October 1 – 10

The first ten days of the month were spent doing routine activities or activities to prepare for the 21^st annual banquet of the North River Care Pregnancy Center which was held on Thursday, 10/10. This is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the center and, as a member of the board, I sponsored a table. I had such a delightful time being joined by friends and family – many that I knew from the Bradenton Yacht Club, including Past Commodore Deborah Ross and her guest, Jessica Ross; Past Commodore Mike Reeve’s wife, Jeannie; Pauldie Howrigan and Kim Bailey (whom Rick and I traveled with more than once); our good friend Jackie Sosville and her daughter Angie Wilson; along with my daughter-in-law, Kellie Hoffmeister and a co-worker, Suzanne Kistlen.

October 11 – 26 – Tennessee Trip

Fri, 10/11 – We left the house at 6:30 a.m. travelling most of the way north on I-75 until we checked into our hotel in Alpharetta, Georgia (just north of Atlanta) 11 hours later.

Sat, 10/12 – We were thrilled to have an opportunity to meet up with Tim, Connie & Louisa Cambre (Dad’s grandson & family – my brother Bill’s son) for brunch before continuing our drive to check in to the Wyndham resort at Fairfield Glade, Tennessee.

Sun, 10/13 – We left resort around 8:30 and traveled west on I-40 to Lebanon, TN see to Mary Alice, Richard & Ethan Howard (Mary Alice is one of Dad’s granddaughter’s – my brother Rick’s youngest). Knowing that we would be there, their married daughter, Savannah and her husband, Jordan, traveled up from their home in Alabama to join in the visit. We had a very nice time, and a delicious lunch of baked chicken, potatoes, fresh green beans and asparagus and corn bread. After lunch we said goodbye to these family members and started back to the resort on scenic highway US70N. It took an hour and a half to drive over and two and a half hours to return, but it was interesting.

Mon, 10/14 – I had picked up a brochure on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau Nature Trail which is described as three driving tours of the very best natural sites on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau. Yesterday’s drive back from Lebanon was part of the Central Tour and today’s drive included part of the Northern Tour. To get to the Northern route, we took US 127 North to Jamestown in Fentress County where we stopped at the “Ye Ole Jail” Historic Museum. The first jail was built in 1828. John M. Clemons (the father of Samuel L. Clemons aka Mark Twain) was one of the town Commissioners who prepared the plans for the first jail. It was made out of wood and was declared unfit to secure prisoners after the Civil War; but, it was used until this jail was constructed in 1899. Besides seeing the old jail cells, there was a room dedicated to Jamestown’s native son, Roger Keith Crouch, an American scientist and astronaut who flew as a payload specialist on two NASA Space Shuttle missions in 1997. While there, we read an article about Constable Thomas Jefferson York who died in the line of duty. He was the son of Sgt. Alvin C. York.

Just up the road, we stopped briefly at Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park in Pall Mall. Situated along the Wolf River, the park contains the farm and gristmill once owned by decorated World War I soldier Alvin C. York, who lived in the Pall Mall area for his entire life. Along with the millhouse and milldam, the park includes York’s two-story house.  Tours of the home are offered on the hour, but we did not go on a tour as we were there on the half-hour.  From Pall Mall, we continued north just crossing over into Kentucky before heading south on TN 111 to Livingston where we left the northern nature trail and took another country road (84) to the town of Monterey before returning to I-40 and then to our resort at Fairfield Glade. Dad and I thoroughly enjoyed this day trip.

Tue, 10/15 – We expected rain today, so we signed up to attend a timeshare presentation where I learned that Club Wyndham owns RCI which is the swapping organization that I currently belong to and used to “swap” into this resort this week. We spent the afternoon in the condo waiting for the rain that eventually came after dark.

Wed, 10/16 – A cold front came through during the night with the expected rain. The sun came out around noon but it was breezy and cool. We stopped by the concierge desk in the office and asked for a map to nearby waterfalls. The gentleman at the desk suggested that we might like to see a nearby overlook as well as Ozone Falls. So, we did. The ride to and from the overlook was probably as good as the overlook itself, but we still enjoyed the adventure.

