My So Called Life

Halbachs Take the South, Part IV – Alone Time

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Finally, it was time for Sara to go to her conference. I was sort of dreading this part of the trip, because it meant handling both kids in a strange city by myself. Although it was exhausting, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. The main thing was to keep out of the hotel as much as possible, since keeping them quiet for any length of time was out of the question, and having a routine certainly helped a lot.

Every day we would eat breakfast at the hotel, and then go to Discovery Place for 3 – 4 hours (for FREE — thank you reciprocating MSI membership!). We would eat a delicious lunch of PB&J (every day), and then Oliver would fall asleep in the stroller just when we were almost home. We’d get him into bed, and then Evie and I would play a few games of cards

and read books until I fell asleep on the floor. At this point, Evie would do “exercises” for 20 minutes or so (don’t ask me, I was asleep), and then wake me up to ask if I had slept long enough. In the afternoon, we’d find something to do such as go to ImaginOn, a fantastic children’s library. Finally, we hit up a delicious restaurant for supper, and go to bed.

Evie's gift to the children's museum

The hotel we stayed in was very nice. We specifically chose it because they had a suite with a separate bedroom, so Sara and I could stay up after the kids were in bed. It was really more of a business hotel, and there weren’t really any other kids staying there. Consequently, we were very recognizable (especially with all of our comings and goings throughout the day), and all of the front desk staff really enjoyed interacting with the kids.

The one snafu with the hotel was the parking. When we first pulled up, we found out it was valet, which we were unprepared for. It makes you feel a little flustered when you have to spend 20 minutes cleaning out everything from your car while a pair of valet guys look on and wait. Sara kept insisting we’d have to pay for parking and it would be expensive, but I kept denying it because the whole city seemed to be made of parking lots, and parking didn’t really seem to be at a premium. Well, she was right and I was wrong (first time for everything I guess), since after they took the car they informed us it was $22 a night. Yeowza!

Imagine my surprise when I got up to my room and opened the window to take in the view, only to see a parking lot literally across the street that was advertising $5 parking. Seriously hotel? I called down to the front desk immediately.

Me: “Excuse me, I just paid $22 to park in your garage, and now I see it is $5 to park across the street?”
Lady: “Well actually, it is $5 for only 12 hours. So really it’s $10.”
Me: “That’s seriously your argument? It’s still less than half the price!”

Now, they ended up being sort of right, because parking there ended up being something of a headache. We were right next to the arena for the Charlotte Bobcats, and twice they had a game while we were there. When that happens, the price of the lot shoots up to $10 for a couple of hours during the event. This lead to a couple times where we had to drive around a little to find somewhere else to park (we ended up finding a free spot just down the street), and then going and getting the car later at night and moving it back to the lot. So this did cause a little bit of a headache.

Maybe I was just being cheap, I don’t know. But when you consider that we were staying for 4 nights, and that you have to tip the valet every time you get your car,  I think we conservatively saved around $60. And really, it was the principle of the thing, you know?

Aaaanywho, we continued our string of delicious restaurants while in Charlotte.

Midwood Smokehouse – After just eating at 12 Bones, we were desperate for more barbecue.   Unfortunately for Midwood Smokehouse, we had just eaten at 12 Bones. Midwood Smokehouse was perfectly good, but it was more “polished” or chain-y somehow and just suffered in comparison. They did have bacon wrapped jalapenos, which certainly helped their case, but overall it just couldn’t compete at the end of the day, especially in the side dish arena. The barbecue was more than adequate, and on any other trip it probably would have ranked up there with some of the best meals of the trip.

Fern – Fern was a place that we just happened to see after leaving Midwood Smokehouse, so we ended up giving it a try. BEST. STUMBLE UPON. EVER. Fern was possibly better even than 12 Bones, but it is so hard to compare  a vegetarian restaurant to a barbecue joint. We ordered so much food that we thought we would never be able to eat it all, and then we proceeded to eat it all. If I lived in Charlotte, I would go to Fern every day and eat Buddha bowls with forbidden rice until I puked, which I would never do, because I wouldn’t want to waste it. My only regret is that I didn’t take them up on their half priced wine night.

