Best Of | Les Jones

Dude Cooper’s grocery store is for sale

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | Best Of, East Tennessee | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Dude Cooper’s is a mile or so from YMCA Camp Montvale. In the permissive, litigation-free Seventies we campers used to walk down the country road (with no sidewalks or shoulders to speak of) from camp to Dude Cooper’s store to buy cokes and gum and candy cigarettes, back when there were candy cigarettes, our shorts filled with pocket knives that were part of the required equipment for attending camp. If you forgot to bring a pocket knife you could buy one after dinner in the camp store along with fountain cokes and ice cream and candy bars and comic books.

After we went to Dude’s we’d walk back to camp to shoot rifles and shotguns and bows and arrows, to ride horses and minibikes and canoes, to make model rockets, to play baseball, football, and capture the flag, to camp in the woods and drink water out of the creek without filtering it, and to make out with girls and get lucky to the best of our abilities. When we weren’t doing those things we’d worship God and nature and stuff.

Clematis and sky

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 | Best Of, Photos | Permalink | 4 Comments |

I’m still on digital detox week, but when I took these pictures today I thought I’d at least have something nice at the top of the page while I’m out.

P.S. They aren’t the usual purple passion flowers I’m used to, but some sites seem to refer to them as some sort of passion flower. If Steve or Persimmon or someone with more botany-fu than me comes along you’re welcome to provide a better ID if I’m wrong.

LATER: Steve says they’re probably clematis and I’m inclined to agree.

Red Honda on the Dragon’s Run

Thursday, September 18th, 2008 | Best Of, Photos | Permalink | 3 Comments |

No more gas

Sunday, September 14th, 2008 | Best Of, Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |

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Overexposed yellow

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 | Best Of, Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Overexposed yellow flower. It’s sort of interesting in the way it’s so incredibly bright that it hurts your eyes. A pure white or pure yellow wouldn’t do that - it’s the contrast that does it. Also, I really like the little hairy spines on the leaves and stalk and the texture they create.

Picture taken at Buckhorn Inn outside of Gatlinburg.

Can anyone ID these lilies?

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 | Best Of, Photos | Permalink | 7 Comments |

LATER: Consensus in comments is that it’s a spider lily. Here’s another picture from the same day and same garden that’s more characteristic of spider lilies.

Fifth Wedding Anniversary Trip to Jonesborough, TN

Sunday, August 17th, 2008 | Best Of, East Tennessee | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Saturday was our fifth wedding anniversary. (Happy anniversary, babe.) It was Saturday five years before that we got married in Jonesborough, the oldest city in Tennessee. We got married at Mill Spring Park and had the reception across the street at The Wedding Loft, a gorgeous 19th century building where the staff took care of all of the wedding arrangements. Highly recommended.

We reserved all of the rooms the Eureka Inn for our friends and family. After the wedding and reception we had a party on the second story porch. The wedding was fun but stressful for Melissa and me - with that behind us the party on the porch with our friends was by far the best part of our wedding day.

We stayed next door at the Blair-Moore House, a bed and breakfast that dates to the early 1800s. Their Web page lists accolades for their breakfast from Southern Living and Inn Traveler and they’re well-deserved. Our breakfast this morning was a plate of fresh fruit (champagne grapes, strawberries, diced mango, and peach drizzled with French honey), smoked ham, egg frittata with homegrown Roma tomatoes and fresh basil, stuffed French toast with choice of maple syrup or cherry syrup, blueberry-coconut muffins, bacon, fresh mango-papaya-orange juice, and coffee. Absolutely delicious.

The upstairs Western-Native American Room where I stayed the night before the wedding has a second story balcony overlooking the street. The lower Victorian suite where Melissa and I stayed after our wedding and for our anniversary has a street level porch off of the parlor. The Victorian Room upstairs has a rear-facing porch overlooking the garden at the rear:

Cost for these rooms isn’t much more than you’d pay at a good chain hotel (between $125 and $160 per night) and includes that amazing breakfast, the host’s wonderful hospitality, and conversation with other guests over breakfast. At those prices why stay at a boring old hotel?

More pictures after the jump.

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It Must Be Weird Having Me As a Dad

Saturday, August 9th, 2008 | Best Of, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

KATIE: I’m hungry
ME: You’re hungry?
KATIE: I’m hungry.
ME: Do you want to eat some rocks?
KATIE: No!
ME: How about furniture?
KATIE: (laughing) No!
ME: We could eat a computer.
KATIE: (laughing) No!
ME: You can have this speaker.
KATIE: (laughing) No!
ME: Do you want to eat a movie?
KATIE: (laughing) No!
ME: There’s only one other thing I can think of to eat and that’s food. You want some food?
KATIE: Uh huh.

Tags: conversations

Stuff Knoxville People Like: Waffle House

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | Best Of, East Tennessee | Permalink | 6 Comments |

In Knoxville we laugh at cities whose Waffle Houses are more than 30 feet apart.

PS - In comments at SayUncle’s: “So to Knoxville, Waffle House is like Starbucks is to Manhattan?” Pretty much.

Summer Gas Prices 2008

Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | Best Of, Photos | Permalink | 5 Comments |

Night Herons, Small-mouth Bass at Greenbelt Park

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 | Best Of, East Tennessee | Permalink | 3 Comments |

This kid and his dad were fishing below the dam at Greenbelt Park (Maryville, TN) where I was photographing herons. I was amazed he got a bass that size in Pistol Creek. These were the other two fishermen below the dam: