Touch of Class

Gary’s Brother let us back into the house after our trip to Arizona.  Whew!  It was nice to know we didn’t wear out our welcome yet. That’s good, cause our plane doesn’t leave for 10 days and those benches at the airport would be mighty uncomfortable.

So while we were back at his house, we were able to swim in his newly renovated and clean pool

Nice pool

He is lucky that he doesn’t have to worry about Monsoons where he lives.

One evening he invited us to join his friends on a paddle wheel trip across Mission Bay.   Oh boy, a ride on a boat!  Which one will we get…the big one, or the little one

Which one?

The big one looks way cooler!  But, shoot, we got the little one.  Oh well, I get dibs on the upper deck!  The ride was just going to be across the bay but it is a boat ride so we were game.  The boat travels back and forth every hour across the bay from one hotel to another.  It was about a half an hour ride but still fun.  It was a great night and I got some great pictures

Nice house

Look at this beauty of a house, right on the bay.  I bet it cost a couple of bucks.  They allow boats on the beach here  Hey guy!  You’re suppose to put the bow into the beach not the motor!

Happy Dog

There were quite a few of these paddle boards around.  It is hard to tell if the dog is having a good time or not.  Then this boat went by

Hot Tub Cruzin

Yup, a boat with a hot tub on it that you can rent.  That would be fun in the winter, not so much in the summer.

When we finally reached the other side of the bay and disembarked, we went to the hotel that was there.  The place was packed!  Of course, here we are in the middle of summer vacation so what did I expect?  We had  7 people in our group so it was tough to find a spot for all of us as we wanted to sit outside and enjoy the great weather, as did everyone else :).  Luckily we found a spot big enough for all of us and bonus, it was in the shade!  My favorite kind of spot.  We enjoyed some nice Hor d’vours there and had a drink.  The Hor d’vours were a little on the skimpy side so Gary and I had to stop at Micky D’s afterwards for some real food ;).  When we realized it was time to go, we had to rushed back to the boat, luckily we just made it as everyone else decided it was time to go too.  We loaded back onto the boat for the trip back.  It was dark by then

Night Sky Line

But it was still a pretty ride back.

The next day we decided to see where our boat was born.  The birth place of the Touch of Class is in Perris California,  that is where the factory is.  Unfortunately we have found out that is has recently been bought by another party and they have halted production on the Navigators, waaaaaaaa!  Well I guess that just makes our boat worth more huh? Wink, Wink.  It was a lovely day, as all days in San Diego are, and we decided we still wanted to go see it.  So 72 miles later we pulled up to the office

Office 

We saw one mold, 

and one hull.  A little tear ran down our cheeks. We headed home and back to the pool.  Yes, Gary is looking nice and bronzed after all his pool time.  I haven’t seen him this tan in a long time.  Me, I’m still whiter than white and hiding in the shade.  Gotta keep that skin doctor happy :).

We spent a few more days in California, got our fill of beaches, boats and pools and headed back to our daughter’s home in Minnesota.  We hoped we were good guests in San Diego and will be invited back.  I guess we’ll find out next time we try to visit :).  So on the 23rd of August we flew back to Minnesota.

We left for Arizona early on a Monday morning.  It was going to be about a 5 hour drive to get to our centrally located hotel just outside of Phoenix.  We thoroughly enjoyed the scenery on the way out.  Even if we didn’t visit anyone, the trip alone was worth the drive.  We started out leaving San Diego and we had vegetation like this

City of San Diego

Ya know, your normal palm trees and yucca plants.  A little further down the road we ran into the Border Patrol check

Border Patrol Check

They had these on both sides of the highway.  The one coming back into San Diego was a little more extravagant but less show of guns.  At the one on the road traveling East, the guys had guns slung over their shoulders but they just wanted to know if we were US citizens.  I couldn’t hear the guy very well and kept saying “what?”, “what”, he finally just waved us thru.  I guess we weren’t suspicious enough to search.  At the one pictured above, they just had side arms, but a lot more men milling about.  Luckily we had no fruits or vegetables to declare and we weren’t hiding any illegals in our car.  When we drove up to this one, they saw a couple of old people in a rental and waved us thru.  I’m glad they didn’t stop and search us, they would have found the apple in my purse and we might have been thrown in jail!  Hopefully Smokie would have been able to scrape enough money together to bail us out.

