Y’all. Stick a fork in me, I’m done. Today was our group’s last day in Jackson (Western Tennessee), and all we did was eat, eat, and eat some more. I currently feel like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man–all squishy. My skin is going nuts; it’s red and inflamed. It’s like all the sugar and alcohol from this week are looking for an escape route out of my liver. More likely, my liver is fed up with my recent behavior and has handed over its clean-up duties to my skin, like, Here–you take care of this muscadine wine and fried apple pie. I should probably help out the team and stop eating so much.

Once I get home to Arkansas, The Detox is on.

Now let’s talk about how I got myself into this dietary mess. This morning started with a trip to the local farmers market, which sounds healthy enough, but the Amish were there with their God Bless-ed Pastries. Then there was a food truck called Cock-A-Doodle Dough that was full of gigantic donuts. I didn’t actually buy any of these sugar-laden delights, but others did and offered to share them. In an effort to be gracious–and only in an effort to be gracious–I hesitantly accepted their offer and somehow managed to choke down several gooey bites that were each roughly the size of a baseball.

Ack. It was terrible. The things I do to be gracious.

Here’s a picture of what I’ll be choking down next week.

After the farmers market, we visited an area downtown called The Local. Y’all, it’s the coolest thing. The city got a grant to build tiny rentable spaces for small businesses that are just getting started and need affordable rent.  I checked out all the shops, and one lady made candles and bath bombs, and one guy had a wonderful vintage clothing store called The Lost Reserve. I was this close to buying an original E.T. (the movie) t-shirt from him, but it a size small and–well–donuts. Another girl had a store cuter than all of Pinterest combined, and there was a shirt that said, “I wish I were full of tacos instead of emotions.” Amen, sister. Amen.

And I basically am.

After The Local, we went to an old Carnegie Library, which is now a rock and roll museum largely dedicated to Carl Perkins. If you don’t know, Carl Perkins was the singer who wrote “Blue Suede Shoes,” made famous by Elvis Presley, and he was born right here in Jackson. And whereas the folks at Graceland told me that Elvis never owned a pair of blue suede shoes, Carl Perkins apparently owned a pair of blue suede boots, since they were in his collection of things that I saw today. Here’s another fun fact I learned at the museum–the first Hard Rock Cafe was opened in Jackson. It’s closed now, but the guy who opened it is from here, although now he’s apparently a spiritual disciple of Sai Baba, an Indian guru. (Sai Baba is technically no longer alive, but I guess it doesn’t matter when you’re following someone who claims to be an eternal deity.)

For lunch we ate at an old railway hotel (a hotel by a railway) called The Chandelier. It was crazy good–I had fried green tomatoes, fried chicken with black-eyed peas on top of mashed potatoes, and–for dessert–chocolate creme brûlée. I practically had to roll myself out the front door. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I recently invested in stretchy jeans. Talk about one of man’s best inventions. Seriously, whoever came up with those things should get a Nobel Peace Prize. I can only imagine they’ve made A LOT of people like me extremely happy.

After lunch our group split up, but I went with several folks to Century Farms, a local winery. Y’all, I lost count, but I think I sampled thirteen wines (along with a bunch of cheese, fruit, and chocolate). One of wines was elderberry, which I requested because I’d been told at the farmers market that it was “medicinal,” great for fighting off colds and flus. So yeah, I was drinking, but basically it was like a prescription. Anyway, along with the tasting, we also got to learn about the wine-making process, which I found fascinating. I’ll spare you most of the details, but here’s a picture of the fermentation process where yeast eats sugar and converts it to alcohol, letting off CO2–bubbles–as a byproduct.

Our next stop was–uh–more drinking, this time at a local distillery, Samuel T. Bryant. There we sampled what amounted to whiskey, scotch, tequila, and a few different types of moonshine. (You can’t technically call it scotch or tequila unless it comes from Scotland or Mexico.) Again, we got to learn about how the liquor was made, but the complicated details kind of made my head spin (or maybe that was the alcohol). Actually, the owner said that hangovers are usually caused by bottom-shelf alcohol, meaning that they haven’t been distilled or purified as well (into ethanol) and thus have more toxins (methanol). However, the most interesting thing I learned today was that prohibition had little to do with morality. Rather, it was all about money. See, America used to be full of farmers, and farm equipment could run on alcohol. So rather than pay for oil and gasoline, farmers made their own fuel in the form of moonshine. Well, this didn’t go over well with the oil company owners. Enter prohibition, which stayed around just long enough for farming equipment to be re-engineered to run on only oil and gas and not alcohol. At that point, the ban on alcohol was lifted.

Or at least that’s what the guy today said. I just Googled it, and there are plenty of people who disagree. (Welcome to America.)

The last stop today was a long one, the Casey Jones Museum, which is part of a “village” or shopping center that includes several historical buildings and one gigantic restaurant, Brook Shaw’s Old Country Store. But back to the museum. Casey Jones was a railroad engineer at the end of the 1800s and had a reputation for always being on time. Well, one ill-fated night, in an effort to be punctual, ole Casey was speeding, barreling down the tracks at 75 to 100 miles per hour. Unfortunately, another train was stalled on the tracks just miles from Casey’s intended destination. You can imagine what happened next–physics. In other words, there was a big crash. (Let this be a lesson to all you people who refuse to be late wherever you go.) Anyway, since Casey saw the crash coming, he was able to slow down the train and save nearly everyone on board–except himself. (He stayed on the train to pull the brakes.) Later, when people started writing songs about Casey’s brave act, he quickly became a national hero and folk legend.

Y’all, the museum really was cool. Casey’s actual house is on-site, as well as the pocket watch he had on him when he died. Plus, there was a lot of train memorabilia, and as someone who grew up loving trains, I was in heaven.

After the museum, we checked out some of the other historic buildings, then we wrapped the whole trip up with an “all you can enjoy” country-cooking buffet. And just like the rest of the week, my self-control was nowhere to be found. After fried chicken and macaroni and cheese (and a salad!), I had blackberry cobbler, peach cobbler, half an apple fried pie, and two-thirds of a chocolate milkshake.

Halfway through the milkshake, my insulin put in its two-weeks notice.

Now it’s two-and-a-half hours later (11:30 PM), and I’m still experiencing the consequences of my bad choices. BUT–I’ve had a glorious–absolutely wonderful–time this week on my first travel-writing tour. I’ve eaten a ton of fabulous food, seen some amazing places, and met some even better people. (Pictured at the top of the blog are two of them–Jill and Paul). So I have no regrets–only gratitude. Plus, I get to sleep in tomorrow before driving (technically riding) to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and doing it all over again. What is there NOT to be grateful for?