Tom's Wall

We enjoyed a great night's sleep last night, probably due to passing into the Central Time Zone, and picking up an hour that we didn't know what to do with! This morning we decided to catch a few more things in the area, and the first was the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. This is devoted to those native Alabamans that have "made it" in the music industry, and also honors the producers and studios that make the music possible.

The two-track recording equipment is pretty primitive by today's standards!

SUN Records is arguably one of the most famous labels in the music industry.

Considered to be the first Rock and Roll album, "Rocket 88" by the Kings of Rhythm Band in 1951 is a genuine classic. BB King asked the band to come to Memphis for a recording session. Having only one car, they tied their equipment to the roof, where the amplifier promptly fell off, bursting it's speaker cone. Not being able to have it repaired in time for the session, they stuffed newspaper in the amplifier and went to work. With the guitar laying down a distorted, fuzzy boogie rhythm, a spectacular saxophone solo, and over-the-top piano playing, the song sounded like no other ever recorded and became a number one hit on the R and B charts in June, 1951. Accidents will happen!

The group Wee Willie had a logo that we liked. Formed in Memphis in the '60's, Wet Willie was a proponent of Southern Rock. One of their hits was "Grits ain't Groceries".

Jimmy Buffet was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, but grew up in nearby Mobile, Alabama, so he's considered a "local boy"! This is his favorite jumpsuit, given to him by Red Adair, of oil well fire control fame.

Hank Williams is represented by one of his stage suits.

One of EmmyLou Harris' dresses:

And Alabama's tour bus:

Needing to have some lunch and regain a bit of perspective, we headed to downtown Tuscumbia for a look at the birthplace of one of the town's most famous residents, Helen Keller.

At this point, it was early afternoon, so we looked for something else to do. We're glad we did.

Few people have heard of Tom's Wall, but it is a memorial to a young Yuchi girl who was part of the Removal Act of the 1830's that moved Native Americans from the southeast to Oklahoma.  This teenage girl lived near the Singing (Tennessee) River. This young girl, along with her sister, were discovered by Army personnel and forced to walk to Oklahoma. She listened for singing waters in her new surroundings and found none. Convinced she would die if she stayed, she escaped and spent five years walking back to Alabama. The journey was extremely difficult, however she returned to her singing river.

In the 1980's, Tom Hendrix, her great great grandson, visited the Yuchi people and had her journals translated, and after hearing her stories decided to build a memorial to her. Over 35 years later, we had the pleasure to meet Tom Hendrix.

Now 87, Tom remembers the first stone he set in his awesome wall. When he started building the meandering wall on his property just off the Natchez Trace Parkway, he weighed his empty pickup down at the cotton gin, then went to the Singing River and loaded up a level load of stones. Re-weighing the truck he noted that he had 900 pounds of stones. He kept track of the trips over the years, and calculates that there is 8.5 million pounds of stone in the wall!

Millions of stones, each handled three times by Tom (at the river, when he unloaded the truck, and then again when he placed the stone on the wall) form the largest un-mortared rock wall in the United States and the largest memorial to a Native American woman. Each stone represents a single step of this girl's epic journey and is an emotional, inspiring tribute to one man's dedication to his ancestors.

Tom says he has worn out three pickups, twenty-two wheelbarrows, 2,700 pairs of gloves, three dogs, and himself!

The Wall of Grandmothers is formed from water-worn stones gathered from the area and contributed by Native Americans still living in Oklahoma. It represents the tremendous wisdom held by our Grandmothers.

Tom has created reflective nooks in his memorial, a place to contemplate on wisdom, dedication, gratitude, and heartbreak.

After lifting almost 27 million pounds of stones over 35 years, Tom can bask in the knowledge that his creation will last hundreds of years. He has his great-great-grandmothers journals, her government identification from the Trail of Tears, and so can prove his ancestors journey.

Donna purchased his story in book form when she heard that all profits go to benefit Yuchi children in Oklahoma and help them maintain a connection with their heritage.

