Free breakfast

We had heard that Denny's was giving away free grand slams today so we went to check it out, it is free food after all.

It looked like the whole world had heard about this too. Even though it was really cold, the line to get in went halfway around the building.

We figured even the promise of free food was not enough to get us to stand in a line this long and in this cold. So Bernie kept our place in line while Mar went inside. She spoke to the manager who gave her a rain check and a coupon book. Mar then went outside and stood in line, while Bernie went inside to get her rain check and coupon book. We'll just find another Denny's later when there are no lines to get our grand slams breakfasts ... for dinner, of course, because we don't eat breakfast - we sleep through it.

After that, we drove to the Sevierville Visitor Center and then to the bookstore where we they trade books. We unloaded about half our stack of already read books. Bernie got a book from the Oprah book club and Mar got a hispanic cookbook.

Then we drove about 45 minutes to Knoxville TN. There we went to the Visitor Center, which was closed when we got there even though it was not 5 pm yet, and the hours listed said it closed at 6 pm. What a bummer.

Then we found the World Fair Park and went to the top of the Sunsphere, to the observation deck with a 360 degree view of downtown and beyond. Then we drove to Volunteer Landing along the Tennessee River with an impressive bridge and beautiful views as the sun was coming down.

Then we went to the Pizza Palace, which was recommended on the show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network (Mar’s favorite channel). There is no seating inside or out, only drivethru stations. We ordered both of the items we were told the show's host liked, the pizza and the onion rings. We think we liked them both but they were a bit cold by the time we found a place to park for the night and have dinner.

It is supposed to be really cold tonight with plenty of snow so we decided that boondocking would not be a good idea tonight. We stopped at a Hampton Inn and asked if we could plug in, and lucky for us, they said yes, so we spent the night in their parking lot, eating cold pizza and getting free wi-fi.