We continued our journey east after the border patrols.  We could even see the border fence as we traveled down the road

Real Fence

Garmin version of the border fence, see the black line?

Then the scenery turned to rocks

More Rocks

Rocks

And I mean HUGE rocks, some as big a bus.  See the telephone pole in the picture?  That gives you some idea of the size of these rocks.  Really cool!  We made sure we didn’t scream or throw things out the window as we passed the rocks so we didn’t cause a rock slide.

As we were traveling thru the rocks we started heading up the mountain

Pull over buddy, I’m trying to pass

It is so steep that they have truck run offs on the way down and places you can pull over and put water in your radiator if you start to overheat on the way up

Over heating? No problem!

That is the first time I have ever seen that, but I must admit, with the temperatures in the 100’s I’m sure it is a handy thing to have along the side of the road.

Then we ran into windmills.  There were a ton of them, and big!

Yowzer!

They also did a lot of solar power along that route

Solar

Which is a good idea considering the sun shines all the time.  One thing we couldn’t figure out was all the grass they seemed to be growing

Which the more we drove we figured out they weren’t growing grass for grass purposes but for hay!  We thought it was kind of a weird crop to be growing in California as it is always in a drought situation.  You’d think growing the grass, just to let it dry out would take a lot of water.  There were a ton of hay farms and big bails of hay all over the place on that stretch of highway

Hay sitting out

Hay under the tarp

They must have a bunch of hungry horses somewhere around there :).  Maybe the rams eat all the hay

Ram crossing

When was the last time you saw a sign like this?

As we were getting closer to Phoenix, we began seeing a lot of these type of cactus

Saguaro Cactus

It’s hard to take good picture out the window while you’re traveling at 70 MPH 🙂

Here is a better picture

These cactus will not grow their side arms till they are 75 to 100 years old.  They can live for over 150 years and grow to over 40 feet, wow!  They even have flowers that bloom from April to June and produce a very tastiee fruit after the flowers bloom in June.  I liked these cactus the best but I know Smokie would have preferred this one

Kitty Cactus

We did see some kind of farming like this

What are they growing?

Not sure what they are growing under those rows.  Can’t really tell if this is plastic or what over the dirt.  Any ideas?

Once we got to Phoenix and were getting ready to leave to visit our friends, there were all these storm warnings over the TV.  They called the storm a Monsoon.  That is where a wall of dust and sand come moving thru the area.  Apparently if it rains at the same time it comes down like mud.  We watched the radar and figured we could make it past the storm before it hit.  We got on the highway and the winds were whippin, I guess we figured wrong.  Stuff was flying all over the place.  There were white balls hitting our car, I first thought it was hail, but at over 100 degrees, I know that wasn’t it.  The sand and dirt got so bad we couldn’t see (we as in Gary, I always make him drive when the driving part is crappy 🙂 ) we pulled off the highway and waited for it to pass.  This is what the pool at the hotel looked like that night when we got back

Dirty Pool

See all that crap floating and sitting on the bottom.  Man, I bet that is a pain if you have a pool in your yard.  Needless to say, we didn’t use that pool after that ;).

We enjoyed our 4 days trip to Arizona, enjoyed seeing our friends and their lovely homes.  We were able to visit Sun City and Sun Lakes.  Both 55+ communities.  Very nice places with plenty to do and loads of activities to keep you busy.  But….not much water around so I don’t think we’ll be settling there anytime soon.  And those comments about “but it is dry heat”, ya sure but at 108 degrees, it is still HOT!  Maybe we’ll make it back for a visit some other time, hopefully not in the summer :).

