Meet Me at the Loveless Cafe

When I roll into a city, two of the first questions I need answered are:
1) Where are the best eats in town? and
2) Where's your coolest independent bookstore?

Yesterday, I got the best of both of two cities.

Multiple people had recommended Sunergos Coffee in Louisville to me, so after I packed up my things at the farmhouse, I made my way there.  I grabbed a cup of the Mexican Chiapas blend, and then headed next door to Nord's Bakery for a doughnut.  Though I was approximately 0% hungry, I heard their doughnuts shouldn't be missed, so I grabbed an apple fritter (my favorite), and (lord help me) a maple bacon doughnut for the road.  Hey, just ask my friend Nancy about the road trip emergency doughnut.  It's a necessity.

I grabbed a table outside Sunergos and sat to enjoy my breakfast.  And while I sat, out of nowhere, like a one-two hit, I got slammed by my first two major road trip/life epiphanies.  I set out on this journey five days ago with a hope that I would wade through some of my mental muck and come out the other side with a bit more clarity, but that moment threw me a couple fastballs and said, "Here you go, Louisville slugger.  You know what you need."  (Epiphanies to be revealed at a later date, when they have been firmly planted and are unjinxable...)  I even had myself a bit of a weepfest right there outside the coffee shop, though I'm sure everyone there thought I was just crying tears of bliss because my doughnut was so damn good.

Before I left town, I had to visit Carmichael's, an independent bookstore that has been open in Louisville since 1978, and has even been successful enough to open a second location.  They've weathered the changing tides of bookselling over the years with their authentic connection to the community and curating expertise.  Though their location is small (I visited the original Bardstown Road shop), the selection is superb and perfectly fits their clientele.  I chatted with bookseller Kelly and the owner Michael for a good long while, and they told me how much they love their Random House reps (duh, John Hastie and Eileen Becker are the coolest!).  They had a phenomenal collection of signed and limited editions of the Kentucky writer Wendell Berry, so I went on a huge Berry splurge, picking up a beautiful hardcover edition of his New Collected Poems, along with some lovely small letterpress editions of poetry printed by Larkspur Press, which include some stunning wood engraving illustrations.

One last stop in Louisville, was at the Blue Dog Bakery, an artisanal bread maker.  Again, not hungry, but I didn't want to miss this local favorite, so I picked up a mini Pugliese loaf for the road.

Then it was time to head south to Nashville.  I always like to read books that are set in places that I'm traveling, so I started the audiobook of Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior, a novel set in Appalachia with a strong female protagonist, and I was transfixed for my entire 3 hour drive.  Looking forward to more listening on that one.

Arriving in Nashville right around lunchtime, I routed myself straight to Husk, which came emphatically recommended from my cousins who just moved up to NYC from the South.  The restaurant is set up on a hill in a former mayor's house, which includes gardens surrounding and a carriage house out back.  They source their food locally and have a strong seasonal bent.  I started with the Rutledge Iced Tea, mixed with bitter lemon syrup, lavender, pink peppercorn, and cane sugar and ordered an appetizer of fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese.  For my entree, I chose the seasonal summer vegetable plate, which included a sampling of succotash (asparagus, corn, tomatoes, red beans, summer squash), grits (with roasted tomatoes and peppers and a poached egg on top), green bean salad, and charred okra.  Veggie heaven.

Husk source board

Next I traveled over to Parnassus Books, the wonderful independent bookstore opened by local author Ann Patchett and one of my former Random House colleagues, Karen Hayes.  I loved wandering around their store, and searching for their personal picks, displayed on shelftalkers around the store was like going on a literary treasure hunt.  I purchased a couple of their recommendations and had a chance to catch up with Karen a bit.

After a pretty drive through the historic Belmont neighborhood, I made my way over to East Nashville to check in to my cottage for the night.

I dropped by things and turned right around to head out to the Loveless Cafe, famous for their biscuits and jam and fried chicken.  It's also the site of Music City Roots, a weekly showcase for some of the best folk, rock, country, and bluegrass music, which gets broadcasted live each week.  At the cafe, I had the signature meal with a local amber ale, and sides of turnip greens and squash casserole.

As I was eating, I was surrounded by families, and I started to miss my own.  My family has recently been getting very interested in bluegrass music, and I was thinking of them tonight.  I wished they could be there.  Then, I remembered that Music City Roots live streams their shows from their website.  So I called my momma in Colorado and asked her to be my virtual date.   She tuned in from her home and we watched the show together, texting each other back and forth when we heard artists we liked.  Though I got to see it live and in person, I suspect she had a more comfortable seat.  The show packed in five artists ranging from rockabilly to singer-songwriter to bluegrass, and ended with a lively jam session of "When the Saints" with everybody on stage together at the end.

