Exploring Southern Middle Tennessee

Friday June 24 - Sunday June 26

Ben had an inspection in Statesville, NC scheduled for Friday. Jane planned to accompany him and after the inspection we planned to spend the weekend in the NC Mountains. Nothing exciting had shown up on a web search but we wanted to escape from home so we were just going somewhere! At the last minute the inspection was delayed; on the spur of the moment we threw some clothes in a suitcase, packed up our computers and headed out – not for the NC Mountains but on an exploration trip we’d been considering for some time. We headed to Chattanooga and Southern Middle TN – a part of TN we had never spent time exploring.

The drive to Chattanooga was uneventful with a brief stop for a quick sandwich. Our first stop was Chickamauga National Battlefield Park. GPS directed us to the Park which is actually across the line in Georgia. This area was the home town of the runner-up on this year’s American Idol competition – there were still “GO LAUREN” signs up along the road.

After getting the stamp for our US National Park Passport book we took in the highlights of the Visitor Center. The film was good and explained the Union and Confederate campaigns. Ben had visited the Park years ago with his scout troop and earned a patch for hiking much of the battlefield. The visitor center had a huge 300+ collection of rifles that had been donated to the National Park Service by a benefactor. As we were leaving the Visitor Center the rain that had been threatening began so we skipped the driving tour.

Cannons at Chickamauga Visitor Center

We plugged the TN Aquarium in the GPS and began our journey back to downtown Chattanooga. The sky opened up and dumped rain. I only recall once hearing as heavy rain and hail in the Sprinter. We could certainly not tell you much about Rossville GA or the part of Chattanooga we drove through! I do remember many Mexican groceries and cantinas so there must be a large Mexican population. The downtown Chattanooga area has been turned into a tourist destination. It was busy but not super crowded so we did not have to battle bad traffic – probably due to weekday and rain.

The Aquarium is two large buildings and along with an IMAX theater and numerous other tourist attractions seems to have transformed downtown Chattanooga. We found parking fairly easily and hurried into one of the Aquarium buildings avoiding much of the rain only to discover we had to go to another building to get tickets! We finally got started on the exhibits without getting too wet.

River Building from the Ocean Building

There are two buildings – one is the river or fresh water fish and the second is the ocean. We started in the river building. The seahorse exhibit was very interesting with numerous varieties of seahorses – all small but some were tiny!

Seahorses in Aquarium

We rode an escalator up about 4 stories before beginning the journey down through the various rivers and water displays. Going up the escalator was one of those times Jane did not want to look up or down! There were many varieties of fish from small varieties to huge catfish. Of particular interest were the fish of the Tennessee River – Ben was very disappointed there were no mussels.

We walked to the Ocean building and again went up an escalator but it was not quite as high as the first one. The view out to the Tennessee River from the top was great and would have been fantastic on a clear day.

TN River from Ocean Building

When we arrived at the top we had a surprise – a tropical center full of wonderful orchids and bromeliads. There were fish too but for us the plants were outstanding!

Ben loving the plants

Orchids and Bromeliads

We then began the journey down through the various waters in this building. For us the highlights were the penguins and the jellyfish. The penguins were delightful to watch and the jellyfish were beautiful. There was even a display of art inspired by the jellyfish.

Penguins in Ocean Building

We left the Aquarium about 5:30. We decided to stay in the area to eat supper and then look for a place to spend the night. We settled on the Genghis Grill, which was interesting and quite good. It was Mongolian barbeque similar to what we had in Okinawa years ago. You selected meat or fish or both, then spices, then veggies and finally a sauce. You took your ingredients to an area where it was cooked for you with rice or noodles. We both were pleased with our selections. They also had some great desserts so we ordered some “to-go”. Pineapple coconut cream torte with raspberry sauce – it was mmmm good!