As summer is almost over, I figured I should write the essay that all teachers have their students write when they get back to school….”How I Spent My Summer Vacation”.  I guess I have filled you in on some of our summer vacation adventures but I know you are dying to hear the rest.

After we spent some quality time with the kids, we thought we would give them a break and go pester Gary’s brother for a while.  He lives in Sunny California and he just got his pool all redone.  Nothing better than beach noodles in a pool!  We are staying there for 3 ½ weeks, I hope he still love us by the time we leave :).

So while Smokey was still at summer camp visiting his big brother

Smokie helping brother put away his groceries

we hopped on a plane and flew to San Diego.  We arrived at the airport

Here is that guy again 🙂

to nice sunny skies and perfect weather, because it is always paradise in San Diego :). After we settled in to our new accommodations, we decided to do some sight-seeing.  One of the first places we visited was, what else, a marina!

San Diego Marina

There are a lot more sail boats in San Diego because everything is so far away and it is cheaper to sail than to power boat.  See the Nordhavn?  Second boat back.  Ooooooooh, pretty!  Of course there were some really big boats there too

Really Big Boat

And wouldn’t you know it, another Navigator

Navigator

Not as pretty as ours, of course ;).  After spending quite a while there looking at all the pretty boats we decided we better head back to Gary’s brothers house.  While there, I spotted these bugs

Strange Bugs

There were a bunch of them, always one big one and one little one.  So my mind begins to wonder……is the little bug hurt and the big bug is giving him a tow?  Was the big bug pooping out the little bug?  Were the two bugs doing the nasty deed?  So many questions and no answers.  Any Entomologist out there?

The next dawned another beautiful day.  We decided to do something different.  Where did we go you ask.  Down by the water of course!

Fast Boat

Slow boat

Tour boat

No Body Loves Me Anymore boat

They have free anchorages in this particular section.  Unfortunately, it is filled with quite a few boats that look abandoned or like the grapes of wrath.

Grapes of Wrath

The next day we decided to head down to the swanker part of town, LaJolla beach.  The homes down there are very impressive and so are the price tags.  The city has put in very nice sidewalks along the shore

Nice sidewalk

and while we were walking along, I saw this seal trying to get up on this huge rock

Heading for the rock

Just waiting for the big wave

Whee! Got one!

Almost there

Made it! King of the Rock!

There were a lot of people there too.

People

OK, this picture didn’t look like a lot of people but we were fighting them on the sidewalks. We had decided to go here during the week to avoid the crowds.  But we found just a crap load of people every where we went.  Why are there so many people crowding us?  Don’t these people have jobs?  Oh yah, it’s summer time.  We had to keep reminding ourselves that it was summer and not winter.  Gives you a whole new perspective when you are driving around trying to find a parking spot at the beach and you end up leaving cause you can’t find anything.  The last time we were here in the summer was back in 1981.  At that time we were looking for old cars to buy and drive back, not for some fun at the beach.  Wait a minute, did I just say 1981?  Holy hoot!  That was before the kids were born.  Man, now I’m feeling old :).  Well, we still enjoyed ourselves.

Have you ever heard about that Fung Sway thing with the rocks where people pile rocks on top of each other?  Well they are even doing it here in San Diego

Rock Balancing

Here is a better example,

Much better example

This one kinda puts the other one to shame doesn’t it :).  That’s OK kid, you keep practicing and you’ll get as good as this guy ;).

We saw some other interesting things down by the water.  See that?

Big Honkin Norfolk

That is a Norfolk Pine, pretty cool huh?  We used to have one of these in our dining room. Of course you couldn’t walk under it like these people are, but ours was pretty big too.  See this tree?

Tree????

It’s really a pole covered with fake branches.  Kind of like a fake Christmas tree.  Those Californians are so tricky!

Well, after bugging Gary’s brother for a few weeks we decided we better give him a break before he threw us out in the street.  We rented a car and went to the Phoenix area to visit a few friends of ours that were living year round in Arizona.  Those brave people.  How do they stand the heat?  Well I guess we’ll find out because the temperatures are scheduled to be between 108° and 112°, I hope I don’t melt.