On my way home, I made one last stop at The Station Inn, known for their bluegrass acts, and caught a bit of the second set of the Nashville Twangcats, which included a phenomenal fiddle player.

Worn out and belly full, I drove back to the cottage and called it a good night.

I will shine and sing my song

They call Louisville "Possibility City", and it's true that many things are possible.  You can possibly get a job and buy a house here (cost of living here is well below the national average).  You can possibly have a fantastic meal here (foodie culture is booming).  You can possibly fall in love here (the people are so unbelievably cute and friendly).  And you can possibly end up in Indiana.

Louisville is a pretty sleepy town on a 90 degree Tuesday morning, so I thought I'd take my coffee down to the waterfront park for a nice view of the bridges while I gave the city a chance to wake up.  Easy enough, right?  So far on this trip, my mode has been to simply study a map beforehand and use the GPS only as backup.  But I couldn't make heads or tails of Louisville, and my Waze navigator (who I call Lola), really couldn't either.  Which is how, in my attempt to enjoy the waterfront park, I found myself in Indiana... twice.  Lola was all in a directional kerfuffle and kept telling me I had arrived at my destination, when clearly, I had not arrived at my destination.  After many turnarounds and much confusion, I finally made it, and had a nice, hot walk along the wharf.

Add: KJ Grow, Aug 2013

Truth be told, all of this walking was really to get myself and my stomach ready for a day of gluttonous eating.  Louisville has a serious food reputation, and with only enough time for a couple of choice meals, I knew I had my work cut out for me.

My lunch stop was at the utterly charming Hillbilly Tea cafe in the NuLu district.  Like much of the rest of the city, this place was sunny and stylish, with a wholesome happy kind of vibe.  I started with the Summer Green iced tea, a citrusy blend that included some rose and lavender and was completely refreshing.  For lunch I had a cup of strawberry soup, made with coconut milk and topped with fresh blueberries, which surprised me with its depth of flavor.  And I had a watermelon salad with arugula, walnuts, radishes, whipped herbed goat cheese and cherry vinaigrette.  All sublimely delicious.

 

 


For my afternoon I explored more of NuLu, a growing, hip area with upscale galleries and boutiques, that seems to be bursting with creativity and style.  I picked up a few things to take home: a tin cup to plant flowers in, a green pig pot (use tbd), a horse-print t-shirt, and a skirt made from "upcycled" mens' shirts.

On one building this public art piece allows passersby to create a sort of collective bucket list.  I was amused by the range of mundane to strange to wildly aspirational ("eat bananas", "hug an alien"...), and it got me thinking about what I want to do before I die, bringing to mind the final line in the Mary Oliver poem, The Summer Day, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Then I hit Bardstown Road, the funkier, edgier shopping stretch, with tattoo parlors and vintage stores and dive bars.  But it was such a hot day that I soon tired of being on pavement and needed to retreat into some green.

I made my way to Cherokee Park, a lovely green space designed by Frederick Olmstead, the creator of Central Park and Prospect Park.  Though I'd never been to Cherokee Park before, there was something oddly familiar and comfortable about it, like I instinctively knew which way to go.

To cool off, I ran through a sprinkler fully clothed, and then found a shady spot beneath a tree.   I practiced my fiddle for a bit and then fell asleep on a picnic table, awakened 20 minutes later to the sounds of cardinals chirping around me.

At 5:30, I arrived at Shine studios for a Nia class.  One of the things I most love about Nia is the kind of people it attracts and the global community it builds.  I know that anywhere I travel, I can walk into a Nia class and be warmly welcomed.  It was such a treat to dance with Nia teacher Maria Whitley, who was fresh off her Brown Belt training, and to see the beautiful studio space she had created in downtown Louisville as a sanctuary for wellness and healing.

 


After a great workout and a shower back at the farmhouse, I went in search of southern food, preferably fried or smoked, and I found the holy grail.  Hammerheads might be one of my new favorite places on earth.  It's a tiny little no-frills basement hole-in-the-wall, with no sign but a massive hammerhead shark out front, and two giant smokers in the back.  This was the first time on my trip I was really wishing I had company, because I needed an extra stomach to fit in everything I wanted to order on the menu.  After much deliberation I settled on the fried mac and cheese balls, the roast duck sandwich on a pretzel bun, truffle fries and a Falls City Pale Ale.  It was mind-blowingly good.  I sat at the bar and evangelized to my neighbors about how good it was.  They enthusiastically agreed.

At the bar next to me was a business consultant from San Diego, a guy in his fifties who had recently self-published an economics book.  I told him about my wanderings and wonderings about life and my next steps, and he said to me, "Here's my advice: always assess the risk, but live your life with an open heart."  Yes, sir.  And then I openheartedly gave him my leftover truffle fries.

