First stop straight from the hotel to The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s house. Guess it’s fitting since we saw where he commanded the Battle of New Orleans earlier in our travels. Nice to see he had a home “back home.” It was definitely a mansion. Also had about an acre of garden next door, plus acres and acres of open land surrounding it that used to all be cotton crop. Main thing I learned? He was a big advocate for term limits in politics. Also, Teddy Roosevelt liked him. That says a lot in his favor in my book. Oh, and he was never called “Mr. President.” It was always “General.”
I was on nap duty for our second run of the day. Er, wait. I mean MAP duty. Autocorrect, you know what I mean? I saw a place we probably should have turned off for. Not that it had anything special to offer. It would have just been fun to say we have been through Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, just north of Chattanooga. Yep. Soddy-Daisy. Hyphen and all. Wonder what the story is behind that name.
Our second stop was a national monument called Russell Cave in Northeastern Alabama. But wait! Detour time. Yep. We saