Tennessee, August 16-August 21, 2017.

Wed 8/16.  Eric T came by at 1:45 pm to pick us up.  We couldn’t make up our mind whether to take the Premier Access line – which served me well on my last trip – or the TSA PreCheck line.  We finally decided on the latter even though it longer as going through it didn’t require taking off our shoes, separating computers and liquids, and a body scan.  It took just about 10 minutes.

Everything looked okay for the 3:53 pm departure, then the incoming aircraft arrived at the gate.  The service representative said the oil needed to be changed, so it would take a bit longer.  And longer, and longer.  At one point I saw five mechanics standing around the right engine, with its cowling open.  Eventually they said they would have to tow the plane back to the hangar for repairs, and the new time of departure would be 6 pm, although the gate agent said it was unlikely they could be done that soon.  They then found another plane which would come in from Bermuda that would be parked at the next gate, so moving over should be quite easy.  The plane showed up, but a circuit breaker needed to be replaced.  It took them a long time to decide it may take too long to get the part, which meant further delays.  And they found a third plane, which was coming in from Montego Bay, arriving at Terminal B at around 8 pm, and hoped for a 9 pm departure.  A potential problem was going to be the time it would take the plane to clear customs, and to be towed from B to C.  On top of that the original crew would not be able to fly the plane as they would have violated some FAA rules.  Luckily some UA pilot showed up and told the gate agents they were reporting for duty.  Evidently some pilots were on standby for situations like this, which surprised the gate agents a bit.  Eventually they gave up on the Montego Bay plane, and the Bermuda plane was repaired early enough that we managed to take off at around 9 pm (wheels up), and got into Nashville at about 9:45 pm (one hour time difference.)  We each got a $10 voucher out of the ordeal, and supposedly there will be additional compensation.

                           

Some of the messages United Airlines sent to my cell phone during the long delay.  The first one was at 3:39 pm, the last one at 8:34 pm - no one had boarded by then.  Meanwhile there were several changes of mind about which aircraft they would use.

Checking out the Budget Rental Car was easy enough, and the 160 mile drive to Knoxville was uneventful, but there were lots of trucks on the road.  Given I could go at times close to 90 mph, it took about 2:15 hours.  We got upgraded to a 2-bedroom suite, but it was around 1:45 am that we checked in, Knoxville is an hour ahead of Nashville.  It is now around 3 am.

One remark about the room.  We got upgraded to a 2-bedroom suite, not that we could make much use of it because of our very late arrival.

A Two-Bedroom Suite at the TownePlace Knoxville.

Accommodation: TownePlace Knoxville Cedar Bluff (1 night.)

Thu 8/17.  I woke up a around 9:30 am, Anne an hour earlier.  She picked up some breakfast for me in the lobby, which I enjoyed after warming it up in the microwave.

We left the hotel a bit before noon.  The lunch riverboat cruise we wanted to go on had no vacancy per their website.  (When we saw the boat on the river, there didn’t seem to be that many people on it.)  Our first stop was the McClung Museum on the UT Knoxville campus.  The building consists of several large rooms and hold exhibitions of natural history and culture – true to its name.  We briefly saw a few of them.  “Fish Forks” describes how the rich lived during the golden years of 1870-1900 (think Great Gatsby); an exhibit about human evolution; an exhibit on the Battle of Fort Sanders (think Blue and Grey during the civil war); an Egyptian room with the obligatory sarcophagi and mummies (only mummies on display were those of pets); an exhibition on how the Cherokees lived; skeletons of dinosaurs.  Many displays were replicas (e.g., the Rosetta Stone.)

This could be the table setting for the Great Gatsby.  A display at the McClung Museum.

This was followed by lunch at Calhoun’s on the River.  I had the trio of ribs, pulled pork, and fried chicken strips; Anne had the fried catfish.  We had a good view of the Tennessee River which was quite quiet, the food was okay, but not great.  Prices were reasonable: evidently the cost of living in the city is about 90% of the national average.

