Raincharm’s Weblog

Short post – many things have happened since the last time I blogged, which I think was 3 days ago.

I am sitting on the new front porch of the old cabin – on the internet.
Thank you KW & GG!

There are two freighters out on the lake in the waning sunset, both west of Round Island.
One is a salty that has apparently been there for a few days, most likely waiting for a pilot. The other is a lake freighter, loaded and downbound.

I would post a picture or two I took from the beach, but the cell phone is roaming, and thinks we are in Canada. I don’t know what it would cost, and want to limit the damage, so I have turned it to “Airplane” mode. Hopefully that will provide some $$ protection until I figure out from those that know – what my options are. One is just turning it off completely.

There is our last day in Tennessee to discuss.
And there are the travel days to report on – Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and of course Michigan. But I am a bit too tired right now, and am leaning toward sleep.

Suffice it to say – it is always great to be back at the cabin.
Friends and relatives, and quiet – and of course, the lake.

Yes, we have been swimming. And for Lake Superior, it was rather easy to get in, and under. Temperatures in the 80’s here (during the heat of the day).
But that is 20 degrees cooler than yesterday – and we are not complaining.

My only wish is that more were here to share this with us.
And Happy Birthday Mark. I thought about you as we were eating Aimee’s cake.
Your car is running beautifully, and we will clean the windshield when we get gas.
I

We have been internetless for a day, so did not get to post these last night.
Actually, come to think harder about our schedule – we left about 8:30 AM and did not return until 1:15 AM (this morning).

We started by going to a Smokey Mountains Visitor Center.
This happens to be located at the ball park where Rey works.
We dropped him for work and spent a bit in the Visitor’s Center deciding where we should spend our day.

First stop was a Food City grocery store, to lay in supplies for lunch.
Oh, and gas was really the first stop, but that is like saying you have to occasionally stop for a restroom.
Then it was on towards, “the quiet side of the Smokey Mountains.” In other words, anywhere that is not close to Gatlinburg.
We went through Townsend, and on to the Cades Cove loop. This is a scenic 11 mile drive, that will likely take you an hour to traverse. The road is like a grown up kiddie-car race track loop. Up and down over small hills and valleys, with turns to the left and right. Except there is only one lane, and the cars move exceedingly slowly.

About halfway through the loop there is a trailhead for the Abram’s Falls hike.
We parked and with our sandwiches in hand started along the 2.4 mile trail to the falls. The trail “follows” Abrams Creek, but with some ups that the creek just doesn’t take. They tend to flow downhill only. If you can see the creek in this aerial shot (dark line amidst the trees), the ups are where the red line (very approximate trail location) does not follow the creek.

Abram's Falls trail - very approximate

We stopped for the first sandwich at a location where there were sittable rocks in the stream.

Carl, along Abram's Creek

Evil? Good? You decide.

Evil? Good? You decide which is which.

Then we continued on to the falls.

Two Wild Ones

There was the adventure of finding different fungi along the route – but that is more of Pooh’s thing. I did try to capture some wildlife.

The Swallowtail butterfuly is flying. The blur at the top right of the picture.

Abram's Falls

We did this hike last year as well. “It was so nice, we did it twice.” This year there seemed to be more families. Although towards the end there seemed to be more groups of old kids/young adults, making their way to their local swimming hole.

The Swimming Hole

And a butterfly (Blue Skipper?) that held still for a picture.

Carl, or his presence, always attracts wildlife

If you look closely, there is a butterfly on the top of the boot.

Cooling our heels

After the trek back, we dipped our feet into the cool waters.

Now Carl, make sure you don't track anything into the car.

But this was just the entre to the day.
After spending the next half hour completing the rest of the Cades Cove loop (who knew a few deer could cause a traffic jam), we were out on the open road.

Back to Rey’s office at the ballpark.
As it turns out, they were using the ballpark for the opening ceremonies for a softball tournament.

Softball teams on parade (the fans are all in the shade, out of sight).

We got to see the last hour, and waited for Rey to finish cleaning up and putting away.

Rey hard at work guarding a pitching mound

Finally released, it was on to Knoxville.
Dinner at the Downtown Grill and Brewery.
Very good food – and enough that three of us needed a to go box.
Which went back to the car, and we headed for the piece de resistance.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.

The 10:05 show.
It was a good show, and none of us even threatened to fall asleep.

