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defrogre: our US tour in October (which I was supposed to be doing a series about, but was too busy with other things to get around to until now):
Our ultimate destination – by way of Chicago, Carbondale, IL and Nashville – was Maryville-Alcoa, Tennessee to visit my family for a week.
As you might imagine, there’s not a lot to do in Maryville-Alcoa and the surrounding area unless you enjoy college football, hayrides, Dolly Parton and mountain tourist traps.
Which is probably how my sister talked us into driving 100 miles to score some t-shirts from the Piggly Wiggly in Spring City, TN.
It’s a kind of family in-joke, albeit one I wasn’t really aware of until this trip.
As you may or may not know, Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store chain that everyone who isn't from the South or Midwest thinks is fictional because it was mentioned in Driving Miss Daisy. People laugh at the name, but it actually has an interesting history. The first one opened in 1916 in Memphis, and it single-handedly invented the self-service supermarket concept at a time when most towns had general stores. Checkout lanes? Shopping carts? Price tags on every item for sale? Piggly Wiggly basically invented that.
Anyway, we ended up making the drive twice – once at night, which ended up with us failing to find the store due to bad directions from Mapquest, and once the following day.
Did I mention there’s not a lot to do in Maryville-Alcoa?
Anyway, here’s what we drove an aggregate 400 miles for.
The things I do to entertain you people.
Some pig,
This is dF
Our ultimate destination – by way of Chicago, Carbondale, IL and Nashville – was Maryville-Alcoa, Tennessee to visit my family for a week.
As you might imagine, there’s not a lot to do in Maryville-Alcoa and the surrounding area unless you enjoy college football, hayrides, Dolly Parton and mountain tourist traps.
Which is probably how my sister talked us into driving 100 miles to score some t-shirts from the Piggly Wiggly in Spring City, TN.
It’s a kind of family in-joke, albeit one I wasn’t really aware of until this trip.
As you may or may not know, Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store chain that everyone who isn't from the South or Midwest thinks is fictional because it was mentioned in Driving Miss Daisy. People laugh at the name, but it actually has an interesting history. The first one opened in 1916 in Memphis, and it single-handedly invented the self-service supermarket concept at a time when most towns had general stores. Checkout lanes? Shopping carts? Price tags on every item for sale? Piggly Wiggly basically invented that.
Anyway, we ended up making the drive twice – once at night, which ended up with us failing to find the store due to bad directions from Mapquest, and once the following day.
Did I mention there’s not a lot to do in Maryville-Alcoa?
Anyway, here’s what we drove an aggregate 400 miles for.
The things I do to entertain you people.
Some pig,
This is dF
