22-31 October 2008
22 Oct Wed – Up early again and off to leave the Trooper outside Bob H’s fence then taxi to the airport via the scenic route (which cost about $8 more). We flew Delta using our SkyMiles and stopped in Cincinnati for a quick transfer to a small plane for the short flight to CHA. The TI at the airport told us that there was no public transportation to downtown and that the taxi was about $28. I checked on picking up the Alamo rental car two days early and found that it wasn’t much more than two taxi rides. So we got a new Dodge Caliber in a bright robins egg blue after only a relatively short wait. I drove the surface streets to the Days Inn on E 20th and I-24
[Days Inn - Lookout Mountain, above]and checked in. It wasn’t any more luxurious than we expected and the nearby area appeared to be in the process of urban renewal, but it was just a few blocks down the street from the Chattanooga Choo Choo (now in part a hotel operated by Holiday Inn)
[The actual locomotive behind the hotel, above]where the free electric shuttle to downtown had its southern terminal. C.J. called Rich Hass and arranged to meet him at the downtown Days Inn where the USHPA directors were staying (about the same quality as ours, maybe a bit less luxurious even – but also more expensive). We said hi to a number of directors and then walked downtown with Rich and Martin Palmaz looking for a place to eat. Not finding anything until we were almost to the riverfront, we turned down Jack’s Alley and settled on a BBQ place called Sticky Fingers(mentioned or advertised in the Delta on board magazine). It turned out to be a good choice with excellent ribs and pulled pork and a free serving of peach cobbler for the table. We also got to try some of the local beers. Rich and Martin decided to head farther north to check out the riverfront scene while we walked back to the hotel where we had left the car and drove back to our Days Inn. Driving through the area we would have had to walk through seemed like a better idea when we saw it in the dark.
23 Oct Thurs – We got our “sunrise breakfast” which included cereal, juice, biscuits and gravy and some pastries (no hot chocolate!) and walked the six or so blocks up to the CARTA electric shuttle and got a ride right to the door of the Marriott Hotel entrance of the Chattanooga Convention Center. We attended the opening general session, then C.J. went to a working lunch for committee chairs. I went back downtown with Jack Henderson from Alabama, who was here as a representative of the Tennessee Tree Toppers, to Ankara, a sandwich place on Broad Street.
We caught the shuttle back taking it all the way north through the north terminal so he could locate The Easy Bistro where the ice breaker was planned for this evening. After the afternoon business C.J. and I went back to the hotel to change and grab the car. We drove downtown and parked on the street near the Easy Bistro. We were among the early arrivals to the small back room where the TTT guys had set up a makeshift screen and were showing video from their Team Challenge. We each got a t-shirt and a goody bag containing various toiletries, and other TTT stuff. There were several platters of edibles, enough for a light dinner, and the drinks were on a cash bar basis. C.J. and I left fairly early and drove back to the hotel along mostly deserted streets – there just doesn’t seem to be a traffic problem in Chattanooga.
24 Oct Fri – C.J. had her Awards Committee meeting today and I took minutes. I should have brought my power cord because I just about ran out of battery on my laptop. We went to lunch at Sticky Fingers with Luis Rosenkjer who had come up from Atlanta Paragliding to sit in on a couple of committee meetings and meet the people he had only corresponded with. It was kind of drizzling then but by the time I headed back to the hotel to charge my laptop and edit the minutes, it was really raining and the wind had picked up. Luckily I was wearing my North Face parka; but unfortunately, I did not have my rain pants. After finishing the minutes, I drove back to the convention center and hung around waiting for the meeting to finish up. Later we went out to eat with a group including Dino Dave and his wife Mary, Rich Hass, Nick Greece, Felipe, Marc Fink, Mike Hailey, Rob Sporrer, (Mark Forbes?) and possibly some others – loud band, noisy venue, decent food with pitchers(!) of margaritas. We took Rich back to the hotel to work on financial stuff with Paul Montville, the Executive Director.
