Tennessee Gals, Part 2 of 2

Did you know that the world's only salt and pepper shaker museum is in Gatlinburg, TN? Well if you didn't, you do now! Andrea Ludden started collecting these everyday items in 1984, opened the first iteration of the museum in Cosby, TN, in 2002, and moved to Gatlinburg in 2005. In some ways it remains an amateur museum, with simple paper labels. But for $3--good for the whole day--it's more than worth the price of admission.

I suspect many people wander over for the same reason we did: long wait at Flapjacks (click here for Part 1). So we browsed most of the way through before brunch, and then we came back and went through the rooms again to look more closely a second time.

It's a veritable "I spy" bonanza of cultural references. Betty Boop? John Deere tractors? Shakers shaped like fruit? Animals? Star Trek characters? Glow-in-the-dark glass? 

Foreground: rainbow trout. Background: Hiawatha

"I never saw a Purple Cow; I never hope to see one; But I can tell you anyhow; I'd rather see than be one." Neither of my companions had read the children's book "The Purple Cow" or had the misfortune to try a "purple cow" (milk mixed with grape juice) at daycare.

These ones reminded me of my "dream vacation" to Santorini with Dear Husband. (We'll ignore the fact that parts of it were almost nightmarish.)

Left: princess kissing frog. Right: origami salt and pepper shakers folded to look like Hawai'ian shirts from Singapore Airlines

Apparently Ludden had actually started with pepper mills, so there is a collection of those, too. This is me in front of an incredibly tall one.