Thank you, Tom, for sharing with us.

Muscle Shoals, Alabama

We left Chattanooga (or Chat City, Nooga, or even Gig City, since it was the first city in the nation to guarantee citizens with an internet connection of a minimum of one gig. ATT didn't like that...) at about 10 eastern time this morning, heading west on I-24. A few miles west, we dipped into Georgia, then back into Tennessee. Finding US 72 going into Alabama, we turned south for awhile, then west again through Huntsville.

The northern part of Alabama surprised us with it's thousands of acres of farmland. Mostly in soybeans, the fields are a lush sight.

Through Decatur, still on US 72, we drove into Tuscumbia, Alabama, 172 miles from Chat City, and found our rv park just a quarter of a mile off the road. We're staying in Heritage Acres RV Park, a nice, quiet park with plenty of room between sites. The interior roads and sites are gravel, what we used to call in construction 2" minus, meaning that the large stones are 2" in size, and go down to dust. Seems to be clean and not dusty, so all is well. The utilities are satisfactory, and we have a nice spot with a grass "patio" for Sasha to play on.

All this is fine, but why Muscle Shoals?

For one thing, the town is on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, with two 18-hole championship courses, "The Fighting Joe" and "The Schoolmaster".

But we're here for other reasons.

Established in 1959, FAME Recording Studio ia a world-famous for creating the Muscle Shoals Sound, and has been involved in the production of records that have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Otis Redding, The Osmonds, Jerry Reed, Alabama, Mac Davis, the Gatlin Brothers, and Bobby Gentry have all recorded here. FAME publishing has had songs cut by Tina Turner, the Beatles, Elton John, and others. It is a world famous

Muscle Shoals classic songs include "When A Man Loves A Woman", "Mustang Sally", and "Hey Jude". The Studio continues to be extremely active, and still provides a venue for topnotch recording, although today most of the activity comes from the production side, with many FAME songs being cut by famous artists. We had to visit.

Unfortunately, tours were not available due to studio commitments.

We also wanted to visit the Birthplace of W.C. Handy, the "Father of the Blues". Born November 16, 1873 in this two room cabin, William Christopher Handy grew up with a deep appreciation for religious hymns as sung in Black Churchs. Together with his extraordinary natural talents, W.C. grew from humble beginnings to an international star. He's the author of "Beale Street Blues", "Memphis Blues", and "St Louis Blues", along with 37 other tunes. We had to visit.

Unfortunately, the home and museum is closed on Mondays, so we couldn't go inside.

Having struck out two times, we pressed on to our third attraction of the afternoon, the Frank Lloyd Wright Rosenbaum House Museum. This house was built in 1939 and is the only Wright use in the southeast open to the public.It embodies Wrights Usonian design (named for the United States of America) and was offered as a low-cost home for middle income families. With Wright's plan, a young couple could build their own home, and easily add to it as the family expanded, which is exactly what the Rosenbaums family did. Starting with 1,540 square feet, Wright was commissioned to add 1,084 square feet to the home in 1948.

This is classic Frank Lloyd Wright design, with lots of glass, simple, straight lines, and large cantilevered rooflines. Quite a difference from W.C. Handy's home, eh?

And, no, we were too late for the last of today's tours...Beginning to see a pattern here.

So how do we raise our spirits? Why, eat some Chicken, of course!

We stopped at Champy's, one of the local hangouts for Blues and Bird. The chicken was superb, and the decor was ......campy.

Ok, so Muscle Shoals is a quirky kinda place! The town was named for the shallows (shoals) in the Tennessee River that flows through town. The channels between the shoals are fast moving, requiring a lot of "muscle" to paddle through!

A lot of musical history has been made here, and we just had to check it out. Tomorrow's another day!