Dinner Being Prepared at Genghis Grill

We entered a nearby La Quinta Inn into GPS and began a round robin trip through downtown Chattanooga – there was some sort of festival which blocked off streets and caused some delays. We arrived finally and found a room easily with quick access to Interstate 24 where we would leave the next morning. The bed felt very good. This was Jane’s first day at travel in van and walking significant distances since her back attack a couple months ago. It went better than anticipated but the bed was really welcome! We read, watched a little TV and caught up on some internet.

Saturday morning we headed downstairs for the regular complimentary breakfast to discover they had scrambled eggs, biscuits, and gravy in addition to the waffles and all the expected items. We had a good breakfast and headed north towards Lynchburg.

We drove along I 24 as we had many times headed to Birmingham but took I 24 north to Nashville instead of I 59 to Birmingham. The road climbed as we had thought it would as we headed to Monteagle. The cuts in the mountains were deep and the two sides of the interstate went on opposite sides of the mountain. For about 10 miles there was no sight of the other half of the road – it was 2-3 miles away on the other side of the mountain.

There are several large lakes made by TVA dams in the area. We also observed Arnold Air Force Base – a large installation in the area with nothing seen from the roads. Their work is in aero-dynamics and wind tunnel research. Jane had never heard of the place but Ben had known of it as a scout attended some sort of training camp there. We continued towards Lynchburg by going through Manchester and then Tullahoma. Our call back from Miss Mary BoBo’s – finally came and we were able to secure reservations for their 1 PM seating for lunch in Lynchburg. This old boarding house serves lunch 6 days a week to small groups in a family style setting.

We arrived at the Jack Daniel Distillery about 10:00 and were quickly sent to a bus for a free tour.

Jack Daniel Distillery

They drove us in a 20 passenger bus to the top of the hill and let us out to begin our walk down the hill. (Today Jane thought she would try wearing her back brace since there would be some walking involved and it might mean less stress on her back than yesterday. It worked! )

The first part of the tour showed us how the sugar maple charcoal is made. The amount of wood was staggering but the charcoal for the filtering process is what distinguishes TN Sour Mash Whiskey from other bourbons.

Then we walked down to see Jack’s original office and the cave spring – origin of the clear spring water that also makes Jack Daniels so special.

"Jack on the Rocks" Sculpture

We saw how they made the white oak barrels that are vital to the aging process. We then toured the first of several manufacturing buildings. They did not allow photographs inside the buildings so we have to rely on memory. There were several huge vats for the fermentation which took about a week. The fermenting mixture was rye, corn, and barley.

Ingredients in Jack

Then the mixture was distilled where the alcohol is separated from the water. The alcohol is then filtered through 10 feet of charcoal to filter out any impurities. The next step is into the barrels for aging. The premium level Jack is put through an extra 5 feet of charcoal filtering. The result is an even smoother taste. The bottling of the Premium Jack was not operational on Saturday so we only observed the machinery. We did see the Hall of Honor where people/organizations are given a plaque on the wall when they purchase an entire barrel of the Premium Jack. One barrel equals 10 cases or 240 bottles. When you purchase the barrel you get the barrel and all the cases of Jack delivered to your home or business. Some of the plaques had numerous stars on their – a star for each barrel purchased.

The barrels are stored in barrel houses until they are “ready”. Jack does not have a set number of years but relies on tasters to determine when it is ready for bottling. They have 70+ barrel houses in the area. All are not on the site of the distillery but are all nearby some holding many thousands of barrels. The government gets a lot of tax from the manufacture of Jack – the tax is per barrel – estimated at $13 million dollars per barrel house – that makes for a LOT of tax dollars!

Back at the Visitor Center which was not in full swing – we entered into a huge bar area – now remember this is a dry county so they served lemonade at the bar – it was very good lemonade!

Lemonade served in the "bar"

They did have special legislation passed that they could sell special commemorative bottles from their site – so Ben had to purchase one! Wonder who the lucky friends will be who get to sample with him?