Today is my daughter and her husbands 5th wedding Anniversary.  They didn’t have daycare today so we said we’d watch their son for the day and evening so they could go out and celebrate their big day.  We were a little worried about taking care of the little man.  It has been 28 years since my baby was born and I can’t run very fast anymore ;).

We started off the day with a nutritious breakfast of scrambled eggs and some tangerines

Then we had a little play time

We were going to take him to Como Zoo.  Now, the last time we were there, our daughter was about his age, so it has been a few years to say the least.  So we packed up the little guy, made sure we had the essentials of diapers, wipes, toys, food, drink and the all important…..stroller, and off we went.  The Zoo opened at 10 so we wanted to arrive close to when they opened to avoid the crowds.  Yah right!  We got there at around 10:10 and the place was packed already!  Holy Smokes!  I have never seen so many strollers in one place in my life!  So much for avoiding the crowds.

We parked our car, got our Charge out of his car seat, got the goodie bag out, took the stroller out and then proceeded to examined the stroller.  Turning it this way and that.  How the heck do you get this thing to open?  Gary looked, I looked.  Come on!  We are two intelligent adults, we ought to be able to figure this out.  A YOUNG woman across the parking lot took pity on us and offered to help us.  Haha, she couldn’t figure it out either!  See, we aren’t so stupid after all :).  Oh look, there is another YOUNG woman with a stroller that looks practically like the one we have.  I called her over to help.  Haha!  She couldn’t figure it out either!  Finally I saw the strap!  Pull the strap and POP.  The stroller unfolded and was ready for use.  Who’s the old lady now huh?  Of course I didn’t want to rub their noses in it, after all, they did offer to help us, so we thanked them profusely and started our trek into the Zoo.

Of course after 28 years, the Zoo has changed a little.  So we were doing a little oohing and aahing as we walked around.  Unfortunately it was hotter than Hades that day, even at 10 in the morning, so we beat feet for the first indoor exhibit we could find.  We found they changed the building that used to house the monkeys into the entrance to the Zoo and it looked like it was connected to the Conservatory 

They also put these “ponds” ???? surrounding the building.  Pretty flowers!

The Conservatory doesn’t look like it has changed much.

We took a left after we left the Zoo entrance and headed for the new Monkey house.  Some of them were outside in the heat   Remember Clyde?

  These monkeys moved too fast for a good shot :(.  Oh look, this one has a beard! Nietahah, Snidely Whip Lash!  Remember that cartoon?

Their inside cages were pretty big, but I still felt sorry for them

Aaaah, isn’t THAT a picture? 

Here is a big Gorilla

Look!  He likes bumpers too 🙂

There was even a baby Gorilla

Cute as a button.  The next stop was the seal building.  Remember when they used to have the circular water ring outside with all the seals swimming around in it?  You could buy those smelly icky fish and toss them at the seals.  That didn’t look like it was in use anymore.  The only seal we saw was this one 

We saw some penguins there too 

These two look like they are planning their escape  See Harry, the door is only 5 feet away, you distract them and I’ll make a run for it ;).

The next stop was the Polar Bear building.  I remember when I was a kid, every Christmas Eve our Aunt and Uncle would take my brother and me for the day and before we went home we’d stop at Como Zoo and drive past the bears.  The Polar Bear would do the same thing.  He’d walk back and forth in his cage, stepping in the same spot each time he made his walk.  Here, this guy is doing the same thing, but in the water.  Back and forth he would swim 

I felt REALLY sorry for him.  Poor bear :(.  Of course the two boys loved itI suppose it is a big animal compared to the little guy.

Then it was off the to next air conditioned building, the tiger building.  First we saw the lions outside.  Even they were hiding in the shade trying to keep cool.  The tiger inside he had a really big spot, twice the size of this picture.  After we were done with the lions and tigers and bears, we were all tuckered out.  So we took a few more shots of animals on our way out….. a zebra and an antelope.  Everyone was hiding in the shade today.