Chattanooga Musings

After the good news on Friday regarding Nessies successful "fix", we had to come back down to earth on Saturday. Having decided to make it a chore/errand day, we started with Nessie maintenance. The sky was clear at 6:30 am, and the sun had not yet risen over Missionary Ridge, so I decided to wash the east side of the motorhome. That job finished, I realized that the west side was still in shade, so off we went again. All the while, Donna is cleaning, vacuuming, dusting and polishing the interior. Wow, what a morning! After a quick lunch we gathered our laundry and went up the street to the Brainerd Street Coin Laundry, where we found three oversize washers and a couple of oversize dryers. In a part of town we wouldn't choose to be in after dark, we nevertheless successfully completed yet another chore and scurried home.

We decided that we deserved a break in the evening, so we cleaned up and headed downtown. Now, downtown Chattanooga is about 4 miles away, so it shouldn't take very long, right? Well, our car GPS insisted on using the most circuitous route possible to arrive at a destination. Sometimes that's cool, since we get to see things that "normal" people wouldn't have an opportunity to see....you know....derelict buildings, abandoned storefronts, railroad switching yards.....

Eventually we made it to our destination: CheeBurger CheeBurger. Yes, that's spelled correctly. Here you see some of Chattanooga's finest picking up dinner!

CheeBurger CheeBurger is a build-your-cheeseburger place, Starting with a 5 oz "Beginner" patty and optioning up to the "Pounder", a full pound burger (after cooking), one can add a huge variety of goodies. Seven different kinds of cheese, twenty nine different toppings, including lettuce, tomato and A1 sauce all the way to Honey Mustard, Pepperoni, Jalapeño Peppers and Peanut Butter! Donna opted for bacon on her's and some other stuff that I don't remember!

I did the A1, lettuce, Jalapeno's, black olives and peanut butter on mine. Oh, yeah, we started with a "Serious" burger, which was a full 1/2 pound of meat!

Throw the whole mess on a Kaiser Roll and you have a handful of dinner! We passed on one of the 77 different flavors of malt or shake, but divided an order of "loaded" fries. Chili-cheese fries just like when we were teenagers!

Needing to walk off a few pounds, we traipsed around downtown and the revitalized riverfront area. We came across a glass climbing wall on the side of a parking garage that was pretty neat.

A free outdoor concert was going on down by the river, so we joined a thousand or so of our new friends and watched and listened. It was great! A band was playing and singing Rock-a-Billy tunes, kids were playing football down by the water, and sliding down a grassy hill on cardboard mats. Kayaks and boats cruised by or tied up to listen for a while. In the background, a great sunset played a silent accompaniment to the music.

Walking back to the car (parking is free after 6 pm and on Sunday), we came across a plaque commemorating the starting point of the Trail of Tears.

And back to Nessie for a bit of dessert (!) and a long night's sleep!

Today, Sunday, was a special day. We had heard about the Chattanooga Market the day we first rolled into town, and vowed to visit. The Market is only held on Sundays, and is a Producers Market, meaning that everything sold here must be made or grown by the seller. We saw natural soaps, wooden spoons, paintings and jewelry. Of course, there was a huge farm section with some super buys on sweet corn, heirloom tomatoes, squash, and okra (!). The Market is held in and around the Tennessee First Pavilion adjacent to Finley Stadium, which is the football home of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, the "Mocs".

It wasn't so awfully cool inside the pavilion, but at least we were out of the sun.

The produce area had a number of interesting vegetables.

And purple string beans?

We shopped for a few gifts and a whole bunch of produce! The vegetables were the best we've had all summer, no doubt. Flat Top Farms was down from Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, with a huge display of picked this morning corn, squash, and tomatoes, I wondered how they could pick all this stuff, box it, and drive 55 miles to get to the Market by 10 am. Them we talked to the owners of the farm (by the way, the farm has been in the family for 102 years!), and found that they, and their employees, start working at 3 in the morning on Market days! BTW, the corn was delicious! Just outside the pavilion, we stopped to buy a couple of heirloom tomatoes that weighted 2 1/4 pounds apiece! Then a stop at the booth of Myers Farm for a package of NY Strip steaks. Grass fed and finished with grain, these steaks grilled up wonderfully! I wish they shipped!

