Pro Football Hall of Fame

Hadn’t come to Canton intending to visit the Pro football Hall of fame; to be honest didn’t even know it was there (not a football fan); however, driving around in this town it’s kind of hard to miss it.

So I came here, and I was interested, but not $24 + $10 for parking interested….

Once I saw the prices, I opted to just check out the gift shop, which the guys working their front-desk did not want to let me do (and they even said I should have paid the $10 for the pleasure of parking my car before shopping) but I just ignored their comments, and no one stopped me.

The gift shop is basically any sports wear shop you’ve ever seen that specializes in any particular NFL team, only this one has stuff for every team, and not much more than that. They don’t even have much specifically aimed at that museum itself… I compare this to goods for sale at Hong Kong Disney which are just generic ‘disney’ stuff, with almost nothing that is specific or special to the park. In other words, there’s no reason to not just buy a generic disney character shirt at a discount store rather than pay the elevated park prices. Suffice it to say, I was out of there in about three minutes.

I heard afterwards from the front desk clerk at my hotel that it’s possible to get a combined ticket for both the NFL and the Rock and Roll (which I didn’t realize was also in Canton)hall of fame ticket for $30, and according to my male friends — when they heard I could have gone in but didn’t — both are MUST see museums ….. So, I will try the combo ticket next time I’m in Canton.

Things we do for love

Today was a very emotionally exhausting, upsetting, and draining day; I did something that in my lifetime I never expected I would have to do … I tried to go visit a dear friend who is in prison for having been incredibly stupid. What he did was the sort of thing that in other countries (many in fact) would not be illegal … but here in the USA its not only illegal, it’s anathema.

That said:

There’s a list I keep in my head, its a list of all the people on this planet that I love. It’s a list slowly compiled over my lifetime. To be fair, most of the people on it are men (who I may or may not have been sexually involved with at some point), but there are a handful of women too. These are the sorts of people who I can go months or years without seeing, but always feel close to in spite of that; and, when we eventually get back together it’s almost like we never separated. Almost without exception these folks are unique, brilliant, creative individuals who are often the sort that make a difference on the planet — some even make it into history books (no seriously, they do). They pretty much all live large in one way or another. This guy, this friend, for many years not only was he on the top of my list, he was one of personal heroes,

… he was, and still is — despite what he’s done, someone who made me want to be a better person.

That was the friend I tried to visit today, emphasis on the tried… and failed. If I were to describe him to you in detail, you’d understand why I can forgive him for being a stupid idiot about certain things — and I can not over emphasize the level of stupid that got him thrown in prison. However, in my world some stupid (no matter just how stupid, and this was very very stupid on oh so many levels) does not negate 25 years of honorable merit, at least not in my book. Not only was he one of my personal heroes, but this is the sort of guy, who till just a few months ago, schools invited over to talk to their kids about how ‘no matter who you are, and what your background, your life is yours to lead and you’re the one who gets to make decisions — good or, ironically, bad — regarding how to live it.’ But like many folks from problematic backgrounds he had never fully addressed his inner demons but rather he just repressed them in favor of basking in his current successes, (imagining I suppose that they were now no longer part of him) till they came up to bite him in his ass. To quote different friend of mine who, like this person, was a recovered alcoholic, “there really should be a required 13th step of therapy, so you can figure out why you turned to your drug of choice to self-medicate yourself in the first place.” When I met him he was already maybe 10 years sober and doing amazing things with his life. I can only hope that while in prison, that what he’s doing during his time of prison (in addition to writing his book) is working with a therapist to discover why he did this oh so idiotic thing.

Before he’d gone in we’d talked multiple times and each time I asked him if he wanted me to visit him when he was inside, and he had insisted he did. So, I honored my promise and I drove to the prison to visit him. When I arrived it wasn’t visiting day (he’d not stayed in contact as promised so I had no idea when visiting day might be — the prison web site didn’t say), and the staff at the secured entrance didn’t even know whether or not I was on the list of people who were allowed to visit him.