Then a few more pictures of the “pond”.   Those are some humongous water lilies!  And one last pretty flower

So back to the car to see if we can get the stroller to break down again so it fits in the car. Lets see, hummm, pull the strap to collapse.  Walah!  See, I iz one smart Mema :).  But certainly not ready to start up a daycare.  Off for home we go…… for a nap for all of us ;).

We spent a few days up at Beartrax again this year over the 4th.  My brother and his wife run the store that is open 365 days a year, 6:30 to  6:30 every day.  Of course they have lots of good help but as this is a very busy time for them, we go up to help where we can.  We tried to make sure they had hot meals on the table at the end of the day and something to eat during the day to keep their energy up.  Their home is in the back of the store so we go there to make the meals and for a little break.  We also did a little baby sitting while we were there, here is Gary watching over a couple of the kids The gray and black one is a border collie called YooHoo and he is deaf!.  They have taught him hand signals for things like, “go potty”, “sit”, “come” and “down”.  When they first got him, they would take a flash light with them when they would let him out at night.  When it was time to come in, they turned the flash light on so he’d come over to them to investigate the light.  Of course having a few more dogs around helped in the training as he could just follow the pack.  I think they are prejudice.  All they have are black and white dogs, 3 border collies, 1 cocker spaniel and an older poodle.  Not a Golden in sight!  Hrumph!

While we were up there, there were fires up in Canada.  As Beartrax is located close to Brainerd, we were kinda close to the Canadian border so it was real smokey up there.

That is smoke, not fog

We are used to seeing fog on the water, not smoke on the street.  Here are a couple of shots of the sun

Cool huh?  I had to zoom up to get those shots.  Love my zoom :).

Well, we had a great time “helping” the people at Beartrax (I even got to work the credit card machine 🙂 ).  Hopefully they will invite us back next year.  Now it is back down to the Twin Cities to see what kind of mischief we can get into there.

Happy belated 4th of July!  We are currently up in Minnesota enjoying the nice weather, having a wonderful visit with family and friends.  We’ll be here for another 3 weeks, then we are heading out to San Diego for another 3 weeks, then back here for a while before we travel back down to the boat.  After this post, there probably won’t be many more posts till we get back to Chattanooga.  Although if we do anything fun and exciting, you’ll be the first to know.

One thing that was kind of funny on our trip up.  When we travel up here, we always stop at a hotel for the night half way up.  We’re retired ya know, no sense in butting our butts to make the drive in one day. So anyway, when ever we stop, we have to drag in the cat in his crate and the kitty litter, amongst other things that we’ll need for the night.  Gary is usually always the pack mule for this task.  And of course, we are always covering up the crate and the litter with big sheets so no one knows we are sneaking in.  This time when we stopped Gary was grumbling a little about trying to camouflage the cat carrier.  I suggested we just stuff him in the cooler and bring the cooler in.  Nothing to look at here folks, just bringing in my cooler :).  Hey, sounded like a good idea to Gary so grab, stuff and the cat is in the cooler.  Needless to say, Smokie was having none of that and he was meowing his objections.  Gary starts whistling a song hoping to whistle over Smokie’s MEOW’s.  When we get to the door, the neighbor across the hall is just coming out of his room.  Gary starts whistling louder and of course the door won’t unlock easily.  But we got the cooler in the room and Smokie was none worse for wear.  Wish I had my camera ready to take his picture when the lid was lifted on the cooler, priceless :).

The next morning we did the same thing except I scooped him up, threw him in the cooler and slammed the lid.  Luckily, I didn’t encounter anyone along the way.  I think this will be our new mode to transfer him in and out of the hotels.  Hopefully he won’t be too traumatized :).

So…….enjoy the summer, I know we will 🙂

So we decided to visit the Tennesee Aquarium before we left for Minnesota.  It was $30 per person and $6 per person for the IMAX theateur.  No too bad.  We left early so we could get there right when they opened at 10.  We hoped to avoid the screaming children masses :).

First thing we saw, what do you think?  A boat!

Nice canoe

We can find them no matter where we go :).

