General Jackson

We got up a little earlier than we might normally on our first day off.  Usually we’d sleep in, maybe until 9 or so, but we got up and we were out the door before 8 this morning.  First stop was breakfast.  When we were in Huntsville back in December we went to the Blue Plate Café on a recommendation from someone for breakfast.  We slept in that day and arrived at 10:05.  They had stopped serving breakfast at 10 and they were now serving lunch.  So we ordered lunch as everyone around us was still eating their breakfast.  This time we were more prepared.  After circling the parking lot a few times looking for a spot (always a good sign) we went inside.  Jackie ordered pecan pancakes with a side of cheesy browns (hashbrowns with cheese), and Chris got an omelet with a side of cheesy browns and, what else, a biscuit and gravy.

One of the reasons we got up early was because we had reservations on the General Jackson, which is a riverboat in Nashville, which was about two hours away.  Over the past several years, a guy that Chris works with in Huntsville has continuously recommended this boat, unfortunately the weather either never cooperated or we never had time.  This time we made the time.  Reservations were for a noon sailing, we had to be there at 11:15.  The drive up was fairly uneventful, there was very little traffic until we hit the city, and even then it was moving along well.  Interestingly, the GPS brought us to within a half mile of where we needed to be, but it was the wrong side of the river.  Yeah.  We knew it was taking us to the wrong place because when we had about a half mile to go we were still in a residential area.  We followed the directions to the end and they took us to Cooper Dr. rather than Opryland Dr.  Luckily we were not pressed for time, so we were able to drive up the river to the next bridge, and then back down to where the boat left from.  We boarded the boat and took a seat on the Hurricane deck, which is the top deck where there was a bar and a two man country band entertaining us until lunch.  We were in the second seating for lunch which was at 1:20, so we enjoyed the cruise from our seats while watching the band perform.  We admit it, we got beers before noon.  But Chris’s watch still is set to eastern time so in our mind it was after noon.  We then found out that everyone around us was from a Baptist church on an outing.  So needless to say, we drank alone.   The boat went down the Cumberland River for about an hour and turned around in downtown Nashville.  Right about that time we went inside for lunch.  Lunch was buffet style and it was actually pretty good.  We shared a table with a couple from Arizona and another couple who were local who were there with their parents.  The show was a country music show, Steve Hall and the Shotgun Red show.  One of the performers in the band impersonated numerous country singers and was pretty good.  We docked at about 2:45, snapped a few pictures and got in the car headed for the Jack Daniels distillery, about an hour and a half away.  The last tour was at 4:30 so we had to get going fast.

Last day of work!

Today was Chris's last day of work.  Now the vacation starts.  Today was supposed to be a quiet day at work but Chris scrambled most of the day putting out last minute fires.  He was still able to get out much earlier than usual, at 3 PM.  We went to Papa Gyro's, a place we had never been to before, for a late lunch because we knew we would be eating a late dinner.  The gyros were amazing.  We also ordered hummus, which was just as good.  After that we went geocaching.  We found two caches that had been on our to-do list, one was a travel bug hotel and the other was a pretty cool cache where you went to the coordinates and the owner had set up a radio transmission where he was continuously broadcasting the coordinates for the final location of the cache.  Pretty cool.  We made one last stop for gas.  The beast took $97 worth of $3.59 gas.  Ugggh.

Later on we met our friends Billy and Lynn, along with their two girls and a friend, for a late dinner at the Mellow Mushroom, which is a pizza joint which had PBR on tap for $1.  We split a calzone and an appetizer, and we had a few beers (we stayed away from the PBR).  Tomorrow is a big day.  We have plans to go up to Nashville and we will try to hit the Jack Daniels distillery in the afternoon.


The geocache before we opened it:

And opened:

The radio station broadcasting the geocache coordinates:

You can't go wrong with $1 drafts.

Big Bob Gibson

Another day of work for Chris which is no fun at all, but Jackie had fun today.  Jackie drove Chris to work and explored the area a little bit.  Did some shopping, went to two malls, drove around a bit, and had lunch with our friend Lynn at Cantina Laredo.  After work we drove out to Decatur, AL with our friend Ramon.  We had been wanting to go to Big Bob Gibson's BBQ the last few times we've been here but Chris always seemed to get out of work too late and it is a 20 or so mile drive out there.  Today we made the drive and were not disappointed.  The restaurant is a typical BBQ joint.  Smells amazing outside, wooden booths and dated decor inside with awards and newspaper articles all over the walls.  It was seat yourself style but they did have waitresses.  Jackie ordered BBQ chicken with pulled pork, baked beans and cole slaw with an iced tea.  Chris got ribs with pulled pork, beans and cole slaw also with an iced tea.  We also split a piece of coconut custard pie.  Unfortunately no hush puppies.  We also tried their famous white BBQ sauce.  Good food and very reasonable prices!