Our third stop was the Knoxville Museum of Art.  The main exhibit there was American Expressionism.  We couldn’t help but make the connection with the French painters such as Cezanne, Monet, and Manet.  Didn’t see anything the reminds me of van Gogh, though.  While there was no Gaugin, there is this “Singing Mural” that evokes the composition of Gaugin’s “Where Do We Come From.”  I wish the museum curators make such similarities – if any – clearer for the casual viewer.

Our last stop was Ijams Nature Reserve.  We got there at  4:45 pm, shortly before the visitor center closed.  The lady at the desk was a post-doc at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, and suggested a trail for us to see songbirds.  The route was easy enough, and we heard a lot of birds singing, but didn’t see any significant number of birds.  Song bird watching is for the serious pursuer of the craft.

We didn’t see too much wildlife at the Ijams Reserve.  It had been a while since I saw a caterpillar tent.

We stopped by Chick-fil-A for a quite dinner before driving to Gatlinburg.  The drive through line was very long, although counter service was quick.  We had to drive through Pigeon Forge along the way, and I must say both it and Gatlinburg are tourist towns.  I joked that I could stay in each city for a week.

Anne had a class (over Skype) at 8:30 pm, so I went for a walk, bought some snacks, and sat in the hotel lounge for a bit to read.

Accommodation: Courtyard Gatlinburg (1 night.)

Fri 8/18.  Lately my left knee has been giving me some trouble, and last night I also had problems with muscles on my body – I have been moving things around in the basement in preparation to getting it finished.  As a result I had a fitful night of sleep.  Anne was nice enough to let me sleep in until about 9:30 am.  After breakfast/lunch at the store next to the hotel, we proceeded to tour the Great Smoky National Park.  Anne and I did that right after we get married, and my recollection of that trip was frankly quite minimal, other than we heard a rattlesnake making noise.

If one is into quiet beauty, gentle rolling hills, small tumbling brooks, GSNP probably would be a great place to visit.  To me we get to see these elements quite often, and having them in a huge park doesn’t add much for me.  Evidently many people don’t feel that way as this is the most visited park.  Entrance to the park is free, which is a bit surprising, but at the store everyone was asked to round up the purchase to the dollar with the change as a contribution.  I would think going for admissions is a better way to fund the operations.  (Funding may be too big a word, more like helping out.)

In any case, we began with the “Roaring River” loop which took about an hour.  All the parking lots along the route were quite full, so we didn’t get to stop to look at anything.  This was followed by an attempt at the Cades Loop.  Here we decided we would look at a couple of waterfalls and be done with it.  The Loop itself has many historical sights/sites which didn’t hold much interest for me (so this guy was an entrepreneur and made coffins for his neighbors when they died; this couple raised 9 children in a two-room house, these are not limited to Eastern Tennessee.)  Laurel Falls required a walk of 1.3 miles each way, with an elevation change of 300+ feet.  In our physical shape it took us a while to do it.  The Sinks was created by loggers so they could float logs down.  There wasn’t a lot of water flow due to a recent drought, I can imagine lots of logjams if they were to do that.

Great Smoky Mountains Park is known for its quiet beauty, woods, and streams.

Many waterfalls are reached via long hikes.  Laurel Falls is a relative short 1.3 miles from the parking lot.  There were quite a few people around, but we caught a moment by ourselves.

“Proof” that it was indeed a 1.3 mile walk (each way). Anne did see a baby bear on the road while we were driving in the park, otherwise no encounters.

The Sinks was created when logger dug a short cut in a river so logs could float downstream more readily.

Clingman’s Peak is the tallest mountain in the area at 6643’ (per Wikipedia).  One could drive to within half mile of it and walk a paved but steep trail up to the summit, about 350 ft higher.  There is a structure built that would allow a panoramic view of the area – great if one is into rolling hills and pollution obscuring the view somewhat.  Anne and I decided we would do that, although we were ready to give up at several points.

View from Clingman’s Peak.