Before going I had on multiple occasions spoken with his mom and once with his sister, telling them that I intended to go. His sister had even a few weeks before reminded him that he had said he wanted me to, and that I was planning to, and that he should make sure to do what needed to be done to get me on the visitors list. She said he’d not responded one way or another, so that she wasn’t sure if he would do it or not. But I figured, if he had, I would see him, and if not, I’d do what I could to fix that… and even if after that he had not put me on the list, at least he’d know I had done everything in my power to try.

To those who have never had anyone in prison, this is foreign territory. Lord knows I honestly never thought that in all my years any of my friends would be on the inside for anything other than, maybe unintentional manslaughter (being unlucky enough to accidentally kill someone, which could happen to anyone I suppose). Anyways, there is, apparently, paperwork that the prisoner is required to send to you requesting that you visit them, which you then have to fill-in and send back; then, the prison does a background check on you before you can be put on the list. Makes sense if you think about it. The onus, according to the guard I spoke to, is completely on the inmate to do that paperwork, and the guards intentionally won’t lift a finger to help them. The theory being that most prisoners lack the basic skills to succeed in life (or they wouldn’t be in prison), and this is part of them learning those skills. Then, once the prison has jumped through the hoops, and you’ve cleared the background check, the prisoner is supposed to send you an email inviting you — none of which my friend had done in spite of the numerous promises before going in that he would.

Now, like I said, this is a highly educated (graduated from the best schools) individual who had reached some of the highest levels of success in his profession, so it’s not that he lacked the basic skills necessary to send me a form. I tried to explain this to the guard, that if my friend had not done it it wasn’t because he lacked the basic skills… but the guard, who clearly was not the brightest light on the Xmas tree, although I think his heart was in the right place, kept repeating to me that it was about them trying to teach the inmates necessary life skills. (sigh)

Now, you might say: “well if he still wanted you there, he’d have done the paperwork as required” — and in fact you’d not be the first. The thing is, I had asked him multiple times when still out of the prison if he wanted wanted me to visit, and he had said he most definitely did. Granted, once inside he probably got depressed and started to feel sorry for himself and decided that he didn’t want me seeing him like that (he knows he had been one of my heros, and that I love him)… but.. well I’m sorry, but fuck that shit. One thing I’m not is a fair weather friend, and if I think you are in a place where you NEED to be reminded that there are people on this planet who love you, I’ll be damned if I’ll make it easy to push me away.

It’s sort of the down side of having many friends who are unusually brilliant and talented, most of those sorts are also folks with lots and lots of issues.

To quote Steve Jobs:
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

What Steve forgot to mention is some of these round pegs secretly hate themselves for a variety of reasons, and when if they were once high, but then are brought low by the forces in the world that will vilify them, is that they will then do some pretty self destructive shit to make SURE the world punishes them… that’s what I really believe happened here.

But seriously, most of the ones who change the course of humanity are folks that most of the rest of humanity wants nothing to do with till AFTER they become famous. So, if one of them stumbles and falls, I’m not turning my back on them because they somehow fucked up. Failure, even personal failure, is a learning experience, and learning experiences are some of the worst. Clearly, this is one he needed.

However, the fact that I had shown up without that paperwork process having been done by the inmate freaked the prison staff out big time. I’m not one however to let things like that stop me, and basically refused to leave in spite of many hints from them that I should, and that my friend had to initiate the process of my being allowed in (and yes, I told the guards multiple sob stories on how far I’d driven, etc., and I allowed the very real tears of frustration to fill my eyes, because what’s the point of being a girl if you cant play the damsel in distress card). The guy at the front desk realizing I wasn’t going to be easily put off called the person in charge of my friends group within the prison. This guy said to just go ahead and give me the form that my friend was supposed to have sent out; and that I could send it in (they refused to just let me fill it in there, it needed to be put in the post) …. and told me that then, after maybe two weeks, I might find out whether or not I was on the list.

