On the road to Nashville, Tennessee

October 15 2010


None of us was prepared for the beauty of Tennessee, not because of negative expectations, we had none...of any kind. It’s just that no one in our lives has raved about it. I’m going to rave about it, especially Chattanooga.

To get in the mood I’m playing Music by The Highwaymen, namely, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson singing on their album ‘The road goes on forever.’ Sometimes it felt like that on our road trip but not on the I-24 to Tennessee because of the beauty of the rolling green hills and the abundance of trees, most of which were still green when we passed through.

We wanted to stop in Chattanooga because of the song, ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo,’ a song written and recorded in December 1941 a year and a half after I was born. We grew up listening to it. Dad must have had it among his 78s. 

The Chattanooga Choo Choo train is parked at the Station which also is a hotel with the inevitable gift shop and nice looking restaurant that we did not stop at. We’d heard there was a free shuttle to the city and were surprised to find it was an electric powered bus, and that Chattanooga is a centre for research into electric powered transportation. Interesting given it’s train history.

The trip to the city revealed a visitor centre that directed us to a pedestrian bridge across the Tennessee River, one of the many large rivers of America, (1049 kms long). We walked the boardwalk of the bridge (about a mile long) over the river to the North shore. Stunning scenery on a beautiful day, with the foothills of mountains in the background and rocky ridges on the shore line. After a subway sandwich eaten in the sunshine we walked back.

Two of four bridges over Tennessee River

The free shuttle provided entertainment with local school children leaning to name foods and places with a designated letter of the alphabet, a nice finishing off to a lovely 2 hours visit. Since looking up what Chattanooga has to offer the visitor I would say it would be worthy of a few days stay. We however had other fish to fry so we moved on.

Our next stop was a diversion. A friend of Maxine’s lives in Tullahoma, and since she is an ex pat of English origin we looked forward to a robust cup of tea in real cups. Thus far we had been subjected to piss poor offerings in polystyrene cups with wimpy American tea bags that needed a minimum of ten minutes steeping.

While looking at the map Maxine pointed out Soddy Daisy, a town off the beaten track, all on its own. “is it any wonder!’ she said. We laughed as we speculated how it could have got its name. I’ve looked it up, it isn’t half as interesting as the ones we came up with, just a joining up of the two communities Soddy with Daisy. Didn't bother looking up those origins.

We traversed country roads, passing many churches, some of which I’ve never heard, although Baptist features the most followed by Methodist. Ann lives in a rural area, a great house on a few acres. The tea was beyond our expectations, in fact it was too strong, were we becoming acclimatized?

Kathie & Maxine in Ann's Garden Tullahoma

She kindly drove in front to guide us out onto a shorter access onto highway I-24. We made Nashville about an hour later. We were destined to taste our best steak of the trip, at Calhoun’s down the road from the Belle Meade Best Western, our hotel for the next two nights, chosen because it had refrigeration!



Attacking key lime pie, Nashville

 Bonnie our recommended waitress, with the hard face and pleasant manner, served us proficiently. It is so nice coming across people who are good at their jobs! The creamed spinach was to die for, and Maxine got her key lime pie at last. In fact we shared it, being too full of steak, baked potato, bourbon carrots and the aforementioned spinach to attempt a slice each.

We fell into bed having completed 7,308 steps according to Kathie’s pedometer, 700 up on the previous day’s steps in Atlanta. That translates to about 3 and a half miles. What awaits us tomorrow?