Near Clingman’s Peak is the Appalachian Trail.  At least we got to step foot on it.

It was during the 1 hour drive to Cherokee (North Carolina) that we realized the town is in the Eastern Cherokee Reservation.  It was a bit run down, but we drove by a nice park, and the town generally felt “brighter” than the ones we encountered out west (Navaho, I believe.)  We had dinner at Paul’s Restaurant, with sign proclaiming Indian ownership.  I had the Angus rib eye steak, Anne the Indian Tacos (instead of ground beef one gets broken hamburgers), the food was only so so.

Accommodation: Rodeway Inn, Cherokee, NC (1 night).

Sat 8/19.  I actually slept well last night, the body ache was mostly gone.  We thought about seeing Mingo Falls suggested by the waitress last night, but decided against it since it involved a walk of 0.4 miles and many steps.  Instead we started on our trip towards Chattanooga at around 10 am, stopping at Bonjangles in Cleveland, TN.  Along the way we passed by the small town of Murphy, where our friends Paul and Genny live, but they were out of town.  A good section of the highway was next to the Tennessee River, with a lot of water rafting activities.

Chattanooga is a town of about 200,000, and its downtown area lines the Tennessee River.  We were impressed with how nice it looked.  Our first stop was a cruise along the river on a riverboat at the Southern Belle Riverboat which took us on a 90 minute ride along the river.  We did learn a few things from the narrator; the “mother ship” was a casino boat from Biloxi, MS; one use of the many barges we see along the river is to transport grain and flour to and from mills; barges are most efficient in fuel usage, but slow; when fully loaded, barges draw 9’ of water; TVA has created seven lakes by building dams, each lake is named after its dam (e.g., Nickajack; also, I read in Wikipedia there are 9 dams); water level is guaranteed to be at least 12 feet; Tennessee River originates in Knoxville, empties into Ohio River which in turn goes to the Mississippi; some townhouses along the river cost over $1M; docks are not allowed if they interfere with navigable waterways.  Interesting facts, not particularly useful.

 Chattanooga Aquarium along the Tennessee River.

These barges are used to carry grains and flour along the river.  A two-hour trip by truck would take two days on a barge.

We then drove to Point Park on Lookout Mountain, a National Park where some important battles were fought during the Civil War.  Not being a history buff, I found the descriptions to be too detailed.  It would be easy to understand why the neighbor (commercial) Rock City would claim one can see seven states from this mountain.  The mountain is at the heel of a 360 degree bend in the river (overall the river changes course 270 degrees), and in the bend (called Moccasin Bend) is a national archaeological site.  Two other interesting places we didn’t visit because of time constraints: Ruby Falls, an underground 150 or so foot waterfall; and Incline Railroad.  Chattanooga certainly turned out to hold more potential than we expected.

View from Lookout Mountain, with the bend in the river partially in view.

After checking into our hotel at Smyrna (about 15 miles south of Nashville), we drove over to Four Corners Recreation Area on Lake Percy Priest.  Nothing spectacular, but quite crowded, with cars and trailer everywhere.  Dinner was a O’Charleys next door to the hotel.

Accommodation: Fairfield Inn Smyrna (1 night).

Sun 8/20.  We woke up early enough that by the time we finished our leisurely breakfast and were ready to go, it was only about 10 am.  I had the plan all worked out last night.  We would first stop by Grand Ole Opry to get tickets for tonight’s show, stop by General Jackson to check out its suitability for eclipse viewing, and then check the parking lot of Quality Inn Opryland for same purpose – they are all located in the same general area.  That would be followed by visits to two locations at the J. Percy Priest Reservoir.  We would then go to Hermitage Plantation to learn about Andrew Jackson.  After dinner at a downtown restaurant (perhaps) we would then go to watch the show.

