A Day at the RC Cola-Moon Pie Festival in Bell Buckle

Let's take a ride down I-24 for one of the most fun festivals you'll attend this summer.

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I have written about my love of Bell Buckle, Tennessee before. I’m sure I’ve talked about it on the SoBros Power Hour before as well. But, it bears repeating. Bell Buckle absolutely rules. There’s nothing like that short getaway from the hustle and bustle of Nashville. About an hour southeast of town, Bell Buckle rests among the hills of Tennessee. You can take I-24 to get there, but I’d recommend finding some backroads to take to get into town. It’s one of the most underrated scenic drives in the mid-state as you weave between open fields and rolling hills, a landscape ripe with green life in the summer time and painted with the colors of fall when the temperature cools. I’ve been going to the craft fair in October for pretty much my entire life as a Tennessean, but this past Saturday, I had my first opportunity to attend the heralded RC Cola-Moon Pie Festival.

Out here at the edge of town, people are still lining the sidewalks in anticipation of the parade.

You guessed it – it’s a day long celebration of the quintessential southern snack, an ice cold RC cola and a delectable Moon Pie, held right there in the hear of Bell Buckle. My wife and I made plans to attend with a couple of friends all the way back in the spring (life as adults, am I right?) after hearing stories about what a nice day this event makes for. Aura and I left our house in Mount Juliet around 10AM, rolling into Bell Buckle around 11AM, just in time for the parade.

We didn’t even realize the parade was about to transpire. I was roaming in the middle of the street, wondering why so many people were sitting on the sidewalk facing the road, some of them even shooting puzzled looks my way. “What on Earth is this guy doing?” Aura looked it up and confirmed that the parade was about to start, so we found a space to stand. Then, it was my turn to look at the people wandering aimlessly in the road and wonder if they knew the parade was about to start.

Floats, clowns, shrimp that I mistakenly thought were biblically accurate angels, and old cars paraded down the street, tossing Moon Pies from their vehicles out to the kids standing with their families. It was as down home as down home can get.

Once the parade was over with, we made our way into Livery Stable antique mall to peruse some vintage goods. I found a first edition print of Tolstoy’s Resurrection that was signed by the man himself. I didn’t have $100 to drop on a book, but if I did, it would be the gem of my collection right now. Livery Stable was one of the best antique stores that I’ve ever been in. Vendors had a real variety of items, not just junk, and they were fairly priced.

From there, we roamed around the craft fair a bit, taking in what the sellers were peddling before we dipped into the Tennessee Valley Model Railroad Train Club. We combed over the detail and the fine craftsmanship of what the group has built in that building, and decided it was time to get lunch on the other side. With a large selection of dining options reminiscent of your favorite food from the county fair, I landed on the loaded reds from Dirty South Dishes, a heaping helping of red potatoes smothered in a chorizo cheese sauce, topped with bacon bits, sour cream, and green onions. It was delightful.

After we ate, we took a stroll through downtown Bell Buckle, looking around at the various antique malls, general stores, and coffee shops. There, you see the real year-round charm of what Bell Buckle has to offer. It strikes me as a relaxing place to take a scenic drive, do some light shopping, and get a good meal at the cafe. It had my wife and I saying we needed to pick a time when there wasn’t some big festival in town to go check it out.

My buddy and I competed in the Moon Pie pitching contest. You can’t take the pie out of the package, but the trick is to ball it up as densely as possible like a baseball. I didn’t finish anywhere near the lead because I tried a different strategy and it didn’t work…but it was worth it for the fun, and that’s all that counts, right? After that, it was time to call it a day and head back to Mount Juliet.

All in all, we spent over four hours moseying around the festival. It’s about half the size of the craft fair in October, but it’s much less crowded, which was a fair tradeoff in my opinion. I liked the smaller crowd and the much more manageable navigation. Bell Buckle has a real knack for putting on events like this. I can’t recommend slowing down at one enough.

For more on the Bell Buckle RC Cola-Moon Pie Festival, check out their website. If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to The SoBros Power Hour on Apple Podcasts, follow us on Spotify, or wherever you take in your shows.

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

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