The first section we went to had a bunch of sea horses in it.  Some I have never seen before

This one was an albino one

Here is a normal one

These guys were dragon sea horses

They also had a lot of coral in their exhibits

Then we went to the IMAX to see the movie on Whales.

IMAX – we saw the movie about the whales

It was in a separate building close to where we were.  When we were seated in the theater, we noticed several groups of kids.  We figured once the movie was over we better blow out of there and get ahead of the pack.  Which we did, we might be old but we don’t dawdle :).

The next place we went to was the top floor of the first building we were in

Escalator going up?

The escalator took us to the Appalachian Cove forest.  Now one of our followers messaged us that he would sure like some pictures of the cove forest and Tupelo cypress swamp exhibits as he helped design and install them 20 years ago.  So hopefully this is the spot he was talking about.

Here is a lady holding a snake, we gave her a wide birth!

This is the way I like to look at my snakes

They had some river otters that looked pretty bored with the whole ordeal

I’m trying to get my beauty sleep here, whatcha looking at?

Then we went into a section that was like a very large fish tank.  It spanned 3 levels and had you walking back and forth on the ramps heading down.  Pretty impressive

How would you like to see that on the St. Croix????

The next place we entered was called Discovery Hall.  They had albino alligators, can you see him? And poisonous spitting frogs

Colorful, but deadly.  After this we went to the Delta Country.  

They had turtles

Look at the size of this bad boy.  I put my shoe there so you could get a comparison….and NO, I don’t have a size 22 shoe!I think he could take on Smokie :).

They also had birds.  How about this action shot, good huh?

 Plus they had a few alligators

 So this exhibit was filled with all sorts of nice creatures.  Just something you want to cuddle up with :(.

Then we passed by the large fish tank again

And we came to   They had some pretty

cool stuff there like Giant Worms! An electric eel, they even had a machine that showed it’s electrical out put Just look at the size of that sucker!  If our batteries went dead we could just plug this thing in :).

Next was a giant turtle shell.  We had Gary stand next to it so you could see how big it was  Wowzer!

 This turtle has scales on his legs.

The next section had more turtles. 

Who’d a thunk that there would be so many kinds?  I found these two little love birds in the corner, they was gettin busy 🙂  Apparently the male jumps on top and flaps his front feet in front of the ladies face.  Here I is Sugar!

Then look at the neck on this bad boy,

Well, that was it for the fresh water section, off to the salt water section in another building.

Up the escalator we go again till we come to  Just sit back and enjoy the pictures

I don’t know what any of those flowers were but they were sure pretty 🙂

There was even a pair of parrots

Auuk, Polly want a cracker!

and a petting pond for the kids

Feels like rubber

Then we went into 

That was kind of cool but didn’t see too many butterflies

And some more plants

 When you left, you had to make sure you didn’t have any stowaways on your clothes.  Next stop was Penguin land 

See the ones in the left hand corner, there was three of them in a glass enclosure.  Gary and I figured they were separated from the rest cause they had the little baby penguin.  Here comes one swimming by 
They all have little bands on their flippers.

  I suppose that way you can tell who you fed and who you didn’t.

The next section had jelly fish.  Those were really cool and the pictures don’t do them justice

This one glows in the dark

This one sits upside down on the bottom

Then…..we saw dinner, JUMBO SIZE 🙂

Crab

Lobster

Our favorites :).  Then my camera crapped out.  Too many pictures I guess.  Luckily we were at the end of the exhibits so you didn’t miss much.

All in all we would highly recommend seeing this if your ever in town.  Good exhibits and when your done, there are plenty of places to catch a bite to eat or a drink.

So, enjoy the summer!

We decided to go back today and visit the inside of the Hunter Museum.  It was supposed to be hotter than HE double tooth picks so clutching our $1 off coupon, away we went.

A little history of this museum

Mansion

In 1904, a wealthy insurance broker, Ross Faxon, commissioned a Cincinnati architectural firm to design a new home for his family. The family lived in the Edwardian-style mansion for nine years.

