Knoxville, TN adventures.......

Who watches "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" with Guy Fieri on The Food Network Channel? We do!!!! And every time we leave the house on a trip, we check his website (You can look HERE)to see if there is a diner anywhere near where we are going. Unfortunately, the restaurants are listed by episode, not by location. Now, if you have a spare $54.95 (where is that shocked-eyes icon?) , you can purchase the season 1 and 2 book - click HERE, and the destinations ARE by region.

In searching for anything on our route, the nearest restaurant was a place called Pizza Palace in Knoxville, and we headed straight there for dinner. All we knew from the website was the address. The online menu would not pull up on my iPhone, but we were curious. After taking a few wrong exits due to highway construction, we finally found it. This is what we were looking for:



And this is the actual restaurant:


Except, it isn't a regular restaurant, it's a DRIVE-IN!!


Look at that old-timey order phone and menu! After hours driving, we were expecting to go in a nice restaurant, stretch our legs. Well, we did get out and use their restrooms which were clean, but on the outside of the building like in old gas stations or something. Ha!

So Andy ordered a pepperoni and sausage pizza and I ordered their "secret recipe" spaghetti. Check this out:


How, I ask you, are you supposed to eat that in the car?? For those that know me, you know that grace and coordination are NOT my middle name, so I covered up in double paper towels from chin to lap (of course the packing extraordinaire Andy brought some along) and did my best. The food WAS very good, but so much is left over. (I have been very systematically shrinking my stomach and can only eat small portions - Yahoo!). I have several meals left, and our new hotel DOES have a mini-fridge!

After dinner, we went to a local Walgreen's to get me out and let me stretch my legs (gotta stretch every couple of hours due to my nerve and back issues) and then off we went to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Smoky Mountain as we headed to Marion, NC. I love the tunnels through the mountains, as well. Andy is such a fabulous driver that I rarely get carsick. (And he's a trooper - I'm not able to drive much, so he has that duty each trip. But he says, as long as I'm my chatty, happy self, he's happy to oblige.)

We rolled in to our hotel around 9:30 pm (forgot we had a time change!!) and Andy surprised me with the room. We have a beautiful extra-large room with a couch, larger TV and mini-kitchen. This will be very comfortable considering I will be "stranded" here for the 3 days he has his business meetings. This is how I physically "regroup" from all the traveling. By the time Thursday rolls around, I will be rested up and ready for some more car travel. Not sure what else we have on the agenda for the trip - kind of winging it, based on how I'm doing, how the boys are doing back home and such. The boys declined to come with us. Both are working and enjoy time away from Mom and Dad every once in a while. The dogs miss us more than the boys do!

Have a great day!

Cheri