Now when you enter a federal prison you’re not allowed to have anything with you other than your keys. I did not know this till I got to the front door … So I returned to the car and took only my keys and my id (cause I figured they would need that, but they didn’t). What they demanded was my friend’s assigned inmate number (in prison, apparently, you become a number), info that I in fact had with me, but it was on my iPhone and they told me to go get the information; but then when I came in with the iPhone which I had to go back to the car to get. When I walked back in, phone in hand, they said “NO you can’t bring the iPhone into the building (the guy was really freaking out) — not even into just the entry area; you have to put it back in the car.” So a lot of back-and-forth between the car and the prison was going on…. but I ultimately got the form I had to fill in

….. So now, an hour later, imagine I’m back at the hotel and I’m sitting down at the table to fill it out …. and I realize I don’t have my drivers license.

Suffice it to say that after the stress of the morning I started freaking out just a little bit ….

Now to backtrack…

Then day before when I first arrived at my hotel, I discover that while the TV worked, the HBO cable wasn’t (Game of Thrones, anyone?) but they promised me it would be fixed that next day; so upon return it I turn it on only to find that it is STILL not working. I called down and it apparently was a room specific issue, so the manager offers to move me to another room where it was working. So, I move… and then when in the new room (this is after visiting the prison) I pull the key cards from the old room out of my pockets and dump them in the garbage. I collapse on the bed and watch some TV till I feel my emotional energy coming back.

I finally sit down to fill out the form and it asks for my drivers license (which is NOT in my wallet, where it should be — and I start freaking), and then — thankfully, I had a thought; I went to look in the garbage can and sure enough I had thrown out my drivers license…. remember I had put into my back pocket before returning to the prison after leaving my stuff — as instructed — and I am sitting at the table, looking at the form and thanking G-d for the form having asked for my drivers license number because I could have easily, if not for that, have checked out the next morning with it still in the garbage.

It’s been that kind of a day

The Mary Todd-Lincoln House.

Definitely worth a visit: Apparently the first museum devoted to a first lady. I learned a lot about her during the visit and now have a lot more respect and sympathy for her than I did previously.

Finding this place wasn’t difficult (with GPS helping), and once you’re in the right part of town the house its self is easy enough to spot, in fact there are signs everywhere of the “hi you’re here” variety — but I’ve got to warn you, that the signage that was supposed to direct visitors to it’s parking lot was horrible! There’s this narrow little alleyway that odds are you won’t spot, which is where you need to turn down off of the busy main street in order to get to the parking lot behind the house, and G-d help you! It really is NOT clearly marked, nor is the traffic pattern in front of the house set up to aid out-of-town visitors to make the turn safely.

I enjoyed my visit here. A lot of historical research, time, effort, and money was invested in order to try to recreate the home as Lincoln might have known it when he visited here. According to our docent, a retired female lawyer, as a result of various historical flukes, historians have a pretty good idea of exactly what items were in the house, and if they weren’t successful in tracking down the specific items the Todds owned (although happily in many cases they were), then they were able to replace them with items sufficiently similar as to give visitors a fairly accurate sense of being in their home. Anytime the items were known to have been owned by the Todd or the Lincoln families, the docent would point them out, and she always made it clear when they were not. So for instance they knew Mary Todd had a preference for the work of a particular furniture designer, and they have some of his pieces but aren’t sure if they’re the exact ones own by Mary… etc. In the picture below for instance, the table she (in white sweater) is standing next to was the actual one from the home, as was the bible laying on it.

I learned a lot of interesting things, such as the house (after the Todds had sold it) became the brothel where a soon to be famous madam, Belle Brezing, who many believe became the template for the Belle Watling character in ‘Gone with the Wind,’ got her ‘training’; and that after Lincoln’s death, Mary’s son, who didn’t recognized the symptoms of laudanum/morphine addiction (which she had been proscribed as a cure for migraines) had his mother declared insane, and tried to get control of her money.