After passing through several hands, the home eventually was sold in 1920 to Anne Taylor Thomas, the widow of Benjamin F. Thomas. Benjamin Thomas was one of the founders of the world’s first Coca-Cola bottling company.

The same year the Mansion was designed in 1904, George Thomas Hunter, Benjamin Thomas’s nephew, had arrived in Chattanooga at the age of 17 to work as a clerk in his uncle’s business.  Hunter was unmarried and following his death in 1951, the Chattanooga Art Association approached the Benwood Foundation to ask that the Faxon-Hunter mansion be donated to their organization in order to found an art museum.  And they did.

Here are some pictures inside the mansion, but remember, NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY!  We learned that the hard way, we got yelled at :(.  Naughty, naughty!

2nd floor

Wow, now that is a BIG mirror

HGTV viewers would be jealous of this 🙂

Stairway going up, or down as the case may be

Museum from the river

Then how about these fireplaces?

This is the inside of that fire-place

Cool huh?  And the stone on some of them.  Wowzer!   The fireplaces, hardwood floors, wall moldings and hand-carved woodwork are all original, as are sconces and fixtures over the Grand Staircase.

In the 70’s an addition was added to the mansion.

Then in 2002 they added this section

Pretty impressive and really good views of the river

Tennessee River

And for those of you that want to see the art exhibits

 Can’t have a boating blog with out pictures of boats 🙂

 even if they are on fire 😉

And water

This one almost looks 3D

See that baby?  That’s a BOY! In a dress???

Risque

There was a warning when you entered the room this was in so little eyes wouldn’t make jokes.  No giggling boys!

Here is the modern art I remember when I was an Art Major in college back in the day.  

Look at this guys blue eyes

Cool mirrors, who’s that guy?

And glass exhibits

Even a glass dress

So all in all we had a good time and killed a few hours on a hot and muggy day.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures :).

There is a railroad museum in Chattanooga, so I was checking it out online, thinking a train ride would be fun.  So as I am looking at what they had to offer.  There weren’t many rides I was interested in this time of year but I found one for today that was a 3 1/2 hour ride.  Sounded like a lot of fun and just the right amount of time.  So I bought the tickets on-line.  Hmmmm, maybe I’ll mapqwest this to get a rough idea how long it will take to get there.  Whoops!  It is an hour away from here.  We have to go to the L & N Depot Museum in Etowah, TN.  Oh well, it will be a new adventure all the way.  We’ll get to see some more of Tennessee we haven’t seen before.

So we head off  to Etowah for our Hiwassee River Railroad Adventure!

We were told to arrive 1/2 hour early.  That gave us plenty of time to check out the other passengers and to determine how crowded this train was going to be.  There were a few kids that had whistles, we’ll be sure to stay clear of them ;).  At the appropriate time, we had to board a school bus for the the short ride to the train.

Whee! A bus ride!

Gary and I wondered when the last time we were on a school bus…..been a long time. There was a young couple in front of us with a son that looked to be about 3 or 4.  The little boy is looking for the seat belt.  His mother told him there were no seat belts on the bus and the father mumbles, “that’s why we drive you to school”.  Heck, that was half of the fun of riding the school bus.  Sitting in the back of the bus, the most coveted of seats, waiting for a bump so you’d go flying up in the air….wheeeee! Parents of today are just too over protective :).

Once we arrived at the train and presented our boarding pass, we checked out the seats.  We could sit almost anywhere, except the dome car.  We didn’t shell out the extra money for the dome car so it is off to coach for us

Front view

Back view, we are car number 1

Pretty comfortable seats and I had my smiling companion with me

Who’s that guy?