Great plan.  The first on the to-do list was already a failure.  Both shows tonight (7 pm and 9:30 pm) at the Grand Ole Opry were sold out.  We tried looking into tour packages but decided to give up as our first attempt also ended in failure.  There were a few tickets available on sites such as stubhub selling for $250 a ticket that would cost $60 (I always wonder why anyone would buy a ticket from that website).  It was a reasonably easy walk from Grand Ole Opry to General Jackson via the Opry Mills Mall.  And the air conditioning inside the mall was much appreciated.  We decided that wouldn’t work as a reasonable viewing location.  Third stop was Quality Inn.  We got there around 1 pm.  The front desk told us check in was at 3 pm, which was what we expected.

Even though we were not into country music, we thought the Grand Ole Opry was worth a visit.  Tickets were sold out.  Turns out we wouldn’t have been able to go even if we managed to get some.

Disaster unfolded when I asked her to check our reservation, which was made through Hotels.com, to make sure everything was in order.  She couldn’t find it; of course the hotel was completely sold out.  A phone call to Hotels.com ended up talking to two agents for about 90 minutes.  The second agent (a “relocation specialist”) put me on hold for a long time, came back on line to tell me he would keep trying even after calling 20 different hotels.  I said I needed to get on with the afternoon and he should contact me when he found a place.  He at first wanted me to keep holding, but relented after I told him how ridiculous it is for the customer to waste his time while they try to fix their mistakes.

We decided to salvage part of the afternoon by visiting Hermitage Planation, a place owned by Andrew Jackson before he became a US President, and a place he returned to after retiring from that job.  There were quite a few interesting things about this self-made man whose “father was not in his life” in today’s parlance.  He married Rachel Donelson with the latter still married (thus a bigamist), and this was used by his opponents in their attacks.  Donelson died just before Jackson became president.  His legacy was his fight for the common man, refusal to free his own slaves, and the forced relocation of Native Americans via the Trail of Tears.  Much of the video we saw at the beginning of our visit could apply to Obama or to Trump; the point made was he was who he was, and we must acknowledge the good and the bad.  We walked the grounds a bit, walked inside the cabin of Alfred (slave, but chose to remain after emancipation), but didn’t visit the mansion because of the long waiting line.

A second call to Hotels.com got an equally polite but ineffective agent who – also after much “persuasion” – allowed me to hang up and said he would call me back.  He did offer a place in Charleston TN which I initialed misheard (I am sure the office is overseas) as Charleston SC.  Whether it is 2 ½ hours or 8 ½ hours away would still make it untenable.  That was around 5:30 pm, it is now 11:30 pm, and I haven’t heard back from him.  And my Hotels.com account shows nothing!  To be fair, they sent me an email offering 10% off my next reservation; but that booking won’t count towards rewards, so is practically useless.  He also let slip that there are many cases along the path of eclipse they are working on; so perhaps willful negligence?

We then went to downtown Nashville, and weren’t prepared for the congestion.  I didn’t know what to expect of a country music town, but New Orleans wasn’t it.  It was loud, and there were these multi-person bikes that seemed to be all for drinking.  We walked around a bit and decided to leave.

Panoramic view across the Tennessee River from downtown Nashville.  Nissan Stadium is home to the Titans football team.

Shot along one of the busy streets in the downtown area.

So, where we are at the moment?  At some point this afternoon we got the feeling the Hotels.com wasn’t going to come through, so Anne used Google Maps to look for available hotels in the area.  She found this Scottish Inn in Manchester, about 60 miles away.  The cost is around $70, and feels like a $70 hotel.  But we are glad to have a place to stay the night.

Dinner was at Larson’s Road House nearby.  It reminded me of Texas Road House in New Jersey, complete with platform seating and free peanuts in shells.

Accommodation: Scottish Inn, Manchester, TN (1 night.)

Mon 8/21.  Today is the day!