Taking a break from the road

So we're here in Huntsville for a few days while Chris works.  We probably won't have any interesting posts for a few days, maybe just a restaurant or two.  Tonight we went to Rosie's Mexican Cantina, which never seems to fail.  Tomorrow is BBQ.  Stay tuned, we will be back in a couple of days.

Unclaimed baggage

We finally decided to head towards our home for the next week, Huntsville.  Two more stops on the way.  We spotted this cool old railroad tunnel on the way there, we stopped to snap a picture (and find a geocache). 

We then made one more stop, in Scottsboro, AL.  Anyone know what Scottsboro is famous for?  That is where all of your lost luggage ends up.  Not the lost luggage that makes it way back to you a few days later, but the lost luggage that you never see again.  The unclaimed baggage center buys in bulk all of the lost luggage from airlines.  They have EVERYTHING in there.  They probably have more sets of headphones than should ever be in one place at one time but they also have some stranger things that we are actually quite shocked ever make it onto a plane in the first place.   Why would anyone bring a board game in their checked luggage?  How about the 53 pound weight?  Aren’t you limited to 50 pounds in your checked bag before they charge you extra?  What about the bikes and PC’s?  Who checks those?  They have wedding dresses (kind of sad), jewelry, every kind of clothing imaginable, MANY iPods, luggage of course, books, and just about anything else you check in your luggage.  There are knives, but there didn’t seem to be any firearms.  We also didn’t see any pet carriers, I guess that is a good thing.

Once we left we saw a pretty cool car just before arriving at our hotel.  Clearly a lot of work went into painting this one:

3 States and 2 timezones at once

After leaving the treehouse we headed south, picking up two new counties (we have a lifelong goal of visiting every county in the USA…we have a little over 1400 of the 3200 counties so far).  We had intended on driving south on US127, which is also home to the world’s largest yard sale for a weekend in August (http://www.127sale.com/).  No yard sale today but while the speed limit was 55 and the drive was rural (no traffic lights) we had a slow person in front of us.  While the road was mostly straight we couldn’t pass.  So about halfway through the 60 or so miles we turned off and got back onto a two lane divided highway.  We were greeted almost right away by the Sequatchie Overlook, which overlooks the Sequatchie Valley, which we just minutes before were driving through.

By this time we were getting hungry.  Since it was now a little after 2 many of the roadfood places in Chattanooga were now closed so we went for fast food.  Not ordinary fast food, but Hardee’s, which is another great thing that they don’t have back home.  Hardee’s is a fast food chain found mostly in the south and Midwest.  They have some great burgers.  It isn’t like regular fast food, but seems to be of higher quality.  Jackie got a Southwestern jalapeno onion patty melt and Chris got a swiss & mushroom burger.  Both were really good.  We also got some Mello-Yello (mountain dew’s evil twin) and a cherry coke.

We then drove out of Chattanooga and then did something that you can only do in 7 other places in the USA.  We stood in 3 states and 2 time zones at the same time. 

We found out about this place because there was a geocache nearby.  It is down a single lane woods road that looks private but is public.  We parked at the end of the road at a cemetery and walked about 400 feet into the woods up a hill to the “3 corners” of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.  Since the Eastern/Central time zone also follows the GA/AL border, we were also in two time zones at once as well.  This was pretty cool.  Chris put his hand in all three states at once. 

The World's Largest Treehouse

This was no ordinary treehouse.  This was a tree-mansion.  The Minister’s House, located in Crossville, TN, took Horace Burgess  14 years to build.  It is built around an 80 foot tree and the treehouse itself is 97 feet tall.  It is supported by 6 other trees that act like natural pillars.  Burgess says he started working on it after he had a vision back in 1993.  God spoke to him and said “If you build me a treehouse, I’ll see you never run out of material”.  So he built.  And built.  He estimates it is between 8000 and 10000 square feet.  He used 258,000 nails to build and he built it mostly out of salvaged wood from local barns, etc.  It is like a maze in there, there are so many rooms, passageways, hidden doors, ladders, stairs, etc.  Chris went all the way to the top and with the wind blowing the way it was, he was sure the thing would topple over.  Up in the bell tower is a bell, which he rang.  Some pictures….