still filled with the same washed out old trailers.  But the park…when I got to the entrance of Woodland Park, it was entirely different than it was when I last laid eyes on it.  Gone was the farm gate that I had to open, drive through, and then close to get onto the farm.  Gone was the chert drive that I had to drive real slow on lest I stirred up so much dust I couldn’t see where I was going nor from where I came.  In their place were beautifully landscaped grounds with a nicely paved road.   But, as Eric pointed out to me while I pouted, if I looked back behind the far left field, I could still see an old road bed that cut back into the trees…