Cook Out – This was the one place that I actually had plans to go to while in North Carolina. I became acquainted with Cook Out while Sara was going to school in Greensboro. It’s a fast food place, but the burgers really do taste like you cooked them out on the grill. They have cajun seasoning for their fries. They have over 40 flavors of milkshakes. And if all of that wasn’t enough, their burger sizes are “Small”, “Regular”, “Large” and “Huge”. You can legitimately drive up to the speaker and say, “I’d like a huge burger,” and you will get your wish my friend. I had plans to go to Cook Out multiple times, but it didn’t really work out, so we ended up having to go without Sara. However, the kids and I enjoyed it thoroughly without her.

Afterwards, it was time to head home. I mentioned the night we stayed in Asheville, and we also stayed at a place in Louisville that had an *awesome* pool. It was indoors, heated, and featured both an enormous shallow end where Evie could touch, but also an extremely deep end that was over my head. Finally, on the last day, we met Rachael in Indy and ate a very improvised lunch at her apartment.

And then we were home! Evie did fantastic in the car all the way down and all the way back. Oliver did great on the way there, but by the time we got to the end of the trip, he had pretty much had it with the car. There was a lot of howling. No matter how much fun we had on the trip, we were all glad to be back on dry land as it were, and ready to get back into our regular routines.

Halbachs Take the South, Part III – Time to Eat

/ Shane / 2 Comments

The second half of our trip was quite a bit different then the first half of the trip. The first half was rustic and the second half was urban, but more importantly, during the first half of the trip we cooked most of our own food, and during the second half of our trip we went out to eat at amazing restaurant after amazing restaurant.

Our first stop was in Asheville. Asheville is a really cool place, but sort of hard to describe. There are musicians on practically every street corner. There are tons of cool, unique shops and restaurants. If I had to sum it up in one catchy little phrase, it would be “buy local”. This is probably because most of them had a sign advising you to buy local (which is probably due to the opening of a large new Urban Outfitters). I have to agree with them though; you don’t get that awesome, unique vibe without that concentration of local shops, which are bound to be more interesting than chains.

It reminds me of a day a little further on in the trip, when we just got done eating a fantastic meal at a local eatery. We were driving back to our hotel, and we passed chain restaurant after chain restaurant, Applebees, TGIFridays, and Logan’s Steakhouse, each one packed fuller than the last. “Poor fools,” I thought. “Who would want to eat at one of those chain places when there are so many tasty and interesting places everywhere?”

Anyway, I digress. We bought our only souvenirs of the trip in Asheville; local honey, hand-dyed yarn, and some homemade soap. We even stayed in a non-chain hotel, which had a great location, but was a little on the shady side. It kind of seemed like there’s not much crime in Asheville, but what crime there is takes place at that hotel.

What we didn’t do in Asheville was go to the Biltmore estate. I actually really wanted to go to the Biltmore estate. First off, when I go somewhere, I like to go do the big thing of that place. The Biltmore estate is the biggest attraction in the Asheville area. Second off, it is billed as the American version of Versaille, which happened to be the very best part of our trip to France. So I thought, conceivably, it could have been the very best part part about our trip to North Carolina. However (and this is a big however), tickets to the Biltmore estate were going to run our family about $100! Just for comparison, tickets for Cedar Point would cost about $115 for our family. Are you really going to tell me that the Biltmore estate is roughly as much fun as Cedar Point?? “Hey kids, forget about roller coasters, look at this interesting architecture!”

Before I get into the restaurants, I just want to comment on something wonderful I discovered on the trip: the vegetable or side plate. Is this a southern thing? Basically, it just allows you to order some number of the side dishes on the menu (3, 5, 7). It worked out so well to order a bunch of side dishes and then dish them out to everyone and get to try everything. It’s like tapas or dim sum with delicious, Southern-made vegetables. Way better than ordering the chicken nugget kid’s meal.

