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Summer Road Trip 2024: Chattanooga

June 17, 2024 in Drinking, Eating, Traveling by Colleen | Permalink

We expected, as it was all over the news, a massive cicada symphony on our journey, but I guess we were a tad late, as they were not nearly as boisterous as expected. We did see a fair number being hounded by birds earnestly looking for a juicy meal. The fella above was the only one we witnessed in stillness. Those eyes!

Our journey from Nashville to Chattanooga took an extra two hours as a result of the aforementioned downpours, plus a couple of car crashes. As a result, we were quite famished upon our arrival and made lunch the first order of business. I am delighted to report that Uncle Larry’s made me a convert to catfish. Well, fried, at least. It definitely smacked me!

Johann Nicholas Sohn, my Great Grand-Father times two, was the reason I landed on Chattanooga for our second stop in Tennessee. At the age of twenty-one, he enlisted in the Union Army on May 12th 1861, in Pendleton, Ohio, and mustered into the 2nd Kentucky Infantry Company B, on June 3rd 1861.

He was present in Cruft’s Brigade at Chickamauga (in Georgia, just south of Chattanooga) on September 19th 1863, when he was bayoneted and shot in the leg. He recovered at the Union Hospital in Chattanooga before mustering out in Kentucky a year later.

Initially, I was happy to visit the battlefield and get the general feel for the terrain. Then, upon further searches, I learned I could find the exact location of his company. What a great privilege it was to stand on on the same ground where my Grandfather fought.

As it was at Gettysburg, I was struck by the beauty and serenity of a place with such a history. The land bore no visible wounds, but the cannons and markers make clear the horror of the Campaign. Chickamauga was second to Gettysburg in the number of casualties.

The marker indicating Grandpa Nicholas and the 2nd Kentucky is just to the right of the cannon.

It reads:

The Brigade as the left of Palmer’s Division was formed on this ground during the night of September 19th, with the Battery on the right of the first line, the 31st Indiana on its left, the 2nd Kentucky being the left of the front line. The second line, which relieved the regiments in front about 11 a.m. consisted of the 90th Ohio and the 1st Kentucky.

The Brigade was so strongly protected by log works that not an enlisted man was killed and but few wounded while occupying them. The attacks made by the enemy up to the time of the general withdrawal were repulsed. About 3 o’clock, Hazen’s Brigade on its right was sent to Snodgrass Hill, and the second line of Cruft’s Brigade tool its place. At 5:12 p.m. it was ordered to withdraw across the Kelly Field.

The Brigade moved in column of regiments at long intervals, encountering a very severe artillery fire from both flanks, but suffering little loss. Upon crossing the LaFayette Road the Brigade proceeded to Rossville. Strength in action September 19th, 1,408 officers and men. Casualties: Killed 24; Wounded 213; Captured or Missing 53; Total 290. Percentage of Loss, 20.58.

Such early birds! This place was packed when we left.

At Stir now, in the old Chattanooga Train Station, which is glorious! Stir is famous for their cocktails and even more so for their penchant for fine ice making. They have a special filter process and freeze water in 300 pound blocks, before making cubes in every shape. As you can see above, I was most interested in the sphere. The process is a whiz-bang affair and how pretty and perfectly clear! Another fine dining and drinking experience. I also recommend the lobster and shrimp mac and cheese and chocolate cake. Mmmm…

This reminds me, I am not much of a drinker, maybe partaking in one cocktail a month, but with the heat, humidity, and sheer number of tempting beverages on offer, I drank in ten days what I normally consume in a year. Quite the trip!

Do you know the Glenn Miller song?

After dinner, and while the Juper-dog was happily ensconced in her crate, we ventured up Lookout Mountain to visit Rock City Gardens. How to describe? A garden, to be sure, for there are lovely trees, shrubs, and plants everywhere, but it is really more about the experience of walking through them, with all the crevices, caves, and bridges to cross. Then there are the fanciful decorations, stunning views, and birds galore. It is truly unique!

Extra, super bouncy bridge. Not for the faint of heart.

Worth the view!

I see you…

Chickamauga is behind me!

Small, with a mighty voice!

What you can’t really see here is a wonderfully cooling mist rolling down. We came at the right hour, both for the temperature and the sparse crowd.

Rock City Gardens was one of the first places to play with paint and black lights. This space was neat, but it gets even better!

This was a very small fraction of the cool cavern scenes (literally and figuratively). What a truly magical place! Greg and I were surprised and delighted. If ever you are in the neighborhood, please do visit.

