B&B

As I mentioned earlier in the overview post about our trip. We stayed in 4 different hotels in 6 nights. The first night was a Jameson Inn in Knoxville. We chose it for it's location and cheap price. I don't know what it is, but I have an aversion to Jameson Inn's. I'm really not sure why, other than just each one has had it's own issues, but that's a story for another day.

Once we got to the Gatlinburg area, we stayed at the Inn on the River in Pigeon Forge. Last year, we stayed at the Inn at Christmas Place. In order to save some money we picked the Inn on the River. It had a great location in Pigeon Forge (right across for the Inn at Christmas Place) and a decent breakfast selection (biscuits, gravy, eggs, waffles. . . ).

After our first day in the Blue Ridge Parkway area in North Carolina, we stayed the night at a Hampton Inn in Hendersonville. Ahhh, now this is more like it ;), it blew Jameson Inn out of the water. We somehow ended up with a handicap room, meaning extra space in the room and bathroom. (Side note, that night, Steve found a "hipster" pizza place in downtown Hendersonville that was very enjoyable -- West First Wood-Fired).

For the remainder of the trip, we stayed at our first bed & breakfast -- Bent Creek Lodge. It had 10 different rooms and we stayed in the "bird room". We had a fun time counting all the birds. Each day we'd find a new one in the room. I think our count ended at 33, but I digress. . .

I was shocked upon entering our room for the first time -- there was no TV!! For those of you who don't know me, I can't function without a tv running in the background. Surprisingly, I made it 2 nights without a tv and would stay there again in a heartbeat! The b&b had a "cabin" feel and was nestled in the woods away from any other buildings and roads.

Each room had access to a balcony. You could enter your room either from the outside balcony access or through the main entrance to the lodge. When we first got to our room, we went outside on the balcony to take in all the colors of the trees and survey the area.

While we were looking outside, Steve pointed out one of my "favorite" animals -- a deer. We saw several deer on this trip. Thankfully, none of them were seen careening into our car. We saw a few on our driving trails as well as a posse grazing alongside the highway on our way home.

The best part about staying at this bed & breakfast was the breakfast!! After later research of the lodge, we discovered that one of the owners was a culinary chef. However, she wasn't the one who did the cooking. Her skills had obviously warn off on her husband, who did all the cooking. The served amazing breakfasts that had huge portions.

On the first morning, we had:

-Whole Wheat pancakes

-Bacon

-Fried Apples

-Yogurt & Granola

On the second morning we had:

-Spinach cakes w/tomato gravy (sounds gross but tasted amazing)

-Eggs to order

-Hash browns

-Fresh Pineapple

You could tell that the lodge owners truly enjoyed being hosts. They would bake fresh cookies and desserts and would lay them out on the counter to be enjoyed by the guests. They also had complementary soda and snacks (pretzels, peanuts, granola bars. . . ) at all times, too. We were really impressed by their generosity in the food department.