Okay, so without further ado:

Tupelo Honey Cafe – The was the first, and perhaps only, meal that everyone was happy about (and by everyone, I mean Evie). Evie is pretty picky when it comes to food, and she mostly only wanted to eat french fries. However, even she couldn’t resist steaming hot biscuits with homemade blueberry jam, cheesy smashed cauliflower, and parmesan corn on the cob (okay, we also had sweet potato fries). This was the first place we went to in Asheville, and it was very difficult to not go back again.


The Green Sage – We happened to walk by this place the night before, so we gave it a chance for breakfast. It was more like a coffee shop, but they had food too. Aaaaawesome food. They had carrot cake pancakes with cream cheese frosting topping. And they were perfect too, not overly sweet the way they could easily have been. I literally couldn’t eat any more. The coffee was good too. However, I couldn’t handle the trash/recycling/compost division, and I totally messed it up. Hey, I said the restaurant was perfect, not me.


12 bones – This was the best meal we had on a trip filled with excellent meals. It was also the most authentic southern restaurant I’ve ever seen. I ate ribs next to a guy with a gun in a holster. Real Southern barbecue next to a guy with a real gun in a real holster.

Speaking of ribs, this was a restaurant known for its ribs, but I was a little reluctant to get them. I’m usually more of a brisket kind of guy. However, I broke down and ordered the ribs…Oh Em Gee was I glad I did. I don’t know if I’ve ever tasted anything better in my life. The chipotle blue berry ribs were good, but the brown sugar dry rub ribs were out of this world. They also had a side platter option, and the sides were all great. The collard greens and green beans were the best, with the chipotle potato salad and corn pudding a close second. Seriously, there was something so great about the sides, I couldn’t even tell you. We had collard greens at three other restaurants, and they all looked more or less identical, but none of the held a candle to these. And I’m not the only one who liked the place:

Unfortunately for Oliver, he slept through the whole thing. The nice thing to do would have been to save him some, which we probably would have done if it were physically possible to do so. But it wasn’t, so we offered him a banana when he woke up right as we were leaving. No dice, he demanded a meal to go. We had no silverware in the car, so he had to eat it with his fingers. He didn’t complain. He couldn’t, because his mouth was full of pulled chicken and green beans.

Early Girl Eatery – Okay, technically this was on the way back. After Charlotte we stayed another night in Asheville on our way North. Once again, everything was really good (try the squash casserole). Sara had the sweet potato black bean cakes, and I had a blackened shrimp salad. Both were great.


If you’re keeping count at home, that’s four amazing restaurants in one small town. And I’m pretty sure we could have hit up more, but we ran out of time. Not too shabby. However, we couldn’t hang out with the hippies and foodies forever, because it was time for Charlotte…

Halbachs Take the South, Part II – Smoky Mountains

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I have had the same reoccurring nightmare since I was a child: I am riding in the car and we have to cross a bridge that is so high, that the road is practically vertical (Is this because I am afraid of heights, or the reason I am afraid of heights? Chicken and egg.) I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the road up to our cabin was exactly the same grade as that nightmare road. Except the road to the cabin was also full of switchbacks and blind corners. I honestly did not know if my car could physically made it up the hill.

However, it was so worth it. The cabin was absolutely perfect in every way. It is indescribable how perfect it was, so I will therefore try now to describe it. It was a real log cabin, with chinking in between the logs and everything. It was rustic and luxurious all at the same time. It was on the tippy-top of the mountain, with beautiful views of the valley below. The bottom floor had a bedroom, bathroom and foosball table, and a porch with a hot tub that looked out over the mountain. The middle floor had a kitchen, dining room, and living room with a fireplace, as well as a second-level porch with a swing, rocking chairs and a table to eat outside. The upstairs had a huge bedroom with another fireplace, as well as another bathroom.

The place was so big that we didn’t even use the bottom floor; we all slept upstairs in the one bedroom. The cabin could probably sleep 10 in a pinch, so the 4 of us were no problem. Even though there were other cabins dotting the hillside with us, it felt very isolated. It was so amazing being up on top of the mountain, with clouds snaking through the valley below us and no sounds of trains or traffic or anything except nature. The view from the porch was breathtaking.

