Stoplights And Shops And Cars And Stuff

Drove home from Chattanooga, TN today. We left the Hotel at 9:00 PM and pulled into the Garage at 6:00 PM. That is a lot more driving than we really like for one day, but it is done and we now have the next 4 days to recover from it before heading back to work. We know better but somehow forget to leave all big towns via the Interstate for about 20 miles before getting onto US or State Highways. Left out of Chattanooga via US 27, then 41 figuring we would be in the mountains sooner, NOPE. Just lots of stoplights and shops and cars and stuff. Oh well, once we got into north Georgia we found some awesome roads. The trip to Elijay vis GA 52 was excellent. The rest was pretty good too, but after 150 miles of it we were ready to be home. Stopped at Amicalola Falls for a peek at the 729′ water fall, cool, but a bit of a hike/walk/climb to get to it. They have a neat lodge in the State Park and we plan a revisit to spend a night and explore more.

Holiday Inn

Maybe back in the day Holiday Inns were a nice place to stay. Nowadays unless you get to stay in a newly constructed motel, they all seem like a place going to seed, not yet there, but drifting that way. Our home away from home these last four days has been the Holiday Inn Choo-Choo Hotel in downtown Chattanooga. They have changed the elegant old train station into the lobby, restaurants and offices of the hotel. They have even turned some of the old railway cars into rooms and dining. A nice concept, recapture the glory days of rail travel in America. Unfortunately today’s tourist is not really interested. The kids get a kick out of climbing on the steam engine and standing in the engineers spot, but only for a minute, then they want to go to the pool or play in the video arcade. The place fits my expectations of an older Holiday Inn and it is sad. The rail cars look like they need a renovation instead of the every other year paint job on the roof. You just know that today’s style corporation will use and use just patching things until it stops making money then discard it. Pardon me boy, was that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?

One Last Touristy Thing

Started out early with the intention to do the Big Three of Chattanooga tourist attractions, Ruby Falls, Rock City and the Incline Railway. Did the Railway first as it is the first one you come to and the first trolley was leaving in 15 minutes. At the top we got off and walked over to Point Park to snap a photo or two of Chattanooga from the top of Lookout Mountain. No dice as the haze was so bad we were lucky to see down to the Tennessee River directly below. After we took the Incline back down we decided we had had enough of the heat, humidity and tourists, so we cancelled the other 2 attractions and headed over to the Hamilton Place Mall to do some air conditioned window shopping and get some lunch. Afterwards we went back to our hotel room and took a two-hour afternoon nap. We awoke refreshed enough to tackle one last touristy thing, am IMAX movie. A 3-D flick about the building of the International Space Station.

Hollywood III

Went to a matinee of “Minority Report” today. I love Sci-Fi films and Donna usually humors me, of course having Tom Cruise in it helped. Unfortunately the graphic eyeball transplant sequence caused me to have to promise to take her one Julia Roberts movie *and* one Sandra Bullock movie before I will get to pick another movie for us to see. All in all it was a very good movie. Interesting concept that was well executed, up until the very end. At the point where the credits should have rolled, it gave us not one, but two answers to questions that we didn’t ask and really didn’t need to know. I guess the film makers or the studio felt we had to have a warm and fuzzy feeling as we left the theater instead of just the satisfaction of a mystery solved.

Tow Truck Museum

Almost didn’t drive the car at all today. Took the free electric shuttle bus to downtown early. We then walked across the pedestrian (and bike) only Walnut Street Bridge to the other side of the Tennessee River and visited some not yet open shops and Coolidge Park with its marvelous carousel (not open yet either.) Walked back across to go inside the Tennessee Aquarium. We visited it way back around the time it opened in 1992 and it was worth the re-visit. They had a special sea horse exhibit downstairs that was worth the price of admission alone. After the Aquarium we had an early lunch of Japanese food at Sekisui right across the street. We were going to catch the matinee showing of Minority Report, but were about an hour early so we ducked into the Tow Truck Museum. Officially called the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum and at 4 bucks a pop for admission, well worth it. The first ever wrecker was made just one block away at the Ernest Holmes Company. After watching the movie we walked the 12 blocks back to our hotel. In the evening we wanted to go see the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts play a game and planned on taking the shuttle back in town and walking home afterwards. But at the last minute decided to drive and maybe take a short nighttime drive afterwards. Stayed for the whole game, which the Lookouts won 4-3, but were so tired afterwards that we just went back to the hotel and crashed.

Erin Andrews

Who does she work for? Braves – Red Sox have been playing a weekend series and I’ve been lucky enough to catch some of the games on TV. TBS has televised Friday and Sunday while Fox did the Saturday game. I vastly prefer the TBS versions even thought they are more Braves-centric over Foz’s usually overdone graphics and announcers. On TBS they used to just read off the scores of other ongoing games, but now for some reason feel the need to break away periodically to a blonde, tan, pearly white toothed Erin Andrews for updates. Each time we break away there is a flashy EA Sports (a game console game maker) logo video animation, Erin introduces of clip of some ball player smacking a home run, she tells us the score, we get the EA Sports thing again and we are back to the Braves game. Does Erin work for TBS or EA Sports? Hard to tell.

Vague Road Signs

Decided to take a drive this morning following a loop devised by the Chattanooga Bicycle Club for a Century. It is billed as a 3-State, 3-Mountain Challenge so it should make for a nice little Miata drive. Once again we had an exciting time of it following someone else’s directions. A combination of my misinterpreting the instructions, Donna misreading the cue sheet, flaky odometer readings and vague road signs made for a “fun” trip. In spite of several u-turns and a couple of backtracks it really was a good trip, filled with windy roads that were little traveled and in spots quite scenic. Glad we are not still riding bikes as much as we used too though, as we might have been tempted to ride it and that definitely would have been a CHALLENGE.