We left the Sprinter parked in the lot at the distillery and walked across a bridge and down about two blocks to the “Square” in Lynchburg. They were having Frontier Days and the town was full. The population of Lynchburg is about 5,000. On the Jack label it says 360 – that was when it was copyrighted and they can’t change the number without getting a new copyright. The entire square around the courthouse was tourist related – eateries, antique shops, souvenir shops, and of course the Official Jack Daniel Store. They did indeed have everything with the Jack Daniel label here for sale! Our lunch reservation was for 1 PM so we stopped in one of the shops for lemonade, scone, and coffee before visiting most of the shops around the square. We were treated to the Frontier Days Parade and a Gun Battle while we waited for our time for “dinner” as they called the huge mid-day meal they served at Miss Mary BoBo’s Boarding House.

Jane playing checkers with Jack

Frontier Day Parade

About a block off the square Miss Mary’s was originally a boarding house that is now an eating establishment – owned by Jack Daniel’s it seems. Monday through Saturday they serve dinner (the mid-day meal) in two seating (11 AM and 1 PM) of about 90 people in 8-9 dining rooms throughout the house. On Saturdays during the busy season they also have a 3PM seating.

Our table was composed of a hostess from the area and 10 other people – in our case all related folks who were having a family reunion. They were primarily from Goodlettsville which is near Nashville. The dishes served were fried chicken, pork roast, squash casserole, fried okra, green beans, cucumber salad, fried apples (with Jack in them), some sort of greens, corn muffins, and for dessert chess pie with real whipped cream (again with Jack in it). The favorite dish seemed to be the fried okra. Our other favorites were the squash casserole, fried chicken, and the pie. It was a good meal and was very nicely served by students from the community college. The students have scholarships from Jack Daniels for their two years in exchange for their work at Miss Mary’s. Do you get the impression this is a “company town”? The Jack Daniel Distillery is now owned by Brown Forman which is headquartered in Louisville KY. They know the Jack Daniel label is successful due to the quality and they do everything to maintain that quality and label identification – so they are good community citizens it appears to us.

After the lunch we would have settled for a nap but instead walked the probably ½ mile or more back to the Sprinter and headed off in search of Pritchard’s Distillery. They were a much smaller operation – we found it in Kelso TN which is basically a crossroads. The facility looked like a small old school house and when reading the small print on their pamphlet – it said call ahead to be sure we will be open…well they weren’t. We had thought we would go here since their best seller was a well known TN rum and Jane is not a whiskey drinker but does like rum on occasion..oh well. Next time read the small print!

We were rather tired anyway so headed north to our next destination - remember we were exploring southern middle TN… We drove through hilly terrain into beautiful rolling farmland as we neared Shelbyville, the walking horse capitol of TN. The farms, hay fields, and really good looking horses were all along the roads until we reached Murfreesboro. Murfreesboro is one area of TN that has shown remarkable growth over the past 10-15 years. Jane visited here many times over her years with the Red Cross and would not have recognized most of what we saw today. We entered Stones River National Battlefield into the GPS and were soon at another Civil War Battlefield. We viewed their movie and learned about a battle that was very bloody and considered a Confederate victory one day and by the next was a Union Victory. The most memorable scenes were of the large Union cemetery. There were over 6,000 Union dead with over 2,000 of them not identified. Interestingly the Confederate dead were buried in another cemetery at another location in Murfreesboro.

Stones River National Cemetery

We had considered looking up some friends in Murfreesboro but we were tired and chose to head on towards home stopping when we were completely tired out. Turns out our friends were in Kingsport for the weekend so we could not have visited them anyway. We only made it as far as the interstate in Lebanon and called at a day. After a couple hours rest we made it across the highway for a very light supper and then found the beds exceedingly comfortable!

Sunday morning we got an early start by East TN standards and headed towards home in fairly heavy rain. We stayed in the storm that was headed east until we passed through Knoxville. We had an otherwise uneventful trip east on I 40 and I 81 reaching Kingsport about 2:30.