In addition to the hot tub (which the kids absolutely loved and Evie said was her favorite part of the trip), there was also the biggest bathtub I have ever seen and/or imagined in my entire life. It had an entire room to itself off of the kitchen, and it was as good as any swimming pool as far as the kids were concerned. It was easily the size of a queen-sized bed. And it had jets too! I’m telling you, bath time has never been so fun.

Fortunately/unfortunately, this was a log cabin, and there was nature all around. An ant colony decided to take up residence inside the enormous tub. The first time we turned it on, ants came pouring out of one of the jet controls. I was trying to mop them up with a washcloth, but they just kept coming and coming. Luckily (or unluckily as it turns out) the tub was so big that the kids got in anyway and just avoided that section of the tub. We didn’t really think about where those ants were coming from, so when we turned on the jets…well, lets just say the kids had a couple of extra hands (legs) to help scrub their backs that night. After the explosive armageddon of their nest, they wisely did not return, so future baths were a little less creepy crawly.

In addition to eating all of our meals at the cabin (we even had pancakes on Sunday!), we spent our days hiking in Great Smoky Mountain National park. In other words, cheap vacation spot! We never even bothered with Gatlinburg, other than a trip or two to the grocery store. The hiking was pretty great.

One day, Evie hiked about 5 1/2 miles, and Oliver made it about 1 mile. Not a complaint from either of them! I was very proud of Evie, but she was having such a great time, I don’t think it occurred to her to complain.

Every hike ended at a waterfall. I didn’t really go into it expecting to see so many waterfalls, but I guess it makes sense; that water has to make it down the mountain somehow. Still, some really fantastic waterfalls, including one we got to go underneath, and a really tall one we saw later on the Cherokee reservation. After finally getting to the end of a long hike, we were never disappointed.

The Smokies are known for having a lot of bears, and consequently the cabin was appropriately garbed in bear decor. We had read to Evie the literature about what to do if you see a bear, just in case. All of this was a little too much for poor Evie, who became so afraid of bears that she couldn’t even handle the decorations in the cabin. We had to hang a sack over the bear toilet paper holder in the bathroom.

Therefore, it was somewhat ironic that we did actually see a mother bear and a cub later in the trip, and Evie was sort of excited about it. The bear was pretty far away, so we certainly weren’t in any danger from it. I guess it was easier to see when it was moving around, because in most of our pictures it’s just a black spot. Still, it was pretty cool to see some true wildlife (with a cub no less!) and certainly the biggest and most interesting animal not named Sasquatch running around those woods.

Alas, too soon it was time to say goodbye to the Smokies and move on to (less) greener pastures…

Halbachs Take the South, Part I – Hitting the Road

/ Shane / 1 Comment

In order to make the trip more enjoyable, we started by upgrading Oliver’s car seat and turning him around to face forward. He was pretty excited about it, he kept saying, “NEW car seat! NEW car seat!” However, once he got a little tired, he started demanding, “Lean back!” and looking around for the recline button. It’s a little harder to get a nap in when you’re not facing up at the ceiling.

Our first stop was Cincinnati, and I must report that there were dead daffodils on 3/22 in Cincinnati. That’s right, spring had already sprung by March 22nd. We happened to arrive on Anna’s birthday, so we let her pick the dinner spot. She mentioned Benihana, and I have to admit I was pretty excited for the kids. I thought they’d really enjoy the show, and I thought that Benihana is like the original Japanese steakhouse, so it would be sure not to disappoint. I was wrong! No fire and no shrimp throwing, two things that you simply cannot have a Japanese steakhouse without! So the kids didn’t really care much about the show, but they still had a good time, because there was ice cream at the end.

We didn’t stay in Cincinnati long, but we also had time to visit an extremely beautiful park, where there were white and purple trees in bloom like crazy. And thus began my long nightmare known as “Southern Allergies”. Uuuuuuuuuuugh.

After driving for a bit, we saw a water tower that said, “Florence Y’All” and Sara said, “Well, I guess we’re in Kentucky now.”