Plus there was a stow away He didn’t have to pay 🙂

So they started the ride out by going down the track about a mile and stopping.  They had to switch the engine around to the front of the train.  The Conductor had to get out to make sure it released/hooked up correctlyWhen the engine was released

Hi Thomas!

it sailed by us on the other track and then hooked up to the front of the train.  After a little bang, we were off!  Look!  Even while on a train we were able to spot a boat, another Chris Craft

This one needs some luvin

Now let me just say, the train ride was a lot of fun and the Conductor keep up a nice narration of the areas we were passing and the history of the train but it is very had to take pictures, out of a window, from a moving train.  So I took about 300 pictures but only about 75 were any good and that is being generous :).  And don’t worry, I didn’t put all 75 in this post ;).

We did travel along the Hiwassee River which was on the left side of the train going up, and the left side of the train going down.  This river, below the dam, is like a little Colorado river.  It is pretty shallow and has some nice little rapids

Rapids

Serious rafters

Kool raft

Not only did people do the rapids, there were also a lot of kayakers

Kayakers

Kayaks for rent

and they had “drift” boats

Drift Boat

Bad picture, but the boat had just oars to propel them and they were slooped on the side and had high bows.  This is what the fishermen used.  Apparently trout fishing is the best on this river.

The water above the dam

is suppose to be very deep, 50 to 60 feet.  There is apparently an engine that flew off the tracks and ended up in a very deep hole on the river.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed that that doesn’t happen to us!

So anyway, the way the train ride worked is you sat on one side of the train on the way up and looked at rocks 

rocks

and more rocks for an hour and half then when the train got to the top and the engine switched to the back of the train for the pull down, you were able to switch sides with the people on the other side of the train so you could see  lots of trees and

 river

 river

 and more river :).  They said there were still some of the old telegraph poles along the rail, (which I saw but couldn’t quite capture in a picture 😦 ) they used to telegraph the next train station when the train left the current station so the next station would know when they left.

As this track basically makes a loop, we did go over and under an old train trestle

Makes you wonder how it can hold all that weight.

On the way down the Conductor, a retired fireman and EMT, played the banjo for us.

He was a jack of all trades and a very good banjo player!  At one point along the ride the train stopped.  Turned out there was a tree that fell across the tracks.  That trusty Conductor got out there with his new chain saw and cut the puppy up.  He is a good person to have around :).

Well, we made it back safe and sound, the ride lasted about 4 1/2 hours.  Just enough time.  We really enjoyed the ride and the scenery and would highly recommend it.

Our next stop is back to the Hunter Museum, this time to check out the inside.

Today was a lovely day (for me that is), about 71 degrees, overcast.  So we decided to check a few things off our “things to do” list.  We started out by going to the Bluff View Art District.  We drove by this section when we took the Double Decker Bus Ride.  Good thing we took that ride, cause this place wasn’t on our original list.  The place has a bunch of small restaurants and a few old hotels there.  

They even had a sculpture garden you could walk thru

Back of the stones

Front of the stones

Looks like a giant Jacks for those of you old enough to know what that is

The Borg!

Nice Wind Chime

Who’s that guy? Almost like finding Waldo 🙂

That sculpture is supposed to represent the Tennessee River.

Then there was this big honkin Holly bush

At least I think it is Holly

Does that look like Holly to you?

Then we checked out the Hunter Museum, just the outside, we’ll check out the inside some other day

This mansion, part of the museum, was donated to the city of Chattanooga, they later added two side additions

They had some sculptures outside too

Same thing, just up close, see the little chair in the network of wires?

Remember the bicycle built for two with the number 2 on it?  This one has a 7 on it.  We figure they are mile markers for the River Walk, cause it comes all the way downtown

Then we went across a 

See you can see down below

We crossed over it, but I can tell you, neither of us cared for it at all.  It doesn’t instill much confidence in the bridge when half way across they have a board down to replace one of the glass panes that apparently broke.  Jeez!

Then we saw this little guy

He even had pink nail polish on his toe nails, aaaaah!

We next went over this bridge

It is a pedestrian only bridge

We figure this is probably what the Stillwater lift bridge will look like after they covert it to a pedestrian bridge.  The bridge was fun to walk over and had very good views

Water fountain

Crazy Duck Boats

We decided if we were going to live in a downtown area, this would be our top choice, so far that is 😉