Well we are in Atlanta… left Lexington on Tuesday morning and made our way through Kentucky to Knoxville…
the weather looked like it could get wet when we started out so Knoxville was the point at which we would assess the sit’chiation and decide whether the weather was cooperating and would make taking the route through a bit of the Smoky Mountains the thing to do.
Well by Knoxville the temperature was starting to climb in to the upper 70s (farenheit degrees that is) so the top came down on the convertible and we adjusted out course! Went through Gatlinberg… so we saw the commercial district created in and around Dollywood… we were a lile freaked out by it all… almost out of nowhere we came upon an area in Pigeon Forge that looks like the Vegas strip… with a scale model of the front end of the Titanic… an upside-down restaurant… yes even Hill Billy Village 
and a lot of other ridiculous stuff (probably a lot of fun for families… but we were just freaked out by it).
The Great Smoky Mountain National Park was incredible… 
Out on the other side we made our way through Franklin and Clarksville then picked up Highway 85 and made our way to Atlanta…
Our first evening in Atlanta we hit David’s favorite Blues hangout The Northside in all its splendour. Drank and grooved to some great tunes by Nathan Nelson and his Entertainment Crackers… and got back to our hotel after 2 tired and very happy.
Nathan’s bass player, Dave Roth, really knocked me out… great bass playing but also harmony vocals… a rauchous sense of humour… intermittent lap-steel inprovisation (which he apparently has only taken up in the last little while… he could’a fooled me!)… Dave also designed the packaging for the band’s cd (which he happily assembled for anyone who purchased a copy)… here we are at the Northside enjoying the band…
I’m very behind in my updating… yesterday we hit the Georgia Aquarium during the day, an amazing restaurant call the Bone Garden for dinner and were blown away by MudCat at the Northside… but I’ll tell you more later!
