Greetings everyone! I made it to Arrowmont with no real problems. SNAG in Memphis wasn’t bad – I’ll write more on that later – but I’m glad to be here in Gatlinburg. Coming back to Arrowmont felt like home and I got a little choked up last night during the slide show. My last experience was so amazing that I hope this one will be half as good. Here are some highlights from the trip so far:
* Rendezvous Bar-B-Que in Memphis is the best I’ve ever had (and not just because the bartender carded me). Dry rub ribs rock!
* Graceland is much smaller than you can imagine. It’s really interesting to see how we, as a people, currently view wealth with size. Elvis had a lovely home, with lots of land, but the house was probably no larger than many homes today. It was very cool.
* The Peabody was wonderful! I just loved those ducks! Aside from the ducks, the people were great and the rooms were really nice.
* Sarah, Rhiannon and I got up at 5 a.m. yesterday to hit the road to Gatlinburg. The trip took a solid 8 hours. On the way, Sarah got a speeding ticket for doing 65 in a 45! The trip was nice with not too much traffic once we reached Pigeon Forge.
* I’m so glad I got a private room! I’ll have pictures of everything on my Flickr account when I get back. It’s like a dorm room, but the bed is comfortable and I did get some sleep.
Well, that’s all to report so far. Today’s the first full day of class and I’ll be working on a new raised piece of fine silver which I’ll granulate next week when Doug Harling arrives. Hope all’s well where you are. It’s going to be a steamy 94 here today. Yikes!
Pretty Pretty Bang Bang 
Great to hear from you yesterday and Burl really appreciated your phone call – he really liked his gifts and your card too which he opened after we got back yesterday. Sounds like you now know you made the right call on Arrowmont – go glad it’s going well.
No news today on For Better or Worse – it’s back to a storyline on April and her special needs girl friend. GRRRR!
Way to go Sarah on the driving – she must have gone to the Keck School of Driving!
Let Sarah know that I can give her referrals to a couple lawyers…not all are willing to advise on out-of-state tickets š