Buckhorn Inn: Breakfast Worth Getting Up For

Morning 1 of our 7th anniversary Gatlinburg vacation at Buckhorn Inn = French toast with strawberries and cream, bacon, fresh fruit, blueberry muffin, cranberry juice, and hot cocoa with whipped cream on top

I finally took more than one night away from Jack (with minimal crying spells, on my part). It rained the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of our vacation; the sun finally popped out of the sky Thursday: the day of our departure. It didn't matter, though. When you are spending your first vacation away from your 19-month-old, you pretty much just want to relax and sleep as much as possible.

Problem: the Buckhorn Inn serves breakfast from 8-9:30.

I can remember when we went to the Buckhorn for our first anniversary. This time seemed quite early. Everything is about perspective. Now sleeping until 8:45 is a luxury. And, I had no embarrassment about throwing on clothes and going to breakfast without having had my shower. It was vacation, and these were strangers. Who cared? I decided not to.

We stayed in a cottage instead of the inn itself, which meant a little jaunt each morning before we made it to breakfast. I'd say this was a good idea, not just because of the beautiful view and privacy of the cottage, but because the morning jaunt to the meal woke up my tummy, and the morning jaunt back burned off a few of those calories.

This breakfast is worth getting up for, and filling enough that all you want to do after is go back to bed. Which we did.

Morning 2 = lemon souffle pancakes with raspberry sauce, bacon, fresh fruit cup, mint tea, cranberry juice, and croissant.

The breakfast is spectacular, a fabulous "good morning" to your mouth. I don't really like raspberry sauces (because of the seeds, mostly), but I love fruit rather than syrup. I didn't get to engorge myself as much with this meal because I didn't feel so well. But this lack of over-eating helped me enjoy our tea room lunch. (Update on this coming later.)

Morning 3 = cream cheese filled croissant in a strawberry sauce with strawberries and cream on top, bacon (always), fresh fruit (always), mint tea, cranberry juice, and blueberry-amaretto coffee cake

Our final morning's breakfast could be categorized in one word: decedent. As if a croissant isn't bad enough for you, this one was filled with cream cheese and then cooked french-toast-style. I ate half of it and felt as though my teeth might (gladly) fall right out of my mouth from the sugar-stimulation. Divine. What a way to end our trip.

www.buckhorninn.com