25 Oct Saturday – We attended the general session in the morning so C.J. could present her committee report
[Dick Heckman at the General Session, above]then we skipped out and shuttled downtown, walked across the Walnut Street pedestrian bridge, and then all the way up Market Street to a school/street fair, the Normalpalozza. We ran into Marc Fink who was displaying his paintings and found Claire at her booth with her silk paintings and chatted a while.
After touring the small display area, we bought a bratwurst and a pulled pork sandwich for lunch and sat on the grass to eat – fortunately the rain had stopped last night and the day was relatively warm and windy. We couldn’t find Claire when we went back to her booth so we headed down the hill and back to the shuttle and the board meeting.
[Cherokee symbolic representation along "The Passage", riverfront below Market Street bridge, above]After the business was over I sat down with Rich and got my PG Masters rating completed and signed (Yay!). Earlier I had brought the car in so that we could drive to the Lookout Mountain Flight Park Halloween party that night and because on-street parking was free on Saturdays. First though, we shuttled downtown and walked across the bridge to Frazier Street to get some ice cream at Clumpies with Rich and Mark. As a result we missed the caravan that drove to the LMFP LZ but with the GPS and Mark’s and my memories, we found our way there via the Interstates and Trenton. There was a good BBQ pork dinner and lots of people in costume, a bonfire and a live band – quite the deal for $10! By 2200 we were ready to head back and we dropped Mark off at the Motel 6 and Rich at his Days Inn. Then we headed back for our last night in Chattanooga.
26 Oct Sunday - We got a reasonably early start after breakfast and drove up I-75 to Cleveland where we drove into an old cemetery with a Grand Army of the Republic monument, then we drove along the Ocooee River, stopping at the site of the 1996 Olympics whitewater competition.
[Site of 1996 Olympics whitewater competition, low water, above]There were stretches of the river that were almost dry and others that were running full enough for kayaking – it all depended on a schedule of water releases from the various dams. We continued on to Ducktown where we shopped for lunch crackers at Piggly Wiggly then drove north to Townsend and tried to find a back route in to Cades Cove. All we found were signs saying “Dead End” and “No Outlet” so we took the standard route into Great Smoky Mountains National Park and found ourselves in an eleven-mile long traffic jam. It took three hours to do the loop including a stop at the visitor center and historical building halfway around. That put us way behind schedule but C.J. could not get a cell phone signal to call Paula and Stephen to let them know we were running late. We drove all the way in to Gatlinburg and still didn’t have a signal – until we got out of the car. After alerting Paula that we were late, we drove up Newfound Gap Road over the summit through good autumn colors. Descending the east side, we drove through the tourist town of Cherokee (where elk were running along the street) then wound up another pass on Route 19 in the dark. Coming down the other side through Maggie Valley wasn’t as slow and soon we hit I-40. We figured we were almost there as we entered Asheville but a police car pulled ahead of us and blocked the entrance to I-240 that we needed to take. C.J. got Stephen on the cell phone and he remote-controlled us through the city, avoiding downtown where Sarah Palin was speaking at a rally. Eventually we made it to Beaverdam Run and then had to look up the correct house number on C.J.’s computer – we didn’t remember that the Goldman’s condo is the last one on Ridgeview Drive (#44). We had a great dinner with Paula and Stephen and Paula’s sister Bobbi before crashing after a long day of driving.
27 Oct Monday – We had a late breakfast and then Stephen drove us an hour west on I-40 to a USFS gravel road to the trailhead for Max Patch Mtn. Good thing we had brought our warm, windproof clothes with us because it was cold and the wind was howling. We walked the 0.5 mi to the Appalachian Trail and then the 0.1 mi to the summit of the “bald”. Retracing our steps we found a hillside in the lee but in the sunshine and had lunch. From there we walked down the AT through the woods – all in excellent fall colors – to a meadow where the trail we wanted should have led us back around to the trailhead. However, it wasn’t obvious where the trail went so we climbed back the way we had come. Still recovering from yesterday’s drive I dozed all the way back to Asheville. Later we went to dinner at the Fiddlin’ Pig where we had good barbecue with live bluegrass music.
