Deeper South

On to Tennessee we went and met B's brother G and his wife M. It is the first time that we have been to their place. They live in the country outside of Fayetteville. Lucky for them, their two children, R and T live close.

It was in the 70's going through Kentucky, and it was about 74 when we got there. Most of the time it is in the 50-60 degree range. Sometimes the cold air swings down from the north and then it gets cold. We had down in the teens a few nights.

We had some experiences that you get to have while living in the country. One morning their daughter T, who is a third grade teacher, was on her way to school and saw an owl alongside of the road. His leg was in a trap. She called her dad and G went and got it. It's leg was broken and all that was holding it on was some tendons. We took it into Huntsville but the vet said that it was about a week old injury and probably already infected. Since bird bone infections are almost impossible to stop he put the bird down. We were really hoping that he could go to some place that has injured birds. Although not full grown he was about 18 inches tall. As you can see, he was a beautiful horned owl.

While we were in Huntsville we went to the Missile Science Center. There are a number of missiles there and also one of the space shuttles.
Space shuttle Pathfinder.

They also have a SR 71, or Black bird plane. It is one sleek plane.
G and M also took us to several places. One day we drove to Sewanee. (Think of the song, "Sewa-nee, how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Sewanee.") This is the location of the University of the South. It is located on the Cumberland Plateau. It is an Episcopalian school. We went inside their chapel, which is impressive with stained glass windows and make of local sandstone. This stone is beautiful. Unfortunately, it was in the shade and the pictures don't show off it's real color as it it not this blue. It looks like it has wood grain. Their walk ways are also made of it.

The original chapel was blown up by the Union in "the war of 1860-1865," as the plaque with part of the original corner stone says.

From here we went on to Mt. Raccoon where a huge pumping/electrical station was built in the 1960's. It is by the Tennessee river which has a dam there. Water is pumped from the lake by reversing the turbines. It can be filled in 27 hours. Then in peak demand times, the water is taken from the lake on top of the mountain, down through the turbines, to generate electricity. It can produce electricity for 20 hours. The area also has hiking/biking trails, wild life, fishing and, on the lower lake, boating. This is the Tennessee river taken from up by the pumping station. The trees still had some color but were starting to fade.

We went on into Chattanooga and had dinner. We walked around some of the town and across the Tennessee river on one of the old bridges that only has foot traffic now. We had to settle our dinner.

B, M, and G on our way to eat in Chattanooga.