After we returned home, I looked at my phone, and it said 1:15!
Thankfully, Rey was the only one in our party that had to get up and go to work this morning. And we have spent a relatively quiet day.

The Seattle Sounders game was on yesterday afternoon.
Rey does not have a television set, and it was not on ESPN3, so we set off to find a watering hole with TVs.
After a brief stop at the library, the move was on to Soccer Taco.

Soccer Taco is a mexican restaurant catering to sports – with a heavy emphasis on soccer.
Most of the TVs were tuned to the Copa American – quarter finals.
We managed to get them to tune some to the Fox Soccer Channel.
The Sounders were playing the Colorado Rapids.

The Rapids scored early, but were tied by the Sounders. Each scored again to make it 2-2. Finally the Sounders pulled ahead 4-2. The Rapids made it interesting near the end by pulling within 1, but it ended 4-3. Yeah. Our cheering certainly caught the eye of a few of the other patrons, and theirs did us.

We took a short walk down to see the Tennessee River. If you are trying to cross the river, you will want to choose your bridges carefully.

Then it was back to the square in old Knoxville. This was where the Shakespeare on the Square was being performed. A Comedy of Errors was the play for the evening. Well done, but with a few microphone issues that meant occasional lines were missed. For those that don’t know, the play involves two sets of identical twins. For further hilarity, the cast included a set of identical twins, although not in the roles where their identicalness would have been useful. It did, however, provide the opportunity for several double takes amoung the cast members throughout the play.

This morning we rose and breakfasted at home. And eventually made our way to Morristown and the Witt Baptist Church. This was, I believe, the first regular church service that Carl has ever attended. He survived, and everybody there was very cordial and had nice things to say about Rey. Here we are in our Sunday finest. (Not bad for vacation wear.)

Tennessee Sunday Best

Left St. Louis during the morning rush hour.
I had some pictures crossing the Mississippi, but have not been able to get them to the correct location to post – so use your imagination.
The first was a picture of a bit of the Arch, with several other buildings around it.
The second had a bit of the Arch (on edge) with Pooh driving (so Mark would know I did not wrest the wheel from her immediately).
Then a bridge adjacent to the one on which we were traveling.

Eventually we stopped at a rest area outside Metropolis. (At which point I did wrest controls of the car from Pooh.)

Superdude in Metropolis

After reaching Jefferson City (Tennessee) we stopped long enough to unload the car, and loaded back up with a full load of people. We took off for Greenville and a Pioneer League game between the Elizabethton Twins and the Greenville Astros. The game went well, although the Twins prevailed 8-0.

After arriving back at Rey’s place we set up our bunk house.
Two full size beds (one blowup and one mattress) and four people.
I think everybody slept just fine.

So up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and we are still hanging around the apartment.

The object of our Tennessee venture

That should about wrap up our day. Except we bookended it with chatting in the morning and a birthday party at a brewery (Schafley) in the evening.

The City Museum is like no other place I have been before.
It is an old shoe factory that has been transformed.
The transformation includes parts of other factories, buses, planes ….

And slides – there are slides everywhere.
And a ferris wheel on top.
And at least two mazes – they go up and down, and through holes, and down slides, and across the ceiling overhead of those below.
And did we mention the slides, including a 10 story slide.
Which 3 of the 4 of us went down, spiralling down until the last bit straightened out.
And the slide that started with squeezing into the top part, to make sure you could fit into the tube. And down and through the tube, but not quite all the way out so you had to scooch the last bit.
And the glass bottle wall, and ….. on and on. Here are a few pictures.

And then we went to lunch at The Fountain on Locust.
They serve martinis.
And ice cream.
And after about 5 pages of drinks and desserts – they had sandwiches, soups and salads.
One of our party had dessert for lunch, but the sandwich I had was delicious.

For a one day trip – it was great.
(Great hosts help out immensely, along with the temperature staying below 90)

Started by picking some raspberries to take with us.
Since they are about a month late, we are now going to miss some of the harvest.

The bus was not too crowded, and the train had plenty of places to sit.
The plane, on the other hand, was full.

We arrived at the airport a bit early, and saw that the USA vs. France game in the Women’s World Cup was just at halftime, USA 1 – France 0. I tried to get the game streaming on line in the waiting area, but was stymied in my normal methods. A woman across the aisle had it going, and when they scored I would run over and check out the replay. Along with me were several rather tall women who were sitting in the next row of seats. It wasn’t until I looked one of them in the eyes after watching the replay, that I realized I was looking at Sue Bird, and the tall women were the Seattle Storm WNBA team.
(Final result USA 3 – France 1.)