In the picture above, Dad had no idea he was standing on a ledge as I continued down a set of stairs to get a better view. Then we took some back-country roads to get to the Ozone Falls State Natural Area. Dad stayed in the car while I took a short, rocky path to the top of the falls which plunge 110 feet over a sandstone cap rock into a deep, rock-strewn pool.

Thurs, 10/17 – Today we drove to two state parks to look at waterfalls. (By the way, Tennessee apparently does not charge for day-visitors.) Both parks had been recommended by the timeshare salesman that we met on Tuesday. First, we traveled south to Fall Creek Falls State Park. I put the address of the park into my GPS and we took an amazingly pretty, but scary, route which included paved roads, a gravel road, and something less that a gravel road which was marked as a fire tower road (although we never saw a fire tower). Dad said we should keep an eye out for a sasquatch while we were driving on this road! But, it brought us out into the park and right to the interpretive building. Tennessee has been in a drought for some time, so there wasn’t much water flowing in many of the waterfalls in the park. We saw two at the interpretive center but couldn’t get a good picture of either one. The interpretive center is handicapped accessible and even though it was cold (in the 40’s) Dad enjoyed walking down to it and through it. Next, we drove along the parks scenic loop where we stopped several times to take pictures of fall leaves and a couple of the water falls along this route. The picture below is of Fall Creek Falls. This 256-foot Fall Creek Falls, the highest free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, the sun was shining directly at me, so I wasn’t able to get a very good picture.

Farther along the loop, after stopping at several overlooks to see the gorge below, we stopped at Piney Creek Falls. I walked a little way down a rocky trail to see the falls – again not a lot of water but I did see them. I took two pictures, but when I got back home and looked at the pictures, I couldn’t find the falls in either one. From here we drove northwest to Burgess Falls State Park which is near the town of Sparta. We were both able to see the cascades leading into multiple waterfalls.

I only took the trail down to the top waterfall of three.

Fri, 10/18 –Cumberland Mountain State Park is about a half hour southwest of Fairfield Glade and our destination for today. It’s a much smaller park than the Fall Creek Falls State Park that we saw yesterday, but very pretty. The park was constructed by the CCC and the project was supervised by Sgt. Alvin York until he went to Hollywood to supervise the movie of his life. After stopping at the office to find out what there was to see, we took a short drive through their cabin rental area where they are remodeling many of the older cabins. We continued on to the “deluxe cabin rentals” which look like they would be very nice to stay in. Then, we returned to the park office where Dad and I started walking the paved trail around Byrd Lake to the Homestead Harvest Restaurant (about 2 miles). We stopped and had a good lunch from their buffet; then he sat on a bench in the sun while I walked the remaining distance back to the park office to get the car and drive back to pick him up. It was a leisurely walk with some pretty views. The first picture below was taken on the trail and shows the bridge with 7 arches that was constructed by the CCC in the late 1930s and on the left is the restaurant where we ate lunch.

The picture below was taken from inside the restaurant looking back across the lake to where the trail starts.

We arrived back at the condo at approximately 2:00 p.m. After resting a short while, we began packing to get ready to move to Nashville in the morning.

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Sat, 10/19 – We checked out of the Wyndham at Fairfield Glade around 9:30 in the morning after thoroughly enjoying our week here. Instead of taking I-40 straight over to Nashville, I decided to go via US 70 and US70S west which are both scenic highways. This route took us through Sparta, McMinnville and Murfreesboro before we got on I-40 for approximately 20 miles to continue to our hotel for the next two nights. Most of us who are still driving do not remember a time when the Interstate Highway system did not exist, but I’m here to say that I highly recommend taking the “less stress route” of US Highways whenever time allows. It will take longer to get to your destination, but you will get to see some very interesting and beautiful sights. We arrived at our hotel about 1:00 which was too early to check in. The front desk took my phone number and said they would call as soon as the room was ready, so Dad and I went to the bar and grille where I had a sandwich and we watched football on tv until I got the call. Again, taking a “less stress” approach to our time in Nashville, I had booked with Grayline Bus Tours to take us to the Grand Ole Opry tonight. They gave us our tickets just before we got off the bus which was just a few steps away from where we entered the building (after going through a bag search and metal detector). We easily found our seats and did not have to wait long for the show to start. There was a gentleman talking to the audience during the pre-show giving us good information about things to do in the area.