The first time I read about this place was in a blog devoted to ‘things worth stopping to see while road-tripping with the kids down to Disney World.’ However, back in June of 2015, when I was initially making that trip south from Chicago to Orlando, I was still one month shy of the end of the proscribed (by Jewish law) 11 months of mourning for my father, and as such couldn’t do anything ‘fun.’ However, I remembered it now, almost a year later, and since I discovered it was effectively on my path from my friends home in Georgia, to visiting another friend currently doing time in Ohio, I made a point of stopping to see it (in fact, all other things I did while in Lexington were peripheral to this stop).

The American Saddlebred Museum

This is one of my favorite sorts of museums, folks who are entirely geeking out about something they love…. in this case, a specific breed of horse called the American Saddlebred horse, which used to be called “Kentucky Saddler.”

I found this museum on a list of ‘unusual’ things to visit in Lexington, KY. I had just driven up from the Pigeon Forge, TN (Dollywood) and was hoping to arrive in time to see Mary Todd’s Home, but that had closed at 3pm and I arrived at around 3:30pm. So, I decided to spend the night and to do it the next day. It is located on the grounds of the Kentucky State Horse Farm Park and apparently is usually a combined ticket to the race track, meet and greet with the horses, pony rides, etc., but I wasn’t here for those things…I was here for the geek museum.

The area is broken into two rooms — the first is a massive collection of personal momentous from trainers including paintings and sculptures they had commissioned of themselves and their favorite horses,

… as well as personal mementoes, like awards they’d won, or favorite saddles, riding gear, etc.

The 2nd is a museum dedicated to history of the breed, the uses of the horses, and some history of the people who worked with them. Walking around the space it is clear from walking around here that serious money had been spent.

There are two full documentaries (which I have a feeling they had specially made), one about the horses the museum honors and another about the forgotten history of black trainers who didn’t receive any recognition before the 1970’s. According to the film the color barrier didn’t just apply to people; one of the stories the film told was about a horse that wasn’t winning awards because of her odd color (silver), so her trainer — who was a person of color himself, dyed her brown instead of silver and changed her name to painted lady, and she began winning.

The movie that was just about the horses, their history, and why these people love them, includes an interview with the actor William Shatner (of Star Trek fame, again, GEEK) …

4083 Iron Works Pkwy, Lexington, KY 40511, United States
+1 859-259-2746

Dollywood

Worth a visit if you’re in the area, having the advantage of the natural beauty of the surrounding mountains. Shows for the adults, and roller coasters for the kids. If you go on a weekday off season you’ll almost never have to wait in a line.

Did I mention I’ve been to ALL the DisneyParks, some than once? I can’t do roller coasters, I have benign positional vertigo which means any ride that relies on centrifugal forces is a really bad idea for me. In Hong Kong’s Ocean Park I went on one of those water rides where the boat slowly spins and bounces through the water channel … I was nauseated for the next four hours — those rides for little kids where it’s swings attached to a central poll and all it does it rotate slowly? Ditto. So, while Dollywood has rollercoasters (a few) those are not why I love amusement parks.

I got to the park on a VERY low attendance day. I’m not sure how many parking lots the place has (they seem to wrap around a hill), but I arrived at noon only to find a parking spot in the 3rd lot (C for Candy Cane), and as I rode the tram to the main gate I spotted both of the other lots with cars were still about 80% empty. Parking is not organized and directed the way they do it at Disney World, where if you forgot where you parked your car but can tell them about what time you arrived, they can tell you EXACTLY where you are parked (assuming you parked where they told you to). Here you pay for your parking, pass through the gate, and then it’s catch as catch can, and most people seem to come in looking for spots close to the tram stop and just ignore the rest of the lot, moving on to the next one once they feel they’ll have to walk to far — insanely disorganized. (This would be like Disney patrons only parking in about the first 20 spots in a row and moving to the next row up).