It started a bit late, but we seemed to be making up time.
The seatbelt sign was lit for most of the trip, and in the second half both Carl & I thought a trip to the loo would be in order. But there was the small matter of the seatbelt sign and the rather large person sitting between us and the aisle. We had just decided to manage the trip the next time the seatbelt sign turned off, and the loudspeaker asked for any medical personnel to make themselves known.  And could everybody stay in their seats so the people who need to move around, can move around.

As it turned out, a young girl (teenager I think) had come out of the loo ashen white, and then swooned. And further, her seat was directly across the aisle from us. They eventually led her back to her seat with an oxygen bottle in tow.

And when we landed, everybody waited in their seats so the paramedics could get through. They led her off, and then deplaning began.

There was a rush for the bathrooms by all of us that had been waiting for a couple of hours by then as we hit the terminal. The terminal had a fair amount of plywood in evidence. When we found our hosts waiting with their new steed, they reminded us of THE TORNADO from a few short months earlier. We then noticed that there really was a large amount of plywood at the airport. Inside and out.

Note the brown windows - except one transparent pane.

Dropped the bags and out to dinner at Blueberry Hill. We passed a new statue of Chuck Berry on the way to the restaurant. And who was playing at the restaurant later that night? Chuck Berry himself. We did limit ourselves to dinner, and then a walk around the area.

Bob Gibson's star in the Loop Area

Oh – the weather. We thought we were going to double our temperature from 55 degrees in Seattle to 100 degrees in St. Louis. BUT it was only 88 when we landed.

Tomorrow is supposed to be equally “cool” so we should survive.

That is what several of Carl’s friends call him.
It is mostly based on his encyclopedic knowledge of minutiae that only a select few will want to hear. But many of those select few (is that possible) have found him, and like to hang out with him.

This occurs most of the time at Mariner games.
But there is another side, that is much closer to his heart – playing the game.

After a few years layoff, followed by a comeback – including a dislocated elbow, followed by another layoff, we are now in yet another comeback year.

Here are a few, slightly blurry, pictures of Sunday’s game.
The windup, and the pitch.

This was followed by a snag of a line drive back up the middle. YER OUT. But I was not fast enough to catch the catch.

Tale of Carl’s part of the game:
7 Innings, 14 hits, 4 strike-outs, 1 walk, 2 hit-by-pitch. 4 runs scored, of which 3 were earned runs.

It really is good to get out and play games. It is a great place to get to know people that share your love of that sport, but maybe nothing else. Good exposure all around. And even the old geezers can make some pretty nice looking plays from time to time.

And then it was off to work – desk work.
Today I got to spent half a day visiting sewer lift stations.
And it was nice out. And the adventure was not too odoriferous.
I will admit after almost 24 years in the business I am not grossed out by looking at sewage, but it usually smells more to me than it did today. Even Inglewood was not too bad (that’s for Ashlan).

We spent the morning and afternoon working on our our various projects. Laundry, dishes, work. So in the late afternoon we took a break for a walk. It was nice out, although only in the low 70’s by my reckoning. (Goose bumps when not in the sun, with a little breeze.)

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Many will have already heard, but little one found a job.
In fact, she found two. From zero to two in one day.

First on the W2 is Macy’s. Tried and true.
Second is Potbelly’s Sandwich Shop. New and hopefully yummy.

The transition from job hunter to job holder is always a good one.
This one was, however, slightly dampened.

By rain.
Apparently a good hard rain, complete with thunder.

As little one was relaying to me her good fortune, she let slip that it was raining, and in fact she was dripping. (All this while trying to find a subway entrance.) And she noted that when the rain started, everyone else stepped back into storefronts to wait it out.

Not our intrepid Northwesterner. If you are in Seattle and try to wait out the rain, you may wait a month or so. We don’t let our rain keep us indoors.

Little one is learning the difference between the rainstorms of the northwest and summer thunderstorms of the east.

But isn’t that what trying out new places is all about – learning how to be a local.

Dennis is visiting. Actually he is almost leaving – tomorrow. He arrived in his old white truck, carrying a rider from Portland along with a mattress for another person. He is currently looking for stuff to make the return trip.
His truck’s name is The Great White Hope it Doesn’t Break Down.
Kind of a long name, but well earned by years of service.