Will H's USA Trip

After a very quiet Friday night in Chattanooga (compared to Nashville at least), I let Trip Advisor recommend a couple of sites to see; Lookout Mountain and the downtown aquarium. Point Park on Lookout Mountain Lookout mountain played a key role in the civil war.  A park ranger explained how the Confederacy had surrounded a Union army in the city of Chattanooga.  They occupied the top of lookout point and hauled a battery of cannons up there in order to blockade the river. The Union eventually established a beachhead out of range of the guns, reinforced and resupplied their army, and pushed the Confederacy off the mountain.  This action opened up the south for Sherman's invasion and the eventual end of the war. The park was small but really nice.  Unfortunately it was fairly rainy that day so the view was little cloudy.  But it did allow for some pretty shots either way. Tennessee Aquarium The aquarium is actually split into two bu...

Day 18 - Nashville, TN to Chattanooga, TN - 133 miles 1099 cumulative miles My AirBnb reservation in Nashville came to a close so I headed over to Chattanooga for the weekend.  On the way I took a pit stop in Lynchburg, TN to visit the Jack Daniels whiskey distillery.  It was initially founded in 1875 (or 1866, depending on what you read).  Learned a few interesting bits of trivia.  The water they use comes from an underground spring which pools behind the statue above.  Walking up to it you can feel the air temperature drop as you approach as it's a cold water spring. Also, Jack Daniels the man was tiny, like barely 5ft tall.  In this photo he's the guy with the white hat and long mustache.  He's the only one standing in this photo; everyone else is seated. During my previous two weeks in Tennessee I hadn't run into a lot of folks with really thick accents.  Today I did.  The guide appear to be a local with a crazy thic...

I had the opportunity to attend my first NHL game this evening, courtesy of Andy Creighton.  The Nashville Predators hosted the Chicago Blackhawks at Bridgestone arena for game four of the first round of the playoffs.  Going into the game Nashville was up in the best of seven series 3-0 and had a chance to close out the first round with a sweep of one of their top rivals.  The arena is located in the middle of downtown on Broadway right up the street from all the bars so there's a big crowd well before the game starts. For game three, Carrie Underwood sang the national anthem.  For this game, we had Luke Byran The tickets were about a dozen rows behind the board about midway between the midline and one of the goals. Nashville has been playing out of their minds in the post season and continued to do so this evening.  After a scoreless first period, Nashville went on to score four times through out the second and third periods while giving up o...

Spent the afternoon visiting two parks east of Nashville: Burgess Falls and Edgar Evins State Parks. Burgess fall used to be a hydropower facility early in the 20th century before it was made obsolete by the larger Tennessee Valley Authority projects.  Now it's a park with a series of walking and hiking trails and three progressively larger waterfalls.  The first couple are right past the parking lot. The other falls follow a series of trails The second set of falls Come at me, bro The main event Down the river valley view from the falls observation deck On the way back I stopped by Edgar Evins Lake Saw my first chipmunk of the trip A few more trails and a look at the Center Hill dam and I headed back to town for the hockey game.

Not a big day for sightseeing so just a quick update.  I did some necessary chores in the morning and some shopping for an event for Thursday evening and both took longer than expected.  I decided to go back to Vanderbilt and explore the campus a little more thoroughly than last time.  I have to admit parts of it are prettier than UF as most of the buildings have a classic look rather than the blocky functionality most of the Florida buildings display.  They must have a hell of a medical program as every other building seemed to be dedicated to the field.  That said, they do seem to use their rec soccer field as a boat storage lot...odd. Belcourt Taps is a small bar just across the street from the campus.  It reminded me a little of the Swamp on University Avenue (Gainesville, FL), but a more like a snack sized version.  I stopped in for the tail end of happy hour and stayed through the first of three live acts that were playing there that e...

Visited both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry Tuesday afternoon.  Spent nearly three hours touring the hall located in downtown.  It does a good job exploring the roots of country music, its transition through the age of radio and then television, and has some interesting temporary exhibits as well.  Being a relative new comer, as I didn't start listening to it until the last 1990's, I really wasn't familiar with most of the early folks or some of the significant events.  I didn't know anything about the impact Bob Dylan's visit to Nashville and his work with Johnny Cash in the 60's. The museum has an entire exhibit dedicated to it.   Gotta get one of those red jackets   Webb Pierce, one of those folks I wasn't familiar with ordered this bizarre custom 1962 Cadillac   Hells yeah After the museum I headed north of town to visit the Grand Ole Opry.  Grand Ole Opry is a live two and half hour rad...