One potential cure for ennui might be six moonshine tastings (plus moonshine laced jello shots) and a journey through the Mysterious Mansion. Yay, Gatlinburg!

So … a much needed weekend in the Low Country of South Carolina has come and gone. Charleston really is an awesome town. History, fun, food, beaches, and lots of drinks!

Here’s the view from Philadelphia Alley (aka Dueler’s Alley).

When downtown, you really need to stop into SNOB (Slightly North of Broad) on Bay Street for a Barn Raiser. It’s easily one of the best cocktails ever. It’s made from honey, house-made honey-infused bourbon, local spicy ginger ale, bitters, and an orange twist. Pure heaven! We’ve eaten here before and the food is on point too.

We also partook of Zombies at Cane Rhum Bar. It supposedly the strongest drink in Charleston. They will only sell you one and it comes to the table in a cool skull glass … and it’s flaming (though you can’t really see the flame in my photo).

A walk on the beach at Isle of Palms is always a must. Thankfully it wasn’t too windy or cold on Saturday. There were lots of people out enjoying the sun and surf.

And the best thing you can do late night on Friday or Saturday (10pm to 2 am) in Charleston is get a Chicken Biscuit at Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit on Upper King Street. Seriously! Go get one of these Chicken Biscuits when you are in Charleston. I love them so much went Friday AND Saturday. Yum!

And, for no real reason, here’s some Red Roof Inn Plus realness.

What else happened?
– Uber rides in BMW’s and Audi’s. Swank.
– I didn’t buy any records at Monster Music. Willpower!
– Yummy brunches with David’s former cohorts.
– Drank too many Vodka Tonics at Dudley’s on Ann.

Speaking of Dudley’s on Ann. It’s apparently the non-gay gay bar. We went to the drag show on Friday night and the number of straight girls and bachelorettes was quite annoying. We ending up hanging out/chatting with one of the locals for most of the evening. We left the bar at the same time after the second drag show and parted ways on the street. I couldn’t decide if this guy was interested in something more or just being nice. Maybe he was waiting for one of us to make a move? I didn’t think he was putting out any signals … but then again, I was very drunk and (in general) am terrible at picking up on other people’s signals. It’s probably a sad commentary on gay culture that we can’t just meet a stranger in a bar and hang out without thinking there is some immediate desire on their part to hook up.

Now, it’s back to the drudgery of daily life. I mowed the yard yesterday and got some Game of Thrones Oreo’s in celebration of the Season 8 premiere.

Sadly, I have already reached my four cookie per day maximum … and it’s only 3:00 pm.  How will I ever make it through the evening?!

This past weekend we took our new friend, Colton, for some drunken fun in everyone’s favorite moonshine soaked town … Gatlinburg!

We made some new friends at the Ole Smoky Whiskey Distillery. They recognized us from around town earlier in the day. They spent 5+ hours getting to Gatlinburg. Thankfully, it only takes us 1-1/2 to get to the sweet, tasty moonshine town.

And what trip to Gatlinburg is complete without a trip through the Mysterious Mansion?

We also took in the view (and opportunity to sober up) on the Gatlinburg Sylift. It’s going to be much more fun this spring when they open the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the states. I can’t wait to check it out!

Back at home, I have counted the moonshine we have on hand and it added up to 50 bottles. Something tells me we need to get drinking! Who wants to come over for a sampling?

So, yeah … the boyfriend (David loves it when I call him that) and I traveled to Toronto over New Year’s.

There was a lot of pre-trip craziness with work that had me in a near meltdown. It seems like vacations are always a pain in the ass in that respect. There always seems to be some last minute rush job that has you throwing things around your office, hyperventilating, and crying out of frustration. Yay.

We did eventually make it down to Atlanta for the overnight stay before catching out flight the next morning.

The hotel we stayed in was insanely swank.

Friday morning we were at the airport at 6:00 am for our 9:00 am flight. I hate flying, so there was liquid courage flowing in the Delta lounge and on the airplane before take off. It’s fun to be buzzed at 8 o’clock in the morning.

The flight was (thankfully) uneventful. Yay!

Upon arrival, we Uber-ed over to Andrew & Kathleen’s place and hung out for a bit. Andrew is David’s best friend from high school. We walked around the neighborhood and saw Casa Loma. the Baldwin Steps, and the Artscape Wychwood Barns.

Casa Loma (obviously) …

Reading history at the Baldwin Steps …

We also hit up the ATM for some Canadian currency. The bills are made of some sort of plastic and have clear, see-through sections running through them. Definitely a switch from boring old US dollars.

After a tasty dinner of Pizza Pizza, it was off to our hotel (which was nowhere near as swank as the one in Atlanta) where, much to David’s chagrin, I crashed early. Old Fart Mode was in full effect.