(Side note, turns out there is a funny story on how that water tower came to be — check it out!)

By the time we got to Tennessee, we started really getting into the mountains. Suddenly, road signs started warning us of construction on a tunnel ahead, combined with an accident. We were advised to use a small state highway to avoid the mess. We decided to heed their advice, despite the fact that no other car seemed inclined to agree. We got off on the local highway and took a long, steep, winding drive through the back woods of Tennessee. It seemed very remote. Just as we started to hear strains of banjo music, a really bad noise started coming from the car.

Uh oh.

I thought maybe something was caught under the car, since it seemed to be a grinding kind of noise, but I got out and checked and there was nothing there. We didn’t know what to do. We were just coming into a little town, so the terrain was a little more level, and we figured out that the noise was related to the brakes (which we had been using fairly continuously on our little mountain adventure). Whenever I hit the brakes, it was like a grist mill chewing on a strip of metal.

Just as we were about to exit the town, I saw a shop that said “tire and brakes” on the side, and I pulled a quick u-turn and darted in there. Sure enough, the front brakes were completely shot — right through the pads and down to metal on metal (which is exactly what it sounded like).

LUCKILY, they were amazing and nice, and fixed us up in about an hour and a half, while we ate our lunch. I was prepared to pay the out-of-state-tourist tax and call myself lucky, but the whole thing cost less than $200. (A couple of my co-workers are considering driving down to Tennessee to get their brakes fixed from now on.) In fact, they said I didn’t really even need to replace the rotors, despite the fact that I had been grinding them directly, but if I wanted to replace them, it would cost “$25”. In other words, rather than being stranded in the middle of the mountains with a broken car, I got new brakes for probably less than half of what it would cost at home, and it basically didn’t even interrupt our trip. I said to Sara, “I hope nothing else goes wrong, because we just used up all of our luck.”

Justice did demand that Sara leave all of her shower stuff in the hotel in Cincinnati in retribution, but I think we came out on the winning side of that  karmic transaction.

Oliver’s phrase for the trip was “Oh, what is that?” He started saying it about 100 times a day about anything he could think of. Often is was about something he’d never seen before and wasn’t sure what it was, but sometimes it was about something like a door, or the spaghetti he was eating. This would have quickly gotten on our nerves, but something about the facial expression he used when he said it combined with the tone of voice made it more funny that annoying. He would just make a face and say, “What is that?” like he was just looking at the most ridiculous thing he had ever seen, rather than a ceiling fan.

We were staying just outside of Gatlinburg, and I knew that it was pretty touristy. However, I was totally unprepared for the monstrosity that was Pigeon Forge. The only thing I can compare it to is the Wisconsin Dells. It’s touristy, but like over the top, amazing touristy. Like full size replica’s of the Titanic touristy, or giant upside down Greek temples. Would you believe the kids slept through the whole thing? Thank god, because I don’t know how I would even begin to explain that place to them (although I have to admit, I’m pretty disappointed that Sara wouldn’t let me go to the Lumberjack Feud).

Finally, after a long, multi-day car ride, we arrived at our cabin…

Miracle Berry in Restaurant Form

/ Shane / 2 Comments

iNG Restaurant is a new restaurant in Chicago, specializing in synsepalum dulcificum, otherwise known as the Miracle Berry. Billing itself as “the worlds only restaurant that specializes in a flavor changing experience”, the menu is built around the taste-modifying fruit.

My own experiences with synsepalum dulcificum have been documented, and I can tell you it’s pretty nifty stuff. However, as I discovered, you do need to have the right food to make it work right. So there’s definitely something to having a set menu of things that will work well with the fruit. On the other hand, part of the draw is taking something that you know how it tastes, and seeing how it tastes while “under the influence” as it were. But if you’re eating something amazing at a restaurant you’ve never been to before, then you don’t really have that baseline comparison.

Anyway, it’s a cool idea. A little pricey for my blood, since it essentially hinges on a gimmick, but if anybody checks it out, you’ll have to let me know. Judging by the pictures, it looks to be as interesting visually as it is orally.