We always go for the things that are the most-est, the tallest, the biggest, so we naturally had to go see the highest waterfall east of the Rockies. Here, in a wonderful gorge in the Tennessee mountains, we got to marvel at this site.
The Hunter Art Museum in Chattanooga has an old and a new side. The old side was a mansion owned by a very clever man who went to Atlanta and talked the founder of Coca-Cola into selling the bottling rights to Coke, for which he paid the grand sum of $1. The inventor thought he’d made an easy buck, because how the heck was that guy going to put tiny little bubbles in a bottle? Well, the rest is history, with a mansion to prove that it all worked out just fine. Continue reading
Remember yesterday in Lynchburg? Well, we started our day up the road a piece in Cascade Hollow, where one finds the George Dickel distillery. After all, if one distillery tour is good, two must be fabulous, says Don. Now George Dickel’s Tennessee Sipping Whisky (sic) may not be as well-known as Jack Daniel’s, and they may not merchandise themselves quite so cleverly. However, they do strongly feel that “if you only know Jack, you don’t know Dickel.” They share this sentiment in the men’s room, and on t-shirts. Yes, we now have one, along with some of their premium whisky, so I guess they’re doing something right. Continue reading
The Battle of Shiloh. A bloody fight that cost over 23,000 lives in two days of intense struggle that were extremely important as the war moved on from that April, 1862, encounter. The first day, the Confederate Army was convinced they had a total victory, and could protect their important rail lines at nearby Corinth, where we stayed last night. But the second day, Union reinforcements allowed U.S. Grant to turn defeat into a Union victory, though at a terrible cost of lives on both sides. In fact, the South lost its best general there, General Albert Sidney Johnston. Continue reading
Things like this are happening a lot. Just after leaving Muscle Shoals, we see that a documentary is being released today about the famous music studio and the area.
The New York Times is not so fond of it (http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/movies/muscle-shoals-directed-by-greg-camalier.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0) but Entertainment Weekly loved it.
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/09/26/muscle-shoals-aretha-franklin-video/
Spooky….
Today had a definite theme. We started out in the middle of the woods somewhere in Tennessee at the Coon Dog Cemetery. Yes, we were privileged to see the one and only place in the world where coon dogs are properly honored. This was a touching site, and we had it all to ourselves. Continue reading
Lots of stimulation today in Alabama! Let’s start with the birthplace of Jesse Owens, the fastest man alive for many years, and the guy who really upset Hitler at the 1936 Olympics. He started out as a sickly child in Oakville, Alabama, the 10th child of a sharecropper family. He never actually used walking as an early form of locomotion. After recovering from a childhood illness, he just got out of bed one day and started running up and down the rows of cotton. And he never stopped running. Continue reading
That Don is amazing – planning our adventures and our path with such creativity. We began our day in Scottsboro, Alabama. Home to the sad story of the Scottsboro Boys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottsboro_Boys), this is a sad little town.
We were in the foothills of the Appalachians the other day, and had the thrill of seeing the start of the Appalachian trail. Now wouldn’t that be a trip – walking from Georgia to Maine? I would do it, of course, except for the lack of hair dryers along the trail. (Please don’t write and tell me they have hair dryers conveniently located at each rest stop. Leave me my fantasies.)
At the same time, we saw the Amicalola Falls, supposedly higher than Niagara, but much much narrower. A small bridge goes right across it and it’s gorgeous! (Not Snoqualmie either, but a beautiful setting.)
Not all art exhibits come in fancy buildings. Yesterday we toured the home grounds of primitive artist Howard Finster, known as Paradise Gardens. Continue reading