It was good to be back on the road after not traveling due to Jane’s 95 year old mother’s up and down health issues over the past 6 months and finally her death in May. A couple of health issues of our own slowed us down a little too but we are ready to get back to more travel – one of the reasons for our retirement!!

This short trip through southern middle Tennessee reinforced for us that TN is a very diverse and beautiful state. We still need to take in the northwest part of the state including Reel foot Lake which we hope to do as we travel the Great River Road along the Mississippi later this year.

Back to East Tennessee

Fall Colors greeted us at home!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

We left Birmingham about 9:00 and started on the last leg of our trip. We turned our unfinished mystery CD back on and the miles clipped by. We tried to find the Little River National Preserve near Ft. Payne AL but we were unsuccessful even with the help of the GPS and a map! As we neared Chattanooga we began to see a few trees turned in color but they did not seem to be anywhere near peak until we were nearly home. We did stop for lunch at a rest area between Cleveland and Athens.

Alabama Crimson Tide

Tennessee Vols

The highlight of the trip was watching the Alabama Crimson Tide decorated cars and fans headed north to Knoxville for the BIG game….after Chattanooga they were joined by equally decorated cars and fans but of the Big Orange variety. As we neared Knoxville the road became a parking lot for a ways but cleared and was not as bad as we feared. The game was not to begin until 7 PM and we were home about 4 PM so you can see we were probably ahead of largest number of fans….glad we missed the larger number!

As we neared home the trees began to take on more and more color. The best near the Fall Branch exit - about 5 miles from home!

This was a really great trip and we are already talking about heading back down for a longer stay in the late spring. Total mileage was 1,906.

Starting Home Pensacola to Birmingham

Children's climbing structure at Big Lagoon

Friday, October 22, 2010

We were up at 7:00 and left camp at 8:15…pretty good considering we enjoyed a cup of coffee before completely taking down and packing up camp. We drove over to the waterway side of the island just to see it in the daylight. There was a really cool play structure with numerous climbing walls that Daniel would have loved!

We took a road straight north from Gulf Shores to I-65 – interesting small towns in Alabama and land dotted with cotton fields, some sugar cane, pecan trees, and cattle. We took I-65 and headed through Montgomery and on to Birmingham. We stopped for gas, to buy pecans and for lunch at a rest area. It was a fairly boring day except for a good mystery on CD.

We arrived in Birmingham and the same Quality Inn we stayed at on the trip down. We caught up on internet and Jane searched for the information on the Japanese Restaurant, Sekisui, where we planned to eat dinner. We have been searching for a Japanese Restaurant with Sukiyaki on the menu for about a year. It was a little crazy finding it – GPS tried, Jane called and asked for directions…we kept looking and finally found it by looking UP…it was on the upper level of a several level shopping area.

Restaurant Signage on 2nd floor of Mall

Sukiyaki

Japanese seating area

It was a very nice and VERY Japanese restaurant. We had sushi, sukiyaki, and tempura bananas with ice cream for dessert. Ben had sake. Everything was excellent. We have now had sushi – neither of us hated it but we did not love it either….so it is one of those things we now know we have eaten and do not need to eat again but could if necessary! The waitress came over and talked to us for a long while, she was very interested in why we ordered sukiyaki – evidently very few Americans order it…and we had BOTH ordered it!

Tomorrow we head home and hope to see some nice tree color when back in Tennessee.

Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola

Museum of Naval Aviation

Thursday, October 21, 2010

This has been a fantastic day until just now (8 PM) when I realized the log entry I typed last night for Wednesday is gone – how did that happen? Must have been operator error and I did not save it…hard to believe but I guess I did it. Oh dear, I have to try to remember! Today as everyday of our trip, we had beautiful weather. Jane hiked over to the lagoon and took some great mirror photos and then back to camp for coffee and a little breakfast.

Picnic Shelter and Canoes - Big Lagoon Park

Trees along the Lagoon - Big Lagoon Park

We were on our way the 6.5 miles to the Naval Aviation Museum by 9:10 and walked in the door at 9:30. In between was a stop at the Pensacola Lighthouse for Jane to get her “lighthouse photo”. Someday I plan to do something with all of the lighthouse photos taken over the years.