When I woke up at around 8:30 am this morning, Anne had already taken the car down the road to get breakfast at McDonald’s.  We ended up leaving at around 10 am.  Traffic was a breeze, we slowed down at a couple of spots – meaning going at 60 instead of the posted 70 – and got to the airport in about an hour.  Our original plan was to return the car and go to the top floor of the airport short-term parking garage with our luggage.  When we drove to the roof of the garage to check things out (planning to take advantage of the 20 free minutes), there were already some people there.  We decided to pay the few hours of parking and keep the car to make things easier, and in case we need a place to sit.  Fearing traffic at the conclusion of the eclipse, we parking the car near the garage exit.  Even though it wasn’t necessary, still a good plan.

The eclipse didn’t disappoint.  We had mainly clear skies with a few puffs of clouds.  There was also some haze that gave the photos a slight hazy quality (there is a better word which I can’t think of).  The sun was mostly in plain sight, although a few minutes before the full eclipse a rather patch moved in – you could hear the collective groan from those gathered on the roof top.  It cooperated and went away so we could see the full eclipse, and the “diamond ring” before and afterwards.

 This is the point and shoot Sony Camera we used to take a series of photos of the sun taken during the eclipse.  Except for the full and “diamond ring” photos, we pasted a “solar viewing glass” in front of the lens.  Time is from information supplied by the camera.

 It begins: the eclipse just became visible. Time stamp 11:59 am, official begin time 11:58 am.  One could make out the small dent on the upper right side of the sun.

Well underway at 12:15 pm.

Half way there at 12:50 pm.  Even with half the sun, it was still very bright around us.

Clouds obscured part of the sun at 1:15 pm, twelve minutes before the full eclipse.  Everyone on the roof was wishing them to go away.

The final sliver before full eclipse.  Time stamp is 1:27 pm, so only seconds to go.

The real deal.  During the 2 minutes or so of full eclipse, everything got quite a bit darker, like just after sunset.  I didn’t see any stars or planets, perhaps I was too focused on the blocked sun.

The “diamond ring” as the moon began to move off the sun.  I didn’t know what to expect so couldn’t get a picture just before full eclipse – it would be like a mirror image.

We bought a few gadgets for picture taking: telescopes for cell phones, frame to attach binoculars and cell phone for viewing, cell phone holder to connect to tripod, and a small tripod (we have one, but missing the plate).  Of course we bought these viewing glasses.  They were sold through Amazon, and were the officially approved ones as far as I know (and so I hope).  Turns out all I needed for good photos was my point-and-shoot high-zoom Sony, which I could control with the iPhone App; there is the added advantage of not having to look up at the sun as I tried to aim the camera.  Of course seeing the eclipse “live” was a great experience also.  Knowing where the sun would be at total eclipse helped us locate a good spot to place the camera, and with shade nearby.

I forgot when I found out about this event, but it was in mid-June or so that I made the travel arrangements, so it wasn’t years in advance as some people evidently did.  The next one that would have coast-to-coast coverage is decades away, but one will pass through the Northeast in 2024.

Some describe seeing a total eclipse as a life-changing experience.  That is overselling it a bit.  I am glad we did it, and thankful that weather cooperated.  Even with our two major mishaps so far (late flight and hotel mix-up) I would do it again.  However, it is not quite the same as, say, seeing pictures of the Grand Canyon and actually be at it.  The sun is so far away that seeing it with a telephoto lens is “better” than with the “naked” (more like heavily shielded) eye, and the photos I took are no better than what I can find on the web.

In any case, we returned the car at around 2:30 pm, and went through security.  Anne didn’t get pre-check, so we went to the “premier” line which was quite short.  The inbound aircraft was a bit late, so we left quite late.  The arrival gate and the departure gate (to Boston) were B8 and B11 respectively, so we made it in time.  Anne is in first class (I gave her my upgraded seat) and I have an empty seat next to me, so no complaints.  There was air traffic control problem so we left O’Hare late, and will be arriving Boston at around 11:15 pm.

Joe came by to pick us up.  We will be here until Saturday morning helping out while Summerbridge is going on at their church.

Just for the record, today (August 22) I did get an email from Hotels.com, but asking me to rate Quality Inn which didn’t have me as its guest!