The last time we visited Tennessee was August 2017, to observe the Great American Solar Eclipse. It was a memorable occasion. The trip was marred by two incidents: a much-delayed departure from Newark to Nashville, and our room reservation being lost for the night before the eclipse.
In the ensuing weeks between deciding to go to Nashville and the actual departure, the Delta variant of COVID has been wreaking havoc with the virus's statistics, with the number of confirmed cases matching those earlier in the pandemic. Without a good handle on why people get tested, one could argue different scenarios. A few days ago we informed Hope that we wouldn't be joining the lunches and meals at the conference. We will end up picking a few events we would attend.
Monday 8/23. Always the last minute packer, I stayed up late last night to pack and tidy up the house, and didn't go to bed until around 3 am, and had to get up around 7 am this morning, so not much sleep there. By and large I functioned fine (typing this at 12:30 am Tuesday).
Uber took more than 15 minutes to show up, and got us to the airport at 9 am. The TSA APP said the wait time wss 45 minutes, but with CLEAR and pre-check it took us 10, mostly due to a slow X-ray line. The airport (both land- and air-sides) didn't feel very crowded, though.
When a minor maintenance issue that was going to be 15 minutes was still unresolved 45 minutes later, I thought today was going to be a repeat of 2017. The plane took off about 1 hour late and arrived 30 minutes behind schedule, so it was fine. The flight was full, all we were offered was a beverage. The "cleaning" missed a napkin between the tray table and the seat back, so one can surmise the tray table was not cleaned after the last flight; not good.
The car we got from Budget is a Toyota Prius. One of my pet peeves is that the controls from one make (sometimes even model) are different from another, which can be problematic in emergency situations. And it is always annoying that the wipers got turned on when the intention was to do a turn signal. The Prius has this little lever which requires special movements to do some gear changes. After having driven it for 2 days (typing Tuesday night) I still don't have that all down. On the plus side, the car is quite quiet (early models were known to be noisy), has good acceleration, and gets over 55 mpg per its trip computer. The small gas tank means it doesn't have a long range - I had to fill up after about 400 miles.
It took me a while to get the hang of this Prius shift knob. A pet peeve of mine is the lack of uniformity of placement of controls among different models. Imagine driving an unfamiliar rental car in the dark of night and you need to downshift in a hurry.
Last time we stayed at TownePlace we got upgraded to a two bedroom suite. This time it was a regular room. Decent enough, and clean, so all good.
We had some time and drove around a bit. Much of the waterscape here is the result of the different projects of the TVA, and we drove by one of the many lakes created by the Authority. Fort Loudoun Lake looks very much like a river on a map, and there are numerous marinas, many of them with covered slips.
For dinner we had takeout from Calhoun's. We ate at another Calhoun location last time, and I described the food as "okay, but not great." I would rate this even lower.
There are four hotels in close proximity with each other (three Marriott brands and an Extended Stay America), I walked around a bit to get my exercise in.
Accommodations: TownePlace Suites Knoxville Cedar Bluff (2 nights).
Tuesday 8/24. Today was spent driving to and from a small city called Murphy in North Caroline. We have known Paul and Genny since the late 1970s when Paul started as a graduate student at Cornell, and we have reconnected in the last fifteen years or so.
The drive down involved going on TN 68 which is narrow and quite winding in many places. I thought it was okay, but the passenger thought there were too many close calls. Traffic was light, perhaps there aren't too many people who need to get from Eastern Tennessee to this part of North Carolina.
We had a lovely visit with Paul and Genny, and spent over two hours chatting at Rib City - which by the way served much better ribs than Calhoun's.
Lunch with Paul and Genny at Rib City, Murphy, NC.
Admiring Paul's riding mower.
Anne strongly suggested we take an alternate route back. Along the way Google Maps announced a major delay because of an accident, so we made a bit of a detour, but still got back in good time.
I made use of the gym and the washer/dryer at the hotel.
Wednesday 8/25. After checking out of TownePlace, a hike along Lakeshore Loop provided a good view of Fort Loudoun Lake.
Lunch was Costco hot dogs eaten at Founder's Park at Campbell Station. The area is called Farragut and is one of the earliest European settlements in Tennessee (known then as Franklin).
After checking in the Hampton Inn, we drove to the Douglas Dam to take a look.
Hike along the bank of Tennessee River, much of which have been dammed up.
Douglas Lake as viewed from Dandridge.
This dam across the French Broad River creates Douglas Lake. The river eventually combines with others to form the Tennessee River.
View from the lookout.