Determined that I should have at least one glass of bourbon before I left Kentucky, I asked the bartender for his local recommendation, and he sent me to Nachbar, a comfy divey local bar in the Germantown neighborhood, with a great jukebox, lots of wooden owls, and a friendly clientele.  I quickly made friends with a few local guys (who winningly described themselves as "doers"), and slowly sipped a Noah's Mill Kentucky Bourbon.  These guys didn't entirely know what they were doing with their wild and precious lives either, but they sure seemed to be having a good time.

As far as my one wild and precious life?  Here's my vow for now:

And...(my addition at the bottom):

I want the whole damn world to come and dance with me.

Sometimes, the best laid plans get diverted into better plans.

The thing I most wanted for my second day in West Virginia was to be on Summersville Lake.  I had tried for days to get a reservation for a stand-up paddleboarding rental/instruction, but the outfitting company required a minimum of two participants for the trip, and I was just me.  Alternatively, I found that I could potentially rent a kayak for a few hours down at the marina, which I thought would suit me just fine.  My gracious barn loft hostess, Holly, had given me a gift certificate to Cathedral Cafe, a coffee shop set up in an old church, with stained-glass windows still in tact, so I went to grab coffee and set out for my kayaking adventure.

While at Cathedral Cafe, I saw Holly and we got a learn a bit more about each other.  She told me about a statewide initiative that she just launched to educate companies and employees about the viability of telework.  Her motivation to drive this program is that she sees the small towns of West Virginia gutted out as talented and resourceful people move to more urban areas for job opportunities.  So for her, getting people used to the idea of telework means having more people around to patronize local businesses and keep places like Fayetteville vibrant.

After our chat, I drove out to the marina.  The lake was still and quiet, and to my disappointment, I saw a sign that they had shifted and reduced their hours the week prior, due to back to school.  Fayetteville employs a lot of college kids as rafting guides on a seasonal business, and when they go home, the tourists go home, and things get very quiet.

Though my paddling plan didn't work out, I was determined to get some time in the water.  I recalled a place Holly had told me about yesterday, a rafting embarkation point under the New River Gorge bridge called Fayette Station.  I drove down the mountain in a series of hairpin turns, on a road just barely wide enough for my car, and arrived at a sunny bend in the river, where I was completely alone.  This was the place I didn't even know I wanted to be.

I had my bathing suit on and waded out for a swim in the river eddy and then dried by sunning myself on a rock while I read a chapter of my book.

Ready to get on the road, I made my way back into town to grab sustenance for the 4.5 hour drive to Louisville.  I stopped in at the Secret Sandwich Society, which names all of their sandwiches after presidents.  I chose the Truman: roasted turkey, peach jam, blue cheese spread, and crispy onions on a baguette.  And holy god, you guys, that was a great sandwich.

I had a good stretch of West Virginia driving still before me, and I listened to podcasts of Mountain Stage, which is recorded locally.  In this one, Wanda Jackson tells stories about dating Elvis, opening for Adele, working with Jack White.  Then she tries to yodel and chokes on a cough drop.  Oh, Wanda.

West Virginia is just breathtaking to me, and reminds me a bit of Montana in parts.  You can see evidence of mountaintop removal mining, a controversial practice on par with the hydrofracking being done back in Montana & North Dakota where much of my family lives.  I love the steel trestle bridges over the rivers, and the trailer park mining towns, and the bigness of the mountains.  It's a humble place, an often forgotten one, and a true gem.

As I drove westward into Kentucky, the land got flatter and the temperature got hotter, and I'm pretty sure my A/C gave out in my car.  I arrived in Louisville hot and sweaty, and stopped at the Dairy Kastle for a butterscotch dipped vanilla cone, which dripped down my arm faster than I could lick it.

I checked into my room at the urban farmhouse, greeting the cats in the house, and the chickens, bees, and butternut squash in the backyard.

I dropped my stuff, took a quick shower and headed right back out.  I had tickets to see Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes at the Iriquois Amphitheater tonight.

The amphitheater was built as a WPA project under FDR and it was a totally comfortable and civilized place to see a show, and proved to be a great people-watching venue for me.  The people of Louisville are unbearably adorable.  They're stylish and cheery and rootsy all at once.  It's kind of impossible not to love this city.

Though Edward Sharpe was admittedly exhausted ("I left my banter in Cincinnati, guys..."), he and the band have this kind of energetic exuberance that even on their tired days is pretty profound and contagious.  They have the effect of making the entire audience feel as if they are part of the family, enjoying some kind of down-home hootenanny jamboree.  They're the kind of band that makes you want to bang on a can,  do cartwheels in the grass, twirl your skirt, and put your arms around everyone next to you.  Seeing them live is a singular experience.  And seeing them covered by Jorge and Alexandra is a video I could watch (and have watched) over and over.