The gods however were with me upon my arrival. I got to the front gate to buy a ticket to spot a woman who looked like she worked there standing by the ticket counter with a man along side her:
“why you here Hun”
“I need to buy a ticket…”
The guy standing next to her said “honey it’s your lucky day, I have been standing here for a 1/2 hour trying to give away this extra ticket.”
It seems season card holders are given some extra tickets for friends and this ticket was about to expire (or some such). Rather than just toss it he decided to be charitable and give it to a stranger, only everyone but me had already purchased their tickets before arriving.
This free ticket turned out to be a double good thing, as about three hours in massive storms kicked up which resulted in most of the rides, and such, shutting down because of lightning.

Even though Dollywood advertises itself as good for people who get dizzy, I did not find this to be the case. In the whole park there were only two rides that were not bad for me were the Dollywood Express Train ride (with a genuine old antique soot and smoke producing steam engine), and a ferris wheel (which I didn’t bother riding). But I whole heartedly suggest the train, beats the heck out of the Disney Train which takes you through and around the park as well as into the surrounding woods.

Other than that, Dollywood is about the performances. Now you’d think she’d have her pick of talented but unsuccessful country artists of various genres, but I found the three performances I heard to be beyond underwhelming.

That said, wifi at the park SUCKS, there was no 4g… Nothing!! There was supposed to be free Wifi which I connected to at the front gate, but no connection. I wasted a good half hour trying to find connectivity that lasted for more than a minute near the front gate area and finally gave up… I did however finally find some inside one of the restaurants towards the back of the park, Miss Lillian’s Chicken Shack.

Food at the park is kind of bizarre. You can spend $10 to $12 on a single sandwich, or for $14.95 you can have an all you can eat buffet… Miss Lillian’s included four kinds of salads, smoked or fried chicken, smoked turkey legs, and chicken fried steak, and all you can eat of four kinds of desserts (I had the banana pudding). It was all sort of cheap quality stuff, for $14.95 it was a deal. And there is a a lady walking around the place who looks like she was a rip off of Minnie Pearl’s character from the TV show, “Hee Haw” (it was on US TV from 1969 — 1992) annoying the customers and playing a bit of banjo. I strongly suggest passing the food stalls and opting for the sit down restaurants instead which all seemed to be pretty good deals.

Finally, the park has a sort of Renaissance faire aspect to it, in that there various crafts not just available for sale, but being performed for you: carvers of wax, workers of leather, and blowers of glass, etc. You can order things like a custom aluminum sign for your house, and then watch it being made.

There’s no good Food in Dollywood

(Mia Culpa: I revisited Pigeon Forge in October of 2017, and in retrospect I realized my error lay in my sampling bias which was towards eateries aimed at tourists, all of which offer all you can eat/belly busting portions. What I now know is that food in Dollywood comes in TWO varieties, 1) quantity over quality (such as all the places described above), or 2) quality over quantity. So, please read this, but then please follow the link to the 2nd review)

Seriously, opt for a national chain or the grocery store; there’s nothing to eat here that’s worth breaking your diet. As you guys have probably figured out by now, I take food seriously… both of my parents were great cooks, and I grew up traveling all over the world and my parents liked to eat. As such, one of the ways I judge a town is by how well it eats… and Pigeon Forge eats badly; from what I could tell from the two days I spent there, tourists ratings of restaurants were based soley on portion size and rather than on quality or taste, so that in leu of flavors, most cooks there seemed to rely on portion size and the salt & fat combo to keep customers happy. Pretty much everything I ate was bland, and none of these places could have survived in say, Chattanooga (a town with an active restaurant scene).