Pensacola Lighthouse

This museum is really something – equals if not exceeds the Smithsonian.

Sculpture at entrance - naval aviators from each war share stories

We signed on for an inside tour, an outside tour, and an IMAX movie. These along with our lunch at the Cubi Bar – filled our time until 3 PM!! Our inside tour guide was a retired naval fighter pilot from WWII who told us he had just celebrated his 85^th birthday a few years ago with a special flight in one of the planes he had flown years ago and he had the photos to prove it. He had lots of stories to tell and helped bring to life the numerous planes and artifacts we saw. Planes that were actually at Pearl Harbor, Midway, first plane to fly across the Atlantic – no not the non-stop one by Lindbergh – but a Navy plane NC-4 flew it 1919. The trip took the aviators 3 weeks with stopping in Newfoundland, then the Azores, and on to Portugal.

NC-4 First plane to fly across Atlantic in 1919

Also very interesting was a PBY like “Strawberry 5” from the battle of Midway. It was much larger than I had imagined.

PBY restored with cutaway view

Another interesting display involved training of Naval Aviators for carrier landings during WW II. Since it was too dangerous to have carriers off either coast due to enemy subs and mines…the Navy bought two paddle wheelers, took off the tops, built a carrier top for them and paddled them around Lake Michigan and trained over 17,000 fighter pilots. They had to have 8 successful carrier landings before they could be certified as “ready”. Some of the best planes restored for this museum have come from the depth of Lake Michigan where they had crash landed. They were never recovered since they were planes that had been deemed unworthy of battle used for training. The records showed about 2 planes a week went into the drink. Several of the “one of a kind” planes in the museum were recovered and restored primarily with volunteer effort.

Outside tour - you can see trolley in distance

At the conclusion of the inside tour – we headed immediately to board a trolley for the outside tour. This tour was also led by a retired navy airman. He had flown in the much more recent past – 1967 – 1987. We saw many planes and got to visit the restoration hanger. They are currently restoring many planes including the Admiral Nimitz plane that Howard Hughes had purchased. It looks many years away from completion. The plane flown by George W. Bush was on display known as a COD (carrier on board delivery).

When we returned to the Museum we headed to the Cubi Bar for lunch. There is a story here. We lived in the Philippines from 1965-67 and were assigned to Subic Bay for 1966-67. Our son was born there at Subic Bay Hospital. The night he was born, Ben had to find somewhere to wait and eat – nothing was open at the hospital (very small) so he ended up at the Cubi Officers Club Bar! Well, it makes a good story but it is true. When we knew the Bar had been reconstructed here we had to see it… Ben remembers they were in the process of rebuilding the O Club during the time he assigned as a civilian engineer there at the OICC – Officer in Charge of Construction Southwest Pacific. The Cubi Bar here at the Naval Air Museum was reconstructed when the US did not renew the lease for Subic Bay and Cubi Point when they expired in recent years. The most famous part of the bar being the plaques left there by various commands throughout the years. We had a great steak sandwich and hunted all through the bar until we found the OICC plaque to photograph it…fun time.

Each command left a plaque in Cubi Bar

OICC Plaque - Ben was assigned to this command

Bar Scene

After lunch we had an hour and toured more of the exhibits we had not seen this morning. At 2 PM we watched the IMAX film of Red Flag – Fighter Pilots. It was a story of the Red Flag Training Program of the US for giving fighter pilots realistic training in combat but in a controlled situation. I only had to close my eyes about 10 times – not nearly as bad as the last IMAX or I am getting better at watching!

Blue Angel Planes

We looked around some more and visited the huge gift shop. Ben found a shirt, we had a dog tag made for Daniel and found him a shirt. I was very disappointed in their selection of women’s shirts – none that had a collar and only one t-shirt I would have considered and it was purple. This is just not my trip for purchases!