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Springfield

January 8, 2016 in Remembering, Traveling by Colleen | Permalink

Me and my best love, our drive west and the Mini packed tight. We had seven suitcases, three tote bags, one duffel bag, one milk crate, one Vitamix (nestled between us in the arm rest!), one computer monitor, one fire extinguisher, and one gallon of laundry detergent! The heavy burden made our car 10 miles per gallon less efficient and injured my right arm so terribly that I could not move it AT ALL for three days. Oof. But boy howdy, was it worth it! We are home. And what a marvelous drive we had, missing every bit of bad weather. We saw not one snowflake nor rain drop fall, and were treated to some of the most gorgeous landscapes America has on offer. My love for this great country has been galvanized further still, yes ma’am.

And the little white house, off of Sangamon Avenue in Springfield, Illinois, is where my Grandma Tess was born and my Great Aunt Mary lived until she was well into her seventies. Two adults, eight children, and who knows how many pets made their home in this wee two bedroom one bath. By some great stroke of luck, the current owner was sweeping the porch when we pulled up, and I asked him if we could go inside. He kindly obliged, and we spent the better part of the next hour sharing stories. Sadly for me, but great for the house, it is under renovation, with plastic and tarps obscuring the majority of the space. Thankfully, there was enough exposed to get a feel for it and my Grandma’s spirit in it, to see relatives I’ve only known in pictures puttering about, gazing out the window while washing a dish. Part of me is there now, too.

And Lincoln! It’s turned out to be quite a year for Colleen, Greg, and good ole Abraham. Gettysburg and Springfield – the train station from which he made many journeys and his final return, his law office, the old state capitol building where he worked, just one of many bronze monuments. And his crypt, which, wow, and hmmm, what to say? Evocative. If you have never been, go. Just go.

It was a sleepy New Year’s Eve, with us full up on sentimentality and hypnotized by a murmuration swirling about the capitol dome (that bit that looks like a smudge). The beat of wings the only sound we heard.

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Pennsylvania Road Trip I

June 15, 2015 in Traveling by Colleen | 1 comment

One, if not THE reason we picked up sticks and moved across the country was to travel, to feel in our bones, the deepest sense of our nation and this continent, to know the contours, of hill and dale and faces old and young. If our beginnings, with the trek to move here and our first trip (which started here) that already seems so long ago, are any indication, we shall make out like kings.

Nine days getting to know Pennsylvania, with a short stint on I-68 in Maryland, on our way to Gettysburg, fog and rain laden, air luscious with damp. This bit of sweetness is Vanderbilt, a mere curve on the road to somewhere, occupied by just over five hundred souls. There are countless jewel box towns like these, mostly older than imagination, my Western whippersnapper roots nearly constantly agog. This is America, where it all began.

And cemeteries! Since moving east, I have never seen so many, tucked in everywhere, both massive and diminutive as postage stamps, nearly all patriotic. This belongs to the Spring Field Church, with the building dating to 1849.

Bear Run and the sights in and around Fallingwater, probably the most famous of the Frank Lloyd Wright residences. We took a tour with a lovely fellow named Cletus. Though he’d been at it only a short time, his knowledge was vast and impressive. And the house? Wow, just wow. Go and be glad!

Such a lovely drive!

This is Gettysburg. Gettysburg. I kept repeating it aloud, just like that. Abraham Lincoln and fourscore and seven years ago and so many soldiers (and one Gettysburg woman) lost to war. The text of the speech is attached to the David Wills house, where Lincoln stayed the night before the address. I gazed about, dazzled, from which window did he peer, am I standing where he stood? Is this the path he took to the cemetery? Golly.

We stayed up yonder at the Brickhouse Inn and had a marvelous time. They have a beautiful breakfast, a kind and efficient staff, and charming and historical furnishings, very apropos, we thought. As is our usual modus operandi, we walked like the dickens, mouths agape at the history, the hallowed ground, the sheer number of buildings that dated from the Civil War, their bronze plaques in proud declaration.

Candlelight at Christ Church was the serendipitous highlight of our visit. On a walk after dinner (at Saint Amand – really good French food and kindly service!), I got an itch to go a particular direction, and on the steps of the church saw a crowd of people dressed in Civil War era garments, which is delightful and not at all unusual, but they were so numerous as to give us pause. We crossed the street and were invited to a service with music from the time, the history of the church, and stories and letters from the era. It was beautiful and quite moving.

The Gettysburg Cemetery – the dedication the occasion for Lincoln’s address. Most striking is the sheer number of unknown soldiers. This is before the advent of dog tags, so only those men with letters or photos of themselves or their beloved were identified. It saddened me.

Cemetery Ridge

Eternal Light Peace Memorial

It is a peculiar feeling to visit battlefields and imagine the reality of events that took place, cannon fire, mortal wounds, families pitted against one another. As we toured, this tender heart was often overwhelmed by imagination and wonder. How is it that we can do this to each other?

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