A little visit to Chatt-town...

Before leaving for Mexico, Mom and I thought we should pay a little visit to MeMe & Bobba in Chattanooga.  I am so glad we went!  Whenever I can see the Pyramid and cross the bridge into Memphis, it always feels like coming home- even after all these years.  

        

After having already been in the car for 6 hours, we had to stop at the original Neely's Barbeque for a little lunch.  De-lish!!  And what a neat place.  There are pictures all over the walls of the Neely's with all kind of celebrities and old-timey pictures of the Neely family tree.  How ironic that the picture hanging behind mom was a picture of Giada, one of her faves from the food network.  After we were stuffed, we trucked it up the mountain and to MeMe's house we went.

 It's the little things that you can only enjoy at your grandparents' house that I love the most...like coffee mugs with pictures of grandkids on them.  Look at cute little Will King back in 1995.  I thoroughly enjoyed my morning coffee drinking out of this.  :)

Sweet Bobba.  Sorting the mail really wore him out, so he had to put his head down and take a rest.   Even though he can't remember my name anymore and hardly knows where he is, he still makes me laugh as hard as he always has.  I love that about him.

If you're ever in Chattanooga, you have to go to the Knitting Mill Antique Shop.  It is the best and one of the biggest antique shops I've ever seen with a huge variety of all types of things- everything from a large assortment of hats like these that we found, and tons of dishes and glass.  Mom and I came home with only a few more things than we had before.  We do have a bit of an obsession with china & glassware.  

I think I would love to live in the sixties...only if I got to wear hats like this all the time.  So cute!

We can't be in Chattanooga and not see a list of people, some of them being my mom's oldest & dearest friends from high school, Cindy & Mary.   Here's Mary and Mary Ann- besties for life!

me & my meme 

Now, here's a little piece of my family history...Ankar's Hoagies.  My mom's family grew up next door to a Greek family that started this famous Chattanooga restaurant centuries ago.  It's a must that we eat there, at least once, every time we are in Chattanooga.  I got my annual fix with a camel rider, fried mushrooms and the best baklava I know of.











Meet Bobby Kile, or little Bobby as we like to call him.  The youngest of all the grandchildren and believe me he's soaking it all up!  He's full of energy and attitude but the cutest thing you've ever seen all at the same time.

We also went to some new places that we've never been in Chattanooga.  I think it's pretty obvious how much mom loved McKay Used Bookstore.  Her Hardy Boys collection is nearly complete thanks to the four more she found there.  This place was unbelievably huge, organized and clean.  That's my kind of bookstore.

One last stop at a Chattanooga tradition and our short weekend in Chatt-town was over.  Lunch at The Epicurean, a good ol' meat & three.  With a menu of fried oysters, meatloaf and fried trout, we felt very at home in the deep south.  Oh, how I love it!

On the long journey back from Chattanooga, we made a pit-stop in our old home-town of Franklin in Nashville, Tennessee.  I hadn't been there in years!  It was so fun to see how things have changed...and how somethings haven't changed at all.  While they now have a traffic light in front of our very neighborhood entrance, our house has a new paint job and Loveless Cafe isn't just biscuits & ham anymore, some things like my elementary school haven't changed a bit!  A little trip down memory lane can make me so sentimental.  We also got to have dinner with my oldest friend, Laura Meriwether, her parents and boyfriend.  There are years where we don't get to see each other at all, but by the time 2011 is over, we will have seen each other three times.  What a lucky year!

I'm so glad we took this trip to our "home-land".