We checked our Chattanooga list, and found that there was one thing that we had not seen:
The Chattanooga Choo-Choo!

On March 5, 1880, a train left Cincinnati, bound for Chattanooga. It was nicknamed the Choo-Choo and opened a new era of public transportation between North and South.

Now part of a hotel complex, the Choo-Choo is the focus of a venue where guests can stay in refurbished railroad cars, and dine in a refurbished railroad depot.

While the complex has fallen on hard times, and needs a serious renewal, it did provide a photo op!

There was a great video playing that detailed Glenn Miller's Big Band rendition of that famous song "The Chattanooga Choo-Choo".

So...Cowboy Roy was out on the range and noticed that he really needed some new boots. As soon as he could, he rode his horse into town and treated himself to the most spectacular, fantastic, colorful pair of boots that he could find. After buying his buddies a round of drinks at the saloon, Roy took off back to the ranch, but on the way his horse spooked and threw him off, right into a huge patch of sagebrush. Well, Roy was a bit dazed, and lay there for a while. His horse, however, saw the problem: a Mountain Lion! As Roy was laying there twitching and shaking in the bushes, the big cat became fascinated with Roy's colorful shoes. The closer the cat got, the more it was taken by those shoes, and soon snatched the boots off of Roy's feet and ran away, chewing and chomping on the nice new leather! After a bit, Roy wakes up and notices his boots are gone. Mad as a hornet, Roy sees the cat tracks and vows to get his shoes back. He tenderly gathers his horse up and rides back to town to get his old boots and to tell the boys what happened. They yipped and hollered and had a good time with Roy's misfortune, which made him all the more angry. Leaping on his horse, he finds a trap and gallops off to find the cat and his shoes.

After days of tracking, Roy locates the Mountain Lion's lair. He knows this by the small scrap of blue leather near the entrance that says "Justin Boots" on it. Laying in wait, Roy is able to trap the big cat and rig a sled to take it back to town. As he rides into town, very proud of his conquest, the boys pour out of the saloon.

One of the boys begins to hum Glenn Millers famous Chattanooga Choo-Choo tune, and then asks:

(to the tune of Chattanooga Choo-Choo)

"Pardon me, Roy,.....but is that the cat that chewed your new shoes?"

Well, I guess you had to be there....

On the way back to Nessie, we saw another branch of a good friends business ventures. Seems our buddy has expanded into new territory!

Sasha was waiting anxiously for our return! She has adopted the employee break area as her personal dog park! One of the employees brings a beautiful Golden Lab to work, and since the area is fenced, the Lab stays outside in a prefab doghouse. The Lab left a large plastic bone when it last left, and, of course, Sasha adopted that as well! We've been here so long that we don't use a leash on Sasha anymore; she knows the layout pretty well. Unfortunately, since she discovered a new toy, she doesn't have time for anything else! Out the door of the motorhome....straight to the "dog park" gate!

She loves to play fetch!

Wait for it.....wait for it....Yeah!

Thursday was a "tread water day". The part necessary to repair Nessie's bedroom slide had been ordered and delivered overnight, but the rv repair shop at Lee-Smith was backlogged with emergency work. We took the opportunity to visit a couple of interesting spots around Chattanooga.

Our first stop was Lookout Mountain. Today, most of the mountain southwest of Chattanooga is developed in residential housing, but Point Park has been left in memory of the Battle for Chattanooga that took place during the Civil War.

This mountain is aptly named, because it commands a spectacular view of the city of Chattanooga.

Moccasin Bend is named in memory of the thousands of Cherokee and Choctaw Indians that traversed the Tennessee River at this point.