Almost heaven, West Virginia

Ok, so I know that I said that I intend to take my waking slow on this trip, but so far I'm finding myself waking up before dawn and feeling incredibly well rested and eager to get going with my days.  I woke around 6am today, feeling gratifyingly sore from yesterday's hard hike, but ready to get moving again.  I put some coffee on and packed up my things in the treehouse.  Then I took my coffee, book, and breakfast outside to my little treehouse porch and resumed watching the spider.

Yesterday, I noticed two insects caught in her web, disrupting the shape of the web by tangling themselves in the silky sticky threads.  This morning those insects are gone and the web perfectly repaired.  A few months ago, I was seeing snakes everywhere I went.  This week, it's been spiders.  Little yellow spiders, long-legged brown spiders, fat-bottomed beige spiders.  Normally, if I were to spot one at home, I'd sweep the web into a dustpan and squish the spider in a kleenex, with a gruesome yet satisfying crunch.  But I've adopted a live and let be policy for these arachnids the last few days.  And I must say, as I've been noticing the geometric variations of each web I see glinting in the morning sun, I've developed a new appreciation for these eight-legged wonders.  Spiders are fascinating creatures.  Fascinating creatures that love to sink their fangs into me - my legs are covered in swollen bites - but fascinating nonetheless.

When I was seeing snakes, I took comfort in the symbology of them.  Snakes are often seen as symbols of rebirth.  It seems that the spider is my spirit guide for this trip, so I consulted the trusty website spiritanimal.info (what do I know?) on the significance of spiders.  They say:
The spider is a remarkable figure of feminine energy and creativity in the spirit animal kingdom. Spiders are characterized by the skilled weaving of intricate webs and patience in awaiting their prey. By affinity with the spider spirit animal, you may have qualities of high receptivity and creativity. Having the spider as a power animal or totem helps you tune into life’s ebbs and flows and ingeniously weave every step of your destiny.

Here's to honing my spidey sense.

After leaving the treehouse, I set out for a scenic drive on Shenandoah's popular Skyline Drive.  There are overlook turnouts every 1/3 mile or so, and each provides a stunning vista of the mountains and valley.  I wanted to get a short hike in this morning, so I made my way to Jones Run Falls, a 3.4 mile in-and-out hike that leads to a lovely waterfall.  The hike was densely wooded, and being early in the morning there were almost no other people on the trail, so I clapped my hands and sang to myself to make enough noise to potentially ward off any wildlife that might startle me.

Arriving at the falls, I had the place to myself, and sat reading and enjoyed a snack before turning around.

After the waterfall hike, it was time to head west toward my next stop.  After a stretch of interstate driving, I turned north on the Midland Trail, and wound my way through the mountains and small towns of West Virginia.  My iPod serendipitously lost battery power at this point, and I was able to get scratchy reception of a radio program called "The Blue Ridge Radio Hour", which was playing old time tunes like "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "Sittin' On Top of the World", perfect accompaniment to my backcountry drive.

I have to say, while the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah is lovely, there's something "officially beautiful" and sanctioned about it, being that it is preserved in a national park setting.  But there's something about West Virginia that is unexpected and wild and takes my breath away.  I loved driving through tiny towns, seeing hillbilly kids riding their bikes, dogs in front yards, shuttered gas stations still advertising gas at $2.79 on their signs, all of this against the most beautiful backdrop.  I couldn't help but bring to mind the John Denver lyrics, "Life is old there, older than the trees.  Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze."

I arrived in Fayetteville, WV around 4pm and checked into my charming barn loft, and set right back out for another short hike.

My host recommended the Long Point trail, a moderate 3 mile in-and-out hike that leads to a rocky outcrop with an unbeatable view of the New River Gorge bridge.

Sunday selfie (that's a thing, right?)

With over six miles of hiking logged for the day, I was ready to feast.  Dirty Ernie's Rib Pit was my choice for the night.  With a sense of glee I drove up to this roadside shack, and plunked myself down in a huge wooden booth.

Now, you might be surprised to learn that Dirty Ernie's is not exactly a gourmet establishment.  This is the kind of place with wicker baskets of peanuts on each table, where you're expected to toss the shells on the floor.  There's wood paneling inside, and college jerseys hanging from the ceiling, and dollar bills stapled to the walls, signed by adoring patrons.  I ordered a half rack of baby back ribs which came slathered in sauce, along with sides of mac and cheese and baked beans.  I washed it all down with a Long Point Lager, brewed right here in Fayetteville and named after the trail I'd just been on, and it was the perfect match.  The playlist was on some random shuffle which surfaced Bette Midler's From a Distance followed by No Diggity.  And I tell you, I was in heaven, West Virginia.  I devoured those ribs and wouldn't change a thing.

And I left Dirty Ernie with a little something of myself.