Specifics for the dam. I was under the impression household consumption of energy is at the 4 kW level, which is not quite consistent with the numbers shown here - perhaps from another era?
Dinner was takeout from Cracker Barrel down the road, and I took a walk afterwards.
Accommodations: Hampton Inn Kodak (2 nights).
Thursday 8/26. Our original objective was to drive down to Cherokee, NC. That would require us to drive through the Great Smokey National Park, so we decided to take a side trip to Clingman's Dome, which we last visited in 2017. The walk was busy.
Clingman's Dome. We visited this in August, 2017, just about 4 years ago.
View from the Dome area. One can make out a river in the background.
The path leading up to the Dome is lined with many different flowering plants. I am generally not a plant person, but thought it would be interesting document some of them. This one is favored by many flies and bees.
We saw this large herd of elk in the park. Somehow they all arrange to face the other way.
We weren't aware of this commercial side of Cherokee; the rest hadn't changed much. Our initial plan was to get Bojangle's in a nearby town, but decided to grab a couple of whoppers and be on our way back.
Dollywood is in Pigeon Forge (outskirts). We drove by but it was closed. In any case, Dolly Parton was born in the area, and - from the looks of the town - must have helped it tremendously economically.
Dinner was rushed bite at the Douglas Dam picnic area, food taken out from Don Marco's. The Pina Relleno Fajita reminded me of Pineapple Fried Rice, in this case the cored half pineapple was filled with fajita meats.
Friday 8/27. Hampton Inn serves breakfast from 6 am to 10 am, so we had a leisurely breakfast before checking out at around 10:30 am.
Comparing TownePlace with Hampton Inn, I must say the latter provided a much better experience. Hampton Inn just had a more professional feel to it. COVID times make hotel do interesting things, some to cut costs (and one cannot really blame them), and others because of difficulty in staffing up properly (also a cost issue, in a way). Hampton Inn nevertheless managed to maintain its standard a lot better than TownePlace, even though Marriott is my preferred chain. Breakfast was a good example, TownePlace basically provided muffins and juice, and that was it. And it was from 6:30 am - 8:30 am.
Per Google, the drive from hotel to hotel is 214 miles and take about 3:30 hours. We basically did that, although we did stop by Bojangles in Farrgut and the Center Hill Dam to take a quick look. This dam was an Army Corp of Engineers project, and one could actually drive over the dam.
The Center Hill Dam is across the Caney Fork River.
Franklin is one of earliest cities settled by Europeans in Tennessee. It's about 15 miles south of Nashville, and has a southern feel to it (we are in the south, afterall). As with most of the towns we have visited, people you run into on walks do not reflect the demographics of the state, or the city. Having mostly lived in the Northeast and Southern California, I find that puzzling and unsettling.
We checked into the Harpeth Hotel at a bit after 4 pm. The next 48 hours or so will be to attend this Hope International conference.
The room in the Harpeth has an interesting but somewhat impractical layout.
Reception at the courtyard.
Accommodations. The Harpeth, Franklin, Tennessee (2 nights).
Saturday 8/28. I did manage to take a walk around the city of Franklin. It would have been a great 50 minutes if (i) the weather had not been that hot; and (ii) there were so many cars on the road that I often had to wait to cross a street.
Yesterday we attended the dinner session remotely via Zoom. Today we were comfortable enough to attend the meetings in person.
During dinner, this rather well-known country singer Walker Hayes performed a few songs for us.
The Praise Team with Walker Smith on the left (of photo) and Joe Tang on the right.
Sunday 8/29. The conference concluded with a morning worship. Afterwards, Joe T, Alex, Joanne, Issac had lunch with us at South 55.
After getting our rental car back from the hotel, Anne and I drove to Radnor and walked around a little bit. After checking into Hyatt Place BNA, we drove to the Seven Points Boatramp (per Google Maps timeline) and observed quite a flurry of activities. It was amazing to observe how efficient these boaters were with loading and unloading their trailers. We tried to hit another boat ramp; that was thwarted by the heavy rains that came.
Joe, Alex, Anne and I joined by Isaac and Joan.
One of the sites Isaac recommended.
Radnor Lake State Park.
Accommodations. Hyatt Place Nashville Airport (1 night).
Monday 8/30. It took all of 25 minutes to get to the gate from the hotel, including rental car return and security (CLEAR and precheck). The flight back to Newark was full, but we were upgraded to first class.
We got home via Uber. In trying to book a car, I discovered prices fluctuated quite a bit in a span of about 10 minutes. It went from about $30 to $60, then back to $40. Not sure what to think of it.
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