— My first meal after checking into my hotel was at the Old Mill Restaurant In Pigeon Forge proper which was suggested not only by the hotel staff, but by yelp and google reviews (4.5 stars with 277 reviews) as being the best local cuisine non-chain eatery in town. It’s a HUGE building meant to look like a converted mill.

Once you’ve been seated, and have ordered you will be served corn chowder, corn meal fritters and maple infused butter, as well as a salad with your choice of dressing… standard, to fill you up while you wait for your food to be cooked. As you can see from the picture, right there you’ve got enough food for a meal.

First I got the chicken and dumplings: this was an absolute blech, my dumplings were inedible bits of semi raw dough that reminded me more of Japanese mochi (pounded rice) than of dumplings, and the gravy tasted of artificial chicken stock and salt — seriously it’s a sad day when you can compare a $18.99 dish to a can of hormel.

The waiter asked me how my meal was, and I was honest. He offered to let me order something else, and I flipped it out for chicken fried steak (also $18.99)… which is one of my favorite foods…. again, Blech, it tasted like bad cafeteria food.

Normally I hate wasting my money and will always pack up left overs to take home and eat later, but this food was so nasty that I left it all pretty much untouched.

To their credit, when the waiter saw I had unhappy with both dishes, he had the manager comp my bill.

— Miss Lillian’s Chicken Shack, is actually inside of Dollywood. If you take the train ride, this the place where Miss Lillian runs out to meet the train waiving her banjo in the air (and she does this every time — I felt sorry woman who plays the character). One of the things that killed me at Dollywood was there were food stands all over the place selling you a sandwich, or some such for about $12.99, which looked to be more bread than meat — i.e., massively over priced. While at the same time if you skipped the ‘fast food’ in option of a sit down, like at Miss Lillian’s, for $14.95 you got an all you can eat buffet with four kinds of salads, smoked chicken or turkey legs (you had to request the legs), fried chicken, and chicken fried steak and a choice of three deserts (or you can take all of them). Of the mains, I think the smoked chicken was the best and it’s all you can eat, so you can keep going back and refilling your plate. So while its not the greatest food on the planet, it’s hard to argue with all the smoked chicken and salad you can eat for $14.95.

And there is a a lady, the aforementioned Miss Lillian, who is dressed up like she was ripped out of hee haw (think Minnie Pearl’s cousin), whose job it is to annoy the customers who won’t play along with the shtick, and maybe play a bit of banjo

— Paula Deen’s Family Kitchens — which I had to try because of her cooking show empire, and all the scandal around her, just so that I could say I had.

I had intended to try this place my first night, as it’s a set price of $21.99 for adults ($10.99 for kids), and you HAVE to order three mains, four side dishes and a dessert even if you came alone, so I thought … What the hell, why not (apparently people traveling alone are usually put off by this)… But then the waiter warned me — after I’d been seated — that you are NOT allowed to take your leftovers!!! WTF? They don’t provide to go boxes and apparently they won’t even let you pack it up if you bring your own containers. SERIOUSLY? I paid for it, why can’t I take it if I want to (talk about fascist!).

However, after having seen that old mill was charging $18.99 for a main, which I hadn’t taken home either, I decided to just go for it, with the caveat of tasting it all but only finishing what was good. I ordered, after discussing it with the waitress, Catfish (on the waitresses insistence), Fried Chicken, and smothered pork chops as my mains, with greens, squash casserole, macNcheese and succotash (which I’d never tried before) as my sides;

— the best things (and hence the only dishes I finished) were the catfish and the squash casserole, all the rest of it just got pushed to the other side of the table after an initial taste. The fried chicken was incredibly dry, the pork chop was nothing special and a bit bland, the succotash was way too salty as were the greens… the Mac and cheese was ok… but it was Mac an cheese (nothing special, not much better than stouffer’s frozen in my opinion, which is sad considering she’s supposed to be this famous chef)….. my dessert is banana pudding which my southern friend had already instructed should be “lighter than air” if it’s any good, and this most definitely was NOT