I Wonder as I Wander…

Several wonderful memories came along with our trip to Tennessee. First I mentioned the great food we had on Thursday. I did get my BBQ—first on Friday evening at the Regional Convention and then on Monday afternoon at a Mom and Pop restaurant in Chattanooga.

But first back to Tullahoma and the Convention…It started on Friday evening at Motlow Community College. This is an interesting college because the Motlow family donated the land and lots of the money for the buildings. The Motlow family is the ones who established Jack Daniels Distillery. It’s interesting because the county that Jack Daniels is in is a dry county—so you can’t buy alcohol, but they make it.

Matlow college is between Lynchburg and Tullahoma, and about five miles from everyplace else—it’s a beautiful campus with lots of trees and open space. The campus received about 200 acres—so there is lots of room for growth.

At the convention, there was an art display called ‘a plethora of puzzles’. It was great—students had created wonderful pieces from puzzles. Some used 20-24 different puzzles—one even used 64 different puzzles. The art pieces were layers of puzzles that were four layers. One was all Thomas Kinkade’s pictures of houses, another was Christmas, a couple were of wizards and unicorns, and one was made from puzzles of different places from around the world. They were all framed and beautiful pieces of artwork. I want to get some puzzles and give it a try—I might see if I can find some Thomas Kinkade puzzles.

Saturday, I had the Convention all day. In the morning, one of the guest speakers was Maggie Vaughn, the TN Poet Laureate. She was so great—extremely funny and her poems are so touching. Both Bob and I were laughing so hard, we had tears running down our cheeks! One of the things she said was that she couldn’t remember anything anymore—In fact, she even needs a machine because she doesn’t even remember to breath at night. I’ll have to tell my sister and her husband that, since they both have the C-Pac machines.

Bob had free time on Saturday. First he did the Jack Daniels tour. He said it was very interesting. Although it was cold in TN and some of the tour was outdoors. One thing he described is where they made their own charcoal and how they dripped the whiskey through charcoal to make it taste different. Then he went up to Nashville to the Grand Ole Opry. We are both country music fans—he used to listen to the Opry every Saturday night when he was growing up. So anytime he’s able, he’ll head for the Opry.

We had a great Sunday—we met up with my brother, sister in law, niece and great-niece and wandered around Chattanooga. There’s an area called the bluffs—it’s got a lot of museums, art sculptures, and a walk along the Tennessee River. We ate at a neat brewery and grill. Walked along the river, had ice cream at a Cold Stone. Later, Bob and I went to an IMAX theatre—saw a film on underwater life. It was really cool. We were also able to get popcorn so we could have our traditional Sunday evening supper.

Then on Monday, our flight didn’t leave until 6 pm, so we had some time to explore the area even more. We drove up Lookout Mountain--we had taken the Incline Railroad that goes straight up the side of the mountain several years ago, so didn't do that again, but we did go the Rock City. And I thought it was great--lots of interesting rock formations and cute little fairy tale displays.

We stopped at a little town called Bell Buckle. That’s where Maggie Vaughn the TN Poet Laureate is from. The town is full of little shops and lots of antiques.

Well, we were lucky again—hubby and I each scored a free ticket for giving up our seats on the way home on Monday evening. So now we have four tickets to use for him to travel with me! Yay! We were even put up at a Crowne Plaza Hotel and it was really nice—too bad, we were only there from 10 pm until 7 am the next morning. And we didn’t have any luggage.

Now we're home for a while and then have two weeks of travel in April (Tampa and Seattle) and then vacation in Italy! I can hardly wait!