[Our rental car at Goldman's condo, 44 Ridgeview Dr.]28 Oct Tuesday – We woke up to snow on the ground and on the trees, not a lot but great for showing off the contrast with the autumn colors. After a really late breakfast of delicious gingerbread pancakes we went touring with Paula and Stephen to the Grove Park Inn, a huge stone hotel built in the early 1900’s with enormous fireplaces in the lobby. We spent quite a bit of time browsing in the nearby Grove Park Gallery which had really high-end arts and crafts (like a room-divider screen for $5250) and the museum-like display of the weaving industry in North Asheville. For dinner we went early (1730) to Salsas in downtown Asheville for fusion Mexican-Jamaican food. On the way back to the condo we stopped at The Hop for ice cream. We were full.
29 Oct Wednesday – Paula and Stephen prepared another delicious breakfast with eggs and sausage (and grits - gotta have grits in the South). Then Stephen and I fixed a flat tire on his Subaru we had gotten when we stopped at an accident at George Handy’s pottery studio near the entrance to Beaverdam Run. We didn’t get on the road until close to noon. We chose to drive south (west) on the Blue Ridge Parkway; the colors were spectacular, and by the time we were climbing over 4000 ft, there was snow in the woods; by 5000 ft, there was an inch on the ground on a short trail we took near Mt. Pisgah, and frozen waterfalls/icicles everywhere.
[C.J. at an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway]Shortly thereafter the Parkway was closed and we had to descend steeply and drive along the valley to Waynesville and SW on Rte 74 through the Nantahala Gorge. Eventually we closed the big loop by passing near Ducktown and stopped to see the ’96 Olympics whitewater site, this time with water!
Back in Chattanooga we stopped at a WalMart and bought a roast chicken, salad and foccacia. Then we figured out how to get up on Lookout Mountain by road and followed a car with hang glider racks towards LMFP as it got dark. We almost found Claire’s house without help but after one wrong turn we dug out C.J.’s computer and found her address and punched it into the GPS and followed the pointing arrow. No one was home but Claire had left a key for us and a welcome note so we had dinner and caught up on our journals.
30 Oct Thursday – Claire and Eric got home from Atlanta around 0800 and we had breakfast with Claire as Eric had to go to work at LMFP. Later we went to Cloudland Canyon State Park and hiked around the Rim Trail – about a two-hour walk in typical eastern hardwoods. It was sunny so the colors were bright, and the temperature was just right for hiking.
Back at the house we had a lunch of leftover chicken and Claire’s tomatoes, and then Claire went off to work at Canyon Grill where we are going to have dinner tonight around 2000. (Later) Eric went to dinner with us and the “twin fillets” (ends of the filet mignon) were great, cooked in a peppercorn sauce and served with two sides: we chose crispy okra and grilled red cabbage wedge. Then for dessert we had a serving of pecan bread pudding with bourbon sauce and one of amaretto brownie with ice cream. We’re stuffed. Now all we have to do is get up at 0445, leave at 0515, get gas and head for the airport.
31 October Friday - We were up and out as quietly as possible but I’m sure that Claire and Eric couldn’t have slept through our departure. We took the highway route: down to Trenton, up I-59, I-26 and I-75 to the airport with a quick stop for cheap gas at exit 184 Moore St. It was still dark as we dropped the car off, left the keys at the counter and checked in. This time we went to Atlanta, a very short flight, then on to Seattle. We passed over some interesting landforms perhaps in South Dakota or Nebraska and I eventually dug out the car GPS which worked okay but showed only where we were without showing any landmarks. It was cloudy from the Rockies onwards and drizzling in Seattle where Bob was good enough to come out and pick us up. Good to get home and the weather gradually cleared so it wasn’t raining for Halloween night.