The 2-hour show was broken up into 4 segments. Each segment was hosted by a long-time (about 50 years each) member of the Grand Ole Opry including: Jeanie Seely, Whispering Bill Anderson and John Crist. The last group was Old Crow Medicine Show who announced that they would be playing Sunday night at the Country Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. One of the young artists was Caylee Hammack. She is schedule to tour with Trisha Yearwood next year. The show included singing, dancing and even a comic. Show below are the Grand Ole Opry square dancers.

The friendly Grayline Bus Tour driver, Big Jerry, dropped us off at hotel door about 10:00 p.m.

Sun, 10/20 – After a big breakfast at our hotel, we boarded the Greyline Tours bus to “Discover Nashville”. We learned that Nashville is known by several other names, as well as Music City, it is the Athens of the South and the “buckle of the Bible belt”.  This tour included Nashville’s historic downtown district and “Honky Tonk Row” (with Legends Corner),

Riverfront Park (across from the Tennessee Titans football stadium), the Tennessee State Capitol (where President and Mrs. Polk are buried),

Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park (with Nashville’s Parthenon), the Ryman Auditorium (the original home of the Grand Ole Opry)

and Historic RCA Studio B (where more than 35,000 songs were brought to life).

Mon, 10/21 – We left Nashville heading south to Alabama on this rainy day, stopping at the welcome center.

Today, we are going to visit Dad’s cousin, Mary Ann Ross, who lives in Guntersville, Alabama. The largest well-known city near Guntersville is Huntsville with the U.S. Space & Rocket Center -home to Space Camp, Aviation Challenge and NASA’s Official Visitor Information Center for Marshall Space Flight Center.

Mary Ann is 2 years younger than Dad’s 89-years-old. Her mother, Victoria, was Dad’s mother’s sister, Juanita. They have stayed in touch over the years; but have not been able to see each other for many of them. We were welcomed by Mary Ann and her husband Cecil, as well as her oldest son, Sid and his wife, Martha, and briefly her youngest son, Eric. After some delicious pie and cake, we continued south along scenic highway US 431, staying overnight in a small town in Alabama.

We continued our way south along scenic highways all the way to Florida. What a great way to travel when you don’t have to be somewhere at a specific time – very little traffic, great scenery, and good roads which made it easy to maintain the 55 mile-an-hour speed limit. I decided to find my old house in Tallahassee when we passed through there. It was the first house that Rick and I owned. We bought it in the mid-1970s. It was a newly constructed 3-bedroom, 2-bath brick home. The picture below shows that the brick has been painted and it has a new door. The landscaping is completely different than when we lived there next door to our good friends, Mike and Sallie.

The rest of the week was spent finishing up our trip; enjoying sleeping in our beds again; washing clothes and putting things away. We were home in time to attend the monthly senior potluck supper on Friday night.

Saturday morning, Emma had an accident at a friend’s house colliding heads and needed 4 stiches under her chin.

Sunday, 10/27 through Thursday, 10/31

On Sunday morning, Dad, Emma and I went to church and Sunday school. Then in the afternoon, Emma and I returned for the “Fall Festival”. She helped me with registration for a little while (we had about 450 attend), played some of the games and then declared it was too hot – the “feels like” temperature was about 100! So, I took her into the hallway and let her sit with two of our ladies who serve as “hall monitors” and help direct visitors to the rest rooms. By 5:00 one of the ladies came to get me saying she thought I should take Emma home as she wasn’t feeling well. So, home we went – after raiding the candy cabinet since she wasn’t going to be there for the “trunk-or-treat”. On Monday and Wednesday, Dad and I went to the YMCA. On Tuesday, I volunteered all day and then went to the Christmas choir practice. Emma stayed home sick all three days. Her father took her to the doctor on Wednesday morning and they found out that she had an ear infection in both ears! But, the medicine helped and she returned to school on Thursday. I visited a couple of shut-ins on Thursday morning and then handed out candy for Halloween evening while JP and Kellie took Emma trick-or-treating. I sat on JP and Kellie’s front porch from about 6:30 to 8:00.