Today began the long (14 hours) drive back to Dallas.  We have came, seen, visited, reminisced, and now it’s time to go.  Back to the day-to-day life through which God provides us the means to take these occasional trips.  Perhaps someday in the future we will be called back to these mountains for another purpose.

(Note: these pictures were all shot from the car so forgive any blurriness.)

One last look at the mountains as we leave Chattanooga…

We drive through Georgia…

Alabama…

Mississippi…

I gotta say a couple of things about Mississippi though.  We were on I20 going through all these states from Alabama to Texas, and the condition of the road in Mississippi was horrible.  It was like riding a bumpy roller coaster.  And on top of that, I think the rudest drivers of the trip seem to hail from Mississippi.  Even in the GSMNP, almost every time someone would cut us off or do some other rude maneuver, their license plate would be from Mississippi.  Now I’m sure that not everyone from there drives like this, but from the sampling that I saw, the ratio is pretty high.  In fact, it was in Mississippi that we saw this…

Now, we didn’t see it happen so I’m not going to make any assumptions, but this was the only state where we saw anything like this the entire trip.

Louisiana…

and finally arrive at Texas.

And we end the trip, safe and sound (and tired) with a sunset through a bug-splattered windshield!

After we got to our house, I turned on the news to see stories of a tornado and severe thunderstorms that were crossing I20 where we had been just a few hours before.  But once again, God is good and brought us through all the storms to the harbor of our garage.

I hope this sharing has helped show you the beauty of the Smoky Mountains and Chattanooga, but not too much.  There are enough people there already and when it comes time for me to retire I hope there is still room.  🙂  As the great philosopher group “The Eagles” once said… “Call come place paradise, kiss it good bye.”  Here’s hoping that this part of the country has the right guards in place to prevent that from happening.

And now… back to work!

As we say goodbye to Townsend and the little valley that has been our home for the past several days, we take a final parting shot at the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

 

And so we began the drive to Chattanooga, TN.  This place still holds a very special place in our hearts as it is where we spent the first 5 years of our married life together!  Needless to say, these two days brought back a lot of memories as we drove around.

Now, it’s been 13 years since we had been here, but as we start getting closer and seeing the signs leading to our old hang-outs something magical seemed to be happening to our mood.  It was very exhilarating!  Since it was on the way, one of the first places we drove by was our old house.  We sure miss this place, nestled in the woods in a quiet subdivision outside of town.  Of course, it is not as far out of town as it was 13 years ago.  As time has moved on, the city of Chattanooga has began to spread throughout the hills as well.  It still looks pretty peaceful out here though.  (hope the current owners don’t mind their house being on the net)  🙂

As we begin our descent into town through the “ridge-cut”, our breath is taken away by the beauty of this “little” city that sits in this quiet little valley.  We entered town at about 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, and I have to say that the “rush-hour” traffic here, even after 13 years of growth, is NOTHING compared to the DFW metroplex!  In fact, about the only traffic jam I saw was when three people were at a four-way stop and they were each motioning for the other to go first!  You don’t see that much these days!

And almost everyone asks, so I’ll just answer, Yes, there is a Chattanooga Choo-Choo and here’s the proof!

They actually took some of the sleeper cars from the old train and converted them into hotel rooms.  It is now ran by Holiday Inn and if you like you too can see in a part of the past.

We had decided that Friday would be our evening to spend with some old friends, so we met up at the “Cancun” Mexican restaurant.  You may ask, “you go from Dallas to Chattanooga to eat Mexican food?”  Yep!  I’ve been craving the nachos from this restaurant for over 13 years and nothing was going to get in my way of going there!  🙂

We met up with our friends Kay and Tom, and Kim at Cancun and talked and laughed for a few hours.  As the karaoke started cranking up (well, that’s new) we decided to call it a night and had a long good-bye in the parking lot.

Day 7 found Karen and I driving all over town, just reminiscing.  We enjoyed the view from Lookout Mountain and the history there with the Civil War memorials.

We watched some hang gliding from the mountain…

And took our own pictures to remind ourselves later that we were really there!

Then we (or rather I) just had to drive by to see if the “space-ship” house was still there on Signal Mountain. (it is!)  I still think it would be cool to live here!  But if you look close, you can see that time is starting to take its toll on this place.  Someone should really buy it and bring it up to date.  (hmmmm)

We drove around so much on these two days that the streets once again became so familiar we felt right at home!  Karen made the comment that when retirement time comes, if we have to live in a city, this one is certainly doable!

We decided to take one last chance and have dinner with our friends again.  We really do miss them and hope that it is not another 11 years before we get to see them again.

Tomorrow begins the drive home back to north Texas.  The land of no color or mountains.  🙁

Day five starts out as planned.  Up early and at the entrance to the cove shortly after dawn.  The first thing we notice is that the fog over the cove gives it a very cool appearance!  And the next, is that we are finally seeing some wildlife.  There are deer all over the place!  But still no bears.

Shortly after entering the park, we found these guys trying out their antlers.  They would spar for a bit and then turn to see if the girls were watching.  Then they would spar a bit more.

The early morning fog gave a very surreal feeling when I looked down the hill to see this young doe in front of the muted colors of the trees.

And who can pass up the “sunlight-bursting-through-the-fog-covered-trees” shot?  This whole place seemed like a completely different park than we had visited yesterday.  The fog, mixed with the light and deer added something extra to the entire experience.

 

And much like the previous shot, the “dew-on-the-spiderweb” shot has been a long standing staple of the photographer.  And so much better when taken at about 25 yards with a 400mm lens while sitting in a vibrating jeep.  🙂

 

After a few passes of the most known locations for bears in the park, and even getting out and trekking through the woods in search of them, we finally accepted that our one bear crossing the road a night experience would be our only encounter with the black beauties this trip.  So we decided to take the other “primitive” exit from the park and drove out to the south this time on Parson’s Branch Road.  This was much like the Rich Mountain Road we took yesterday, except it went to the south.  Very primitive and heavily wooded.  It was a nice hour and a half 8 mile drive.  Let’s just say it was an adventure, in a good way!

 

Once we left the park we made our way back to Townsend on the Foothills Parkway where we stopped for this obligatory “yes, we were really here” tripod and timer shot.  When looking out over these mountains it still gets me how they just seem to go on and on forever.

With still quite a bit of daylight left, we decided to take yet another cruise up and down the Little River Road.  This is a great relaxing drive (when done during daylight hours) that follows the river through its twists and turns.  There are many pull outs available for stopping to enjoy all the water features.  And later in the afternoon as the sun is setting, the colors start reflecting off the water and it is a sight to behold.

 

Karen had noticed this calm spot a couple of days ago while we were headed home but we were in a hurry to get somewhere.  Luckily, she remembered where it was and we were able to stop and I got this shot of her enjoying the reflections of this peaceful spot.

 

And of course, it seems that no day on this trip would be complete without a stop at Pizza Hut for our dinner!  You’d think they would know us by name by now. 

Tomorrow we pack up and head to Chattanooga to meet up with some old friends and see how much our little town has changed in the past thirteen years since we have left.  From what I’ve heard, it’s not such a small city any more.  Guess we’ll find out the tomorrow as we explore some of our old spots!