[The following blog is back-dated.]
We arose Sunday morning and promptly went right back to bed. I must say, I could really get used to that kind of morning, if only I could convince my bosses to let me come in at noon every day. Thus energized, we checked out of our hotel and headed out to see what other sorts of trouble we could get into.

We had skipped breakfast, so the first order of business was food. Yvette and I have a certain weakness. It’s unhealthy, it’s unsophisticated, but it’s something we crave. Hot dogs are the achilles heel of any dietary plan we try to devise.

Now, when I talk about hot dogs, I’m not referring to the normal sort. Those are easy to find. Any grocery store will sell you eight of them, along with the convenient shrink-wrap carrying case, for a dollar and change. If you saw what goes into them, you’d never eat one again. Call them franks, or wieners, or anything else, but to us, they’re not hot dogs. True hot dogs can be served anywhere, but they are all born in Chicago at the Vienna Beef Company. They’re not sold in stores, but only through hot dog stands and hot dog vendors who know how to serve them properly. The big “V” of the Vienna Beef sign is like a streetlamp, drawing hot dog fiends like moths from miles around.

The database in my GPS contained three hot dog restaurants. Two were close-in, one was thirty miles from town. We drove to the first two. At the address of the first, we found a Mexican Taqueria. At the address of the second, we found a tobacco outlet. Wisely, we dug out the cellphone and Yvette called the third before driving out there. When I heard the tinny words “Vienna Beef” coming from the phone my mouth watered. We fastened our seat belts, put the pedal to the floor, and shortly found ourselves in the hamlet of LaVergne, Tennessee, in front of Pawbowsky’s Dog House, a hole in the wall with a big “V” for victory in the window! Inside, we had ourselves some fantastic hot dogs — good Vienna hot dogs with the natural casing, perfectly cooked, nestled in seeded, oversized buns with just the right toppings. Even the fries (we split an order, it was huge) were among the best we’ve had. All in all it was nearly a religious experience.

Appetites sated, we surveyed our options. We were only about 30 minutes from the Jack Daniel Distillery in Lynchburg (pop. 361), Tennessee. We’d both visited before but it had been a long, long time, so we decided to drop in again. I remembered most of the sights from our last visit, but for some reason I didn’t remember all the fascinating aromas. As we walked around in the rickyard, we could smell the sour corn mash cooking in the fermenters. Inside the stillhouse there was a pungent aroma of “new whiskey”, 140 proof stuff strong enough to peel paint. In the aging house, the smell of wood, of alcohol, and of maturing whiskey was fascinating.

Back on the road, we drove over to another nearby distillery, that of George Dickel, but they’d already closed up for the day … perhaps they weren’t even set up for tours on Sunday, we couldn’t tell. It was nice drive, though, into an area called “Cascade Hollow”. We took back roads on the return to Nashville, pausing here and there, taking our time. We listened to a show on Nashville’s public radio station called “The Songwriter Sessions”, a live broadcast featuring three local songwriters who take turns showcasing their newest songs. A fellow named Jon Vezner sang a song he wrote with Paul Williams called “A Wiser Man Than Me” that was brilliantly written … the sort of song that reaches in, grabs your heart, and gives it a good tug. We noticed we were both a little teary eyed! Two songs later it was Vezner’s turn again, and his second song, “Ashes In The Wind”, had the same effect! We wrote down his name. I had intentionally left my laptop at home for this trip, so we would not be able to look him up on the internet until we returned home, but someone whose songs affect us that deeply is someone we need to know more about.

We drove back to where Alexis was staying, arriving near sunset. We stopped at a small park near the dam that holds back Old Hickory Lake, and watched the sun set over the churning waters and the rolling countryside. Life doesn’t get much better than this.