Chocolate Castles as wel

Our adventure these past 27 days are behind us. We are back in Texas preparing to leave next Wednesday for our next adventure of living in Mesa, AZ with the rest of the oldies. The memories from this trip have truly blessed us as we continue to look at pictures of the different states, new friends that were made along the way and some truly great recipes which I will post from time to time. Randy and I learned that we can survive just fine, riding in a car, next to each other without having to buy a shotgun or call an attorney. We did, however know that maybe we were in need of having some alone time when we left Franklin, TN. Being such a “wanna be” Southern Belle, I had found a most precious top that I just had to have. The story of obtaining this certain top is a post in itself. Randy told me to go ahead and go to the shop where I had seen the top in question the day before, while he sat at Starbucks to get some coffee. That was perfect. I walked down to the shop, walked in the door and the owner of the shop was visiting with a customer. The customer turned to me and told me she loved my hair. An hour later, I walked out the shop with a new top and a new fried. Randy walked down to see if someone had kidnapped me, but when he discovered me standing there sharing stories of what he had done on past April Fools day, Of course, we all then began to share places which we had been and they told us places we still needed to go. We got to the car and he ask me if I had indeed bought the top I had gone in there to get or did I just visit. When I pulled my new purchase out of the bag he looked at it and examined the label, which was LTX. He ask me if it stood for Large Texas, to which I gave him the “look” and considered going back in and spending more of his money for that remark. It was then that I began to sense that maybe it was time for us to head back to Texas and hopefully get to spend some time alone. We made the 12 hour trip back to Dallas 2 days ago and since then, we have regrouped, refreshed, and repacked our car and suitcases. Because we have family that we will spend each night dining with before we head out, our “alone” time will have to wait until we get to Arizona. Right now, thinking about all the hours we will spend driving across the desert next week, I guess that we need to stay friends so I will have someone to hand me chocolate while I drive. Chocolate…makes the miles go faster, the time go quickly and our relationship…sweeter!
We had time to go over the entire adventure while driving between destination and this is our opinions of some of the best of the best.
Hotel. The Westwynd Farm Inn, Hershey, PA 1 of the top 10 in the USA
Restaurant.Frankie Bones, Hilton Head, NC (thank you Michelle Secco for the recommendation)
2nd Best Restaurant. The Red Pony, Franklin, TN
Best Time The Corvette Plant Tour in Bowling Green, KY
2nd Best Tour….Jack Daniels Distillery, Lynchburg, TN. (This one is free and is just so interesting
Most Beautiful State. Pennsylvania and Tennessee
Friendliest People…Tennessee
Best Bakery. Riley Bakery, Bowling Green KY Since 1922

Will post several recipes tomorrow which I got from different places while traveling, but thought you might be tired of reading by this point.