The Volunteer State

Mary and I spent a few days in Tennessee mostly visiting with friends and family. 

My niece Misty lives just south of Nashville.  She is a couple of years older than my son Matt.  Her second daughter was born six months before Matt’s first.  Matt and Misty have skied together a lot, both as kids and adults. Misty and her husband Adam have a great house just outside Franklin, TN and the two daughters seem to keep them pretty busy. It was great to spend an evening with them. 

While visiting Misty, we stayed at the Nashville KOA and got to see one of our favorite things – the Oscar Mayer Weiner Mobile.  Mary and I had previously looked in to being Wiener Ambassadors, but the website was looking for young energetic types - not geezers. 

Misty parents (Deb’s brother Mike and his wife Kathie) recently moved to Lenoir City, TN, just outside Knoxville (about three hours from Misty).  They had been stuck in Portales, NM and suddenly got the opportunity to move to the Knoxville area.  They have only been there for two weeks! 

The four of us got to play tourist in Knoxville on the day of the big game between the University of Tennessee Volunteers (Vols) and the University of Florida Gators.  Knoxville seems to be a fantastic medium sized city and the entire city was decked out in “Volunteer Orange”.  The color is exactly the same as the Home Depot orange, so I felt right at home.  We enjoyed the farmers market and historical area of the city, but it was especially exciting because it was so alive with people tailgating and having fun even 7-8 hours before game time.  Unfortunately Tennessee lost the game.

Mary has a friend that also recently moved to the area. Carie and Mary were flight attendants together at Northwest Airlines almost forty years ago.  Mary’s career was quite short, but Carie is just now retiring!  Carie and her husband Andy built a beautiful house on one of the many TVA lakes in the area about a year ago.  We had a very nice lunch with them, and even got to go out on their boat and experience the winding wooded Watts Bar Lake.

In fact, we learned that it is possible to boat all the way from eastern Tennessee to the Mississippi and then out to the ocean. A big surprise for us has been the abundance of navigable waterways throughout Arkansas, and Tennessee. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built many dams starting in the 1930’s, largely to provide electricity and flood control.  Thanks to the convoluted topography, a side benefit is hundreds of miles of smooth waterways that provide animal habitats and a myriad of recreational and residential opportunities for the citizens and visitors of Tennessee.

Mary and I had thought of taking some more side trips before we head to Florida, but we are ‘getten’ ready to set up our home base in the Sarasota area. We can explore more of the Southeast later. So, tomorrow we will head down I-75, and after one more overnight stop we should be at Pleasant Lake RV Resort, our new home base for now.