I was born in a small town . . .

Well, I wasn't born in a small town, but my friend, Doug Goddard was, or at least he grew up in a small town that happens to be the 2nd oldest town in Tennessee:  Dandridge. It's just a few miles east of Knoxville, in the foothills of the Smokies (and the English Mountains, which Doug pointed out to me from the top of his family's farmland).

Anyway, since Doug and his wonderful wife, Leanne, were in Dandridge for the week, we (the Masseys and I) decided to head for the hills and help Leanne celebrate her birthday. And what a fun weekend it was! We mostly enjoyed hanging out together at Doug's family's house, but on Saturday, we ventured into "downtown" Dandridge and went to a couple of shops and took pictures at an old-fashioned soda shop (which was unfortunately not serving that day). I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

The last few pictures were taken on Leanne's actual birthday on Sunday. The Masseys were already back in Nashville, but Doug, Leanne and I decided to go find a place that we'd seen on the Food Network show, "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives," in Knoxville, called Pizza Palace. It's a drive-in pizza place, but we opted to eat at the counter inside the store, since it was as hot as the pizza oven outside! The pizza and onion rings were wonderful and we had fun hanging out a little longer before I had to head home to Nashville.