Day 2 - Atlanta to Gatlinburg

Today was a weird day, I woke up at 4 because the jet lag struggle is real! I lay in bed chatting with "the gang" who were all going about their Sunday mornings due to the time difference while K got some more sleep. I also listened to some thunder unfortunately. Standard day one holiday nonsense - remember the comedy poncho photos from day one of the Florida road trip?!

K woke up at 6 but we didn't want to leave til it was fully daylight so we waited til 7 to leave. Our planned brunch joint was 2 and a half hours away in Greenville, South Carolina so we def wanted to get off early.  The journey was uneventful and not hugely interesting since we were on the interstate. It was pretty cool seeing the city centre of Atlanta,  loads of cool buildings which I look forward to seeing on our last day.

The rain slowed us down a bit so we didn't get to Greenville til 945. Biscuit Head already had a queue out the door but we decided to wait cos we'd planned what we wanted. The wait wasn't too bad and soon enough I'd ordered the biscuit with the bacon of the day (raspberry and jalapeño) with a side of pimento cheese grits for us to share. K ordered the fruit plate, not cos she wanted to be healthy but because it came with homemade chocolate bread and she couldn't see past it.

Breakfast was good, really good. The bacon jalapeño bacon was sweet and spicy and salty and delicious and the grits were ohmygodsogoodiwanttoeattheseforever. So I'm moving to South Carolina.  There was also a selection of home made jams and butters and the bananas foster jam was a game changer. K's was good too and I ate quite a few grapes. We regretted not getting a side of grits each though.

Unfortunately, the rain was pretty heavy when we were done with brunch so we couldn't go our planned walk about the town centre. We drove through it and it looked adorable though. Next we headed for Gatlinburg. We decided after much deliberation to change our plans and take the faster less exciting road through the smokies due to the terrible rain and low visibility.  As we headed towards it we saw a brown sign alerting us that the Sierra Nevada Brewery was nearby so we turned off the interstate and headed towards it. Obviously.

The brewery was massive and had a free self guided tour where they basically let you wander about the whole place. It was great, highly recommended if you find yourself in North Carolina (yes our 3rd state of the day by noon!). After the tour we went to the bar to taste some of the delicious beers, I was all about the sidecar which is an orange pale ale. If we hadn't had a massive brunch we'd have def went to the restaurant cos it looked great.

Back on the road, cruising towards Gatlinburg and we worked out we'd get there just after 3. However,  we suddenly ground to a halt and there we sat for the next 2 hours and a bit without moving. Awesome. Unfortunately, it got worse cos we both needed to pee. I have a bladder of steel but k does not and was starting to panic a bit. She considered a lot of options (we'll never talk about the options that were considered) but then decided to throw herself upon the kindness of strangers. A few cars back from us was a pickup truck with a weird rv trailer thing attached so k went and asked to use their toilet. They were super kind and friendly so she got to pee inside on an actual toilet - phew! Later on when we were back on the road we saw them and realised that there were horses in the back of the trailer. Weird.

Our route to Gatlinburg took a weird turn and we went off onto single track roads with names like Groundhog Road which were the kind of places you expected to see meth lab trailers. It was a weird journey cos there was a mix of real poverty trailer style houses and massive affluent houses with rocking chairs on the porch. We also saw a lot of abandoned buildings but the hardcore rain meant we couldn't get out to take photos.

Eventually we checked into out hotel and headed straight back out to get food. Gatlinburg is wild, like a little Vegas kinda place. If you've ever been to Niagara it is like a bigger version of that, very similar.

We went to a pasta/pizza/dessert buffet called CiCis, not fancy but only $8 and pretty good. The pizza was really fresh and they had a lot of varieties. K was delighted with the dessert section especially as they had dessert pizzas, brownies and fresh cinnamon rolls.

Once we'd eaten we hit the town in the rain. We had to play mini golf obviously and we had a lot of choices cos it's that sort of town. We decided on an indoor black light course and we drew! K was winning all the way round but I got a hole in one on the last hole and pulled it back! Hurrah! We wandered about for a bit and went for coffee to warm up.

We decided on a reasonably early night and we're currently watching Iron Chef in the room. DOLLYWOOD TOMORROW!!!