Raincharm’s Weblog

Day 4 – slept in. I did not get up until 10:40. Now I try not to keep comparing to the west coast time zone, so I did feel guilty. But I think I also really needed to sleep. The heat and humidity are such a change. Seattle had not really left winter/spring behind when we left, so we are dealing with a 30 degree increase. It just seems to make us move slower.

Rey is at work, and our late start put us off of sightseeing much today. We are planning to do some local exploring and a little shopping.

We plan to go to a bar tonight to watch some hockey. Report later.

Day 3 found us getting up “early” so Rey could make an appointment he had in Oak Ridge Tennessee. That meant trying to be out of the apartment by 9 AM.

Rey’s apartment. Let’s see. It has a kitchen/dining area, a living room, bathroom and two bedrooms. It is sparsely furnished. Dining table, 3 wooden chairs, 1 folding camping chair (newer style with arms and good backrest), card table, twin blow-up bed (interestingly not quite a flat bed shape any longer), full bed box spring and mattress, and …….. a folding stool. I think that about covers it.  Oops – forgot the microwave oven.

Rey has graciously been sleeping on the floor, giving his guests the beds. I feel a bit guilty, but he seems little the worse for wear.

Onto our day – we visited the Sunsphere and area park (home of the 1982 Worlds Fair) while Rey delivered some tickets. Then went to the Knoxville Art Museum. Met up with Rey for lunch and back to the museum to finish up our viewing. On to downtown, where we visited the Tennessee History museum and learned about the settlement and growth of eastern Tennessee.

Then it was out to the ballpark – the Tennessee Smokies ballpark.

At this point we discovered that the car engine looked like it was “smoking”, and I assumed it was overheating. When we popped the hood we discovered the oil filler cap was missing. Rey had added oil the day before and apparently did not replace all of the parts. No oil light or poor performance, so whew – we caught it. I actually preferred this to an overheating engine. Easily remedied. Which we did with some new oil, duct tape for a temporary cap, and a new cap from an auto parts store just a few miles away.

Rey answered a few e-mails for work and we were back to the apartment again, for dinner and an evening of  naps and crossword puzzles.

Day 2 found us forcing ourselves out of bed for breakfast.
Carl & I that is. Ashlan chose to stay abed until the last moment, counting on her doting parents to bring her food from the breakfast buffet.

Then on to – wait for it – wait for it …. a Baseball Game!

Atlanta Braves day game. Got there early – but limited batting practice.
So we wandered around the park and had a sausage.  [One note is that as we have traveled around it has become clear that Safeco Field has more variety of food offerings than most ballparks.]

Our seats were in the front row in right centerfield. A fairly similar location to our Seattle seats. The seats were in the sun, and it was probably in the mid to high 80s. There were moments of respite when the cloud cover would come into play. We drank copious amounts of water and used up the last of our sunscreen. (Carl got pink arms – oops).

The game was fun, and fast. Braves 2 – Phillies 1. The Braves scored their second run in the bottom of the 8th, and faced only 4 batters in the top of the 9th. 2:28 was the time for the game, good for us as we were then headed to Jefferson City, TN.

Leaving Atlanta proved challenging. We did not have a good map of the area, and after waiting probably 30 minutes to get out of the ballpark parking lot, the only signs we could see were for I-75 south. But of course we wanted north. So we improvised through stop and go traffic. Finally after consulting with a neighboring car’s driver we were able to get onto I-75 north, in rush hour traffic. This was heavy and slow, but could have been much worse. We even went past an accident that had several lanes closed, and it was not a tremendous delay.

Finally after hitting Gainesville we broke free of most of the traffic. Our route followed US 441 North, I think almost until we entered the Smokie Mountain National Park, on the North Carolina side. We passed an elk feeding on the side of the road, and a few minutes later were greeted with lightning and an intense downpour. I was happy to have a vehicle in front of us to follow. The rain continued, but at a slower pace for most of the ride going up. At some point we entered Tennessee and headed down – more or less. The ride down was also dryer.

The Smokie Mountains were beautiful, and fully lived up to their name, even when the sun was poking through. There was a switchback on the way up that seemed to take you almost in a complete circle, and I commented that we were going to drive over ourselves. And then on the way down – we did. The road sign shows a complete circle, and that is exactly what you do, circling under your starting point in a short tunnel.

After coming down we had a choice to go through Gatlinburg, or take the Gatlinburg bypass. We chose the bypass as it was getting late, and we were ready to be at our destination. Part of me wanted to go through Gatlinburg to see if I could recognize our lodgings from my childhood. But I had heard that the area has changed quite a bit since then.

The only stressful part of the drive, from a directions standpoint, was our travel through Pigeon Forge. OMG. It is amazing and terrible. And long. And in the end the directions seemed to call for more turns than were necessary, and occasionally in the apparently wrong direction. Lucky for us we followed our senses, but were not sure we were right for several miles. This was the testy point of the trip, but we survived. Finally got to Rey’s place around 10 PM. He had dinner ready for us, and I am sure he was starving.

We said it, and heard it said by at least one other person on this day (that would be Tuesday). Things conspired to keep me off the blogsphere for a few.

Our modes of transport were

Bus
Light Rail
Feet to terminal
Airplane
Terminal – Airplane – Terminal – Airplane
Terminal – people mover train thingie – Skytrain
Automobile

Started at 7 AM PT in Seattle and ended at 12 PM ET in Atlanta

When the trip was originally scheduled we were to arrive in Atlanta about 5 PM. That was changed by the airline, who had us arriving at 9 PM, after visiting Baltimore (instead of Houston). Ashlan maintains she has still not been to Maryland, even though we got off of the initial airline to change to a new flight, and then had to get off of the new flight due to storms in Atlanta, and then back onto said second plane.

It was a long day, but other than delays once we hit the eastern time zone, it was fairly free of problems that can happen when traveling. And traveling was all we did that day.