During the ill-fated siege of Chattanooga by the Confederate army, this point was the location for a number of Parrott guns and cannon because of the tremendous height advantage. Donna needed to stand in the shade, and Sasha was panting during our short, "feels like 106 degrees" walk.

The limestone rocks provided much protection for the defenders of the mountain-top. Unfortunately, the Confederates were outmaneuvered and had to retreat.

Coming down off the mountain, we took a short detour into downtown Chattanooga to look at the Walnut Street Bridge. This historic bridge was the first connection between downtown Chattanooga with the North Shore, that is, the opposite side of the Tennessee River, and in fact, was the first non-military highway bridge across the Tennessee River. The bridge is an old and long example of the "Camelback" design, and was built in 1890 at 2,376 feet long. The Walnut Street Bridge also has the dubious distinction of being the place were two black men were lynched. Both were accused of attacking a white woman; one was hanged in 1893 and the other in 1906. Today it has been refurbished and renovated as a pedestrian walkway.

With the heat index so high, and knowing that Sasha (and D and I as well) wouldn't do well walking a mile or so, we passed on the bridge stroll and headed back to "camp".

As you can see, our site is backed by an area of grass, something Sasha is very fond of. The area is patrolled by private security during the evening and is well lit at night.

Today, Friday, we were called at about 9 to tell us that a spot had opened up for our repair, and that we should come to the shop asap. Fortunately, we were ready, and got to the shop in about 10 minutes. After discussing the extent of the repair, Donna, Sasha, and I were turned loose on Chattanooga!

Our first stop was the Chattanooga National Cemetery, where we noted a monument honoring the men who participated in Andrews Raid. I'm sure you can guess the connection to a famous song.

On April 12, 1862, a Kentuckian named  John J. Andrews and a group of twenty Union troops from Ohio infantries, made their way to Big Shanty, Georgia, and stole the locomotive called General. Making their way toward Chattanooga, they tore up rails, burned bridges, and cut telegraph lines. Relentless pursuit, bad weather and poor luck resulted in their capture by Confederate forces. After being tried, Andrews and seven others were tried and hanged as spies. Others escaped, and yet others were exchanged. Nineteen of the soldiers received the medal of honor.

Over 4,000 graves of unknown Civil War dead are gathered around the Andrews Monument.

The National Cemetery stretches as far as the eye can see and contains graves of veterans and their spouses from the Civil War to today.

The cemetery was originally laid out in an unusual design which compliments the natural contours of the site.

At the cemeteries highest point, our flag flies at half-staff.

Continuing our exploration of Chattanooga, we went a bit north on I-75 to the Volkswagen Passat assembly plant. One of the largest such plants in the south, we were hoping to score a tour, but the tours are on hold while year-end retooling takes place.

Thousands of Passats wait for transportation to their new owners under covered parking areas.

We counted 50 railroad cars waiting for their cargos.

Just across Volkswagen Drive is the Amazon Fulfillment Center! We arrived just about noon, and joined hundreds, if not thousands, of employees for lunch. There were a series of food trucks lined up in the parking lot, so we chose one that advertised "California Burritos" and ordered up a couple of lunches. Not bad! OK, not Cali, but not bad.

After eating in the cool car at a nearby park (sharing a chip or two with Sasha, of course!), we drove across town to the Chickamauga Dam. This huge dam across the Tennessee River was built in the '30s as part of the New Deal initiative to improve navigation, provide flood control, and bring economic development to the Tennessee Valley. The Tennessee Valley Authority administers this dam, as well as others up and down the river which bring, among other things, electricity to millions of people in the south.

Since the afternoon was getting long in the tooth, we decided to head back to the repair shop. We arrived just as work was being completed, and got a "tour" of the work done, and a demonstration of a successful repair! We are now fully slide functional, Hooray! Best of all, the cost was about $200 less than the estimate, so we are very happy! We plan to do laundry tomorrow, complete a few chores, and prepare for departure on Monday. Oh, yeah, that still leaves Sunday....what to do?