So Much To See in Tennessee!

It was a three and a half hour, one hundred eighty three mile drive from Nashville to Knoxville, TN. Our campground had a rating of 2.5 out of five and when we got there we surprisingly had a campsite right on a lake. It was a great start to our visit. Low expectations, high reward. It was in the high to mid seventies everyday and don't get us wrong, the campsite sucked, but, we had a great spot.

The town exceeded our expectations. The first day in Knoxville we went to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Brad's a huge longtime UCONN Lady Huskies fan so he was looking forward to it and Kathy bought in to the visit, strictly, on his energy.

In spite of the outside size, the awesome architecture of the building, and, the great downtown location, the museum was pretty poorly attended. No biggy, we still had a good old time. Yes, both of us did!

First thing they do is go through the history of Women's B-ball which was semi interesting. Then you go into the ladies locker room. Not literally! A facade of one where you get to pick a video halftime pep talk from either Geno Aureima or Pat Summitt. We chose Geno. That was cool! We shot some hoops then, we made it to the Hall of Honor where the Lady Huskies were predominantly featured.

After, we did a drive-thru, at the University of Tennessee. Then, we made it over to Market Square for a beer and dinner. Market Square is the center of downtown Knoxville. It has open air shopping, is a gathering place, a historical district dating back to the 1850's, with numerous restaurants and bars. Where we parked, there was a small urban park a block away from Market Square. It was worth mentioning (pics below). Since it was 77 degrees that day we hit a rooftop bar for a beer at Preservation Pub then went to Tupelo Honey for a tasty southern meal outside on their patio. Brad had collered greens for the first time and fell in love with them. Yum! Yum! We wound up heading back here two separate times again during our visit. It was that cool.

We did an outstanding bike ride that started at Sequoyah Park in Knoxville. The pictures don't do this bike ride justice. We were too busy going ooh-ahhh-look-at-that... than we were at taking pictures. The bike trail took you through the neighborhood that had magnificent homes and properties that we road by wonderful house after wonderful house. It was truly splendid.

We also had a couple more good meals in Knoxville. One was at a BBQ joint just a mile or so from our RV Park called Smoke on the Water. It was worth mentioning cause the BBQ was excellent and the name of the joint was just too cool not to.

We did a downtown self guided audio tour called the Downtown Music Walking Tour. It started raining after 40 minutes of our walk so the last 20 minutes turned into a driving tour instead. The audio supported 10-12 different stops laying down the musical history of the city. The most compelling piece was the Andrew Johnson hotel that Hank Williams stayed the day before he was found dead. The story is he hired a college student to take him to his next gig. He was wheeled out of the hotel, dead or alive, after receiving a couple shots of VitaminB12 and morphine after a night of drinking. They really wanted him to make his next gig. He never did! Hank Williams was dead the next day and never performed again. The third pic is the aforementioned hotel.

Only a two hour hop-step-and-a-jump from Knoxville to our next stop in Chattanooga ...Choo-Choo. Very cool town! Between Ruby Falls, Rock City, the Incline Railway, Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee Riverwalk it was a wonderful three days. Even better than Knoxville...In hindsight we should have stayed here five days and Knoxville three.

Our first visit in Chattanooga was to Ruby Falls. It's is a ninety foot waterfall 260 feet deep underground. You start the hike to the Falls by taking an elevator down into the cavern where we met our tour guide and about thirty other cave dwellers. The walk to the Falls featured stalagmites, stalactites, and a bunch of sites our tour guide pointed out with cute and sappy names. The slide show below will give you a good idea of what we're talking about. The one pic where Kathy is pointing up to the beehive is actually a stone beehive actually at head hight. Don't be fooled. The pic marked Lookout Lane is the actual opening the discovery team crawled through before the cavern was further excavated to be able to be walked through.

The piece-de-resistance of the cavern walk to Ruby Falls is Ruby Falls. The immediate entrance to the Falls was orchestrated with lights and music. We'll share the climax of our visit in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KNnhwNz6-k

From all the limestone they took out of the cavern they built this castle/lookout/souvenir shoppe/ticket booth/bathrooms, below.

Since we started touring Tennessee starting in Memphis and Nashville we did get quite a bit of Rock n' Roll in during our visits. Rock City Gardens in Chattanooga had a lot of rock but hold the roll. It's a ninety year old sprawling garden with trails, caves, caverns and amazing rock formations. It was owned by a couple who decided they wanted to share their "backyard" with others. It was pretty magical.

We had to decide to either take the swing-along-bridge or the other way to Lovers Leap and the view of the seven states. For us, it was a no-brainer. Come-on...swing-a-long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb6XDr6N6oo

It was compelling to have a view of seven states from one viewpoint. There was a map available so you could locate all seven states and each one was represented by it's own flag. It was a clear day so you could see forever.

The last part of Rock City Garden had some unique rock formations and Lovers Leap. The story behind Lovers Leap is that two Indians from separate tribes fell in love but were not permitted to see one another once their tribes found out about their love affair. They threw the male off of Lovers Leap for violating tribal tradition. The female lover couldn't live without him and then threw herself over the mountain to her own death. Romantic aye? Below is a pic of Lovers Leap which then brought us to the Fat Man's Squeeze.

The originators of Rock City Gardens had a fasination with old-time fables. Built into the rocks they made one of the caverns on the property a dream come true. All of these rhymes and fables come to life in numerous displays throughout the underground paradise for kids.

Hope we didn't share too many pics but now you should get why we said Rock City Gardens...Rocked! From there we went to Lookout Mountain and Point Park which was where a tide-turning battle in the Civil War took place. The accompanying museum along with a self-guided audio tour of the battle field was informative, educational and nostalgic. After, we took a drive back up the mountain on the Incline Railway.

The last picture above is the top of the state in the middle of the battlefield showing northern and southern soldiers together. Both holding the American flag. Significant! The Tennessee Riverwalk was one of the more diversified in our bike travels. We started riverside then headed downtown. In between we ran into some awesome landmarks. The entire ride was bike friendly and offered wholesome views. From abandoned warehouses to downtown statues to some splendid bridges to the Art Museum it was truly a cornucopia of Chattanooga splendor. Good times!

There really is a Chattanooga Choo-Choo but we didn't do it. Too cliche and you can see we didn't waste our time in the three days we had there. We put Tennessee in a top ten of all thirty-seven states we've visited. Between Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga we didn't think that going in but comfortably put it in the top ten.

Thanks for reading down this far. We hope we didn't include too many pictures? Thanks for following our journey. Next stops are Birmingham,Alabama and Atlanta,Georgia before heading home. Peace, Love and SoulTrain. Kathy and Brad