Vacay - Part One: Tennessee

Sweetwater Valley Farm, Philadelphia, Tennessee

H and I have some great friends that we love to visit. They do live almost 12 hours away, but with one couple living in South Carolina and the other in Tennesee, we combined visits, so at least we were heading in basically the same direction.

With friends, M, RJ and C, we toured beautiful Knoxville, Tennessee, including the revitalized downtown area and The University of Tennessee. It is such a lovely city with lots of green areas, restaurants and bars (lots of them).

Here are some highlights:

La Costa on Market Square was great. It was Margarita Monday - woo-hoo. 

Some of our other stops:

We looked inside S&W Grand restaurant, which we're told has a wonderful brunch. 

Knoxville is also the home of the South’s Finest Chocolate Factory. Wow, what a place. I was sooo good and came out with only a few chocolate turtles (different flavors, though) and a couple boxes of Tennessee Taffy.

We went to a little town called Sweetwater. So cute. 

We also visited the marvelous Sweetwater Valley Farm . It was so pretty.

They sell amazing cheese.

Here's where they make it.

The Mild Yellow Cheddar is particularly good, as is the Governor’s Aged. 

AND they sell lots of different flavors of honey jelly from Honeyberry Farm. (Yup, I said honey JELLY. So interesting.) The pecan flavor was my favorite. I bought lots. :-)

I loved visiting The Mast General Store. Who doesn’t need Stick-Um Candle Adhesive or Bear Paw Grease? (Okay, I’m kidding about that second thing.)

We had an amazingly fabulous meal at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee. It was so great that I'll bring that visit to you in a separate post, along with a really special giveaway. Want a hint? But before that, I have to tell you about a few other places in Part Two.