We barely made it to Fort Barrancas before it closed – only enough time to watch a 10 minute film, get passport stamps and take a couple photos. We will have to come back here and spend some time this is a very interesting and well preserved fort.

Drove back to camp and rested a short time before heading out for dinner – our last seafood. This time we made an excellent choice and it was 1 mile from our camp ground. Triggers Seafood- Ben had fried oysters and shrimp. He said the best of the trip and he has tried oysters 3 times. I had grouper with a shrimp Creole sauce that was fantastic. We cleaned our plates and if we were not leaving tomorrow we would go back again!

The evening was as usual – a little TV, blog writing, photo sorting, and reading. Tomorrow we start our trip home – the days have really flown by on this trip.

Gulf Shores to Pensacola

Ben and Jane at Gulf Shores Visitor Center

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Got up about 8 AM and took a good mile and half walk before it got hot. This is a nice park with lots of loops for walking or bike riding. Back at camp ate breakfast, packed up and drove over to the activity center to see if the WIFI worked. We were able to get on so Ben caught up on news. Jane took care of her farm on Face book and caught up on emails.

After a short stop at the gulf access area for Jane to take some photos, we headed east crossing into Florida within 10 miles.

Coastline at Gulf Shores State Park

Orange Beach and Perdido Beach blend together and suddenly we were at the Florida State Park – Big Lagoon – where we had planned to camp. We drove through and decided it was a good place to stay. We got a site but immediately left for The Florida section of Gulf Shores National Seashore. We drove through Pensacola, across the bridge to Gulf Breeze where the headquarters for the park was located. Photo at beginning of post was taken here.

We got an overview of the park and the suggestion to drive to the Santa Rosa section for our picnic lunch. We crossed the toll bridge to Pensacola Beach and headed further east along some beautiful white sand beaches. The picnic area at Santa Rosa was indeed nice and we enjoyed the last of the DB 50^th meatballs, shrimp, cheese ball, crackers, celery, carrots etc. Nice lunch in a beautiful location.

Oil Spill notice on beautiful beaches

Perfect white sugar sand at Santa Rosa Beach

We then headed to the west end of the island to tour Fort Pickens. This was a very interesting fort as it was first built in early 1800’s – saw action during the Civil War when the Union occupied Fort Pickens and the confederacy occupied Fort Barrancas on the mainland. The fort was updated near the turn of the century and again during World War II. It was an interesting mix of beautiful original brickwork and concrete bunkers similar to those we had seen at Corregidor in the Philippines. The ranger who gave the tour had been there 25 years as historian and had obviously done a lot of research… When Hurricane Ivan came ashore in 2004 the storm surge was 10 feet over the sea wall and flooded most of the fort.

External View of Fort Pickens

Inside Fort Pickens

We headed back toward the campground with a stop at Joe Pattie’s Seafood. This was a fresh fish supermarket! There were numerous types of fresh fish, probably 10 types of shrimp, various types of crab, lobsters, scallops, etc. - anything you would need to prepare them plus lots more. We got 3 pounds of large shrimp for $6.99 and they went in the freezer section of the refrigerator. We also bought snapper and scallops to eat tonight for supper. Jane found this business on the internet and it was indeed a real find.

Joe Patties Seafood

Inside Joe Patties

Back at camp Jane cooked a good seafood dinner. The snapper was particularly good. The moon was nearly full and we decided to walk across the boardwalk to the lagoon. The boardwalk continued for about a mile – crossing marsh and swamp. There was a large pond where the reflections of the trees on the water were beautiful. Photos with my camera just were not possible. As we reached the other side of the island we could see the inland waterway, the bridge back to Perdido Key and the huge condominiums. We were in a different world yet so close.

Campsite at Big Lagoon

It has been interesting that we have had 3G coverage everywhere along the beach. So we have had email on our i-phones but have not able to access the internet with WIFI except at Gulf Shores Park and the internet hot spots we have found.