Saturday, we kicked around in the morning and ended up at the Bata Shoe Museum. A&K had told us it was a cool museum. David and I were skeptical, but we had time to kill before meeting Andrew for lunch. For the record, you should totally check out the shoe museum. It’s really interesting and fun!

Then we met Andrew for a super tasty lunch at KINKA IZAKAYA on Bloor St. We had Sake and ate with our shoes off. Super fun!

After lunch, we met up with Kathleen and went up to Yorkdale to go to the Lego store, catch a movie, and get dinner. I don’t know that I have even seen a mall that big with that many people in it.

On the way back to the hotel, David and I stopped into Storm Crow Manor which claims to be the nerdiest bar in Canada. It is indeed pretty nerdy. I had Butterbeer and we rolled a 20-sided die for random shots. Pretty damn nerdy.

We also stopped in a Woody’s to check out Toronto’s landmark gay bar. Pretty cool place and somewhat nerdy that night too. They were showing Alien and Blade Runner on the televisions. We were bummed to find out we missed watching the Best Ass Contest by one day.

Back at the hotel …

Sunday, we woke up to some snow. Yay!

We beat it over to the Royal Ontario Museum and had a fun time checking out the special exhibition on spiders plus all their regular exhibits on natural history and ancient art.

SPIDERS!!!!

And DINOSAURS!!!

We had planned to go to the Art Galllery of Ontario as well this day. I was pretty museum-ed out by the time we got done at the ROM. We had lunch wherein I tried poutine for the first time. It’s pretty damn amazing. We then went on a record store quest (more on this in another post). As a bonus, we came across a cool bookstore and video game store. We also made a quick through Eaton Centre. Yep. It’s another ridiculously huge mall with way too many people crammed in it. Afterwards, we went to Andrew and Kathleen’s to hang out with one of their friends. It was relaxed evening (with way too much gin) after a pretty hectic day.

On New Year’s Eve (Monday), I went and toured Casa Loma while David and Andrew ventured into Chinatown for lunch and a return visit to the video game store we had come across the day before.

Casa Loma was pretty sweet. I love grand old mansions. It would have been better had there not been 5,000 kids running around due to their holiday Nutcracker presentation that was still going on. One of the things I had not realized was just how many movies have been filmed there.

Here is Downtown Toronto as seen from Casa Loma’s Norman Tower.

After the tour, it was back to Andrew and Kathleen’s for a low-key New Year’s Eve with takeout Thai and junk food. It was this night that I tried All Dressed chips and fell in love with them. Canada really does rock! I really dug the Canadian New Year’s Eve celebration that was on the CBC. It’s much nicer than that overdone Time Square insanity. Nice thing too is that the TTC (Toronto’s mass transit system) was free from 7 pm until 7 am. So, we got a free ride back to the hotel.

New Year’s Day is apparently a bit of a crap shoot in Canada with lots of places being closed for the holiday.

While foraging for coffee that morning, I ran across some gay Pepsi at Loblaws. We were staying in the gayborhood after all.

I also discovered that Ketchup chips are a thing. Weird (and gross).

The main tourist destinations were open for sure and we decided to take in the Art Gallery of Ontario. Along with the permanent exhibition, we saw the fascinating (and depressing) Anthropocene exhibit along with the Mickalene Thomas excellent solo show.

Anthropocene …

One of Mickelene Thomas‘ pieces …

Here’s Downtown Toronto as seen from the back of the AGO.

We grabbed a delicious fried rice and dumpling lunch in Chinatown. The wind was particularly cold this day, so we beat it back to the hotel before meeting A&K for dinner near Yonge-Dundas Square.

Here we are being even more touristy.

After dinner, at the suggestion of A&K, we nipped into Eaton Centre for some Sweet Jesus. Holy Crap. This place has the BEST ICE CREAM EVER! I loved it so much I stole some spoons.

We said our goodbyes to A&K and beat it back to Woody’s for some final gayness before leaving the city. After Woody’s we ended up in the Church St. Garage because we saw some queens performing inside. We had a drink there, I tipped the performing queen and got a kiss … and then it was back to the hotel to finish packing for the return trip the next day.

Everything was packed up and ready to go, so why not take another hotel bed selfie?

The next day, I was not nervous at the airport. Yeah. See how casual David is? Ugh.

The flight back was a bit bumpy but we landed okay and survived the 3-1/2+ hour drive back home in the rain.

Now Bowser is home, the work week is underway … and I am already ready to go on vacation again. Though I doubt David is up for another round of my travel craziness quite so soon.

And thanks to David for letting me use a lot of his photos. I was very lazy about taking pictures on this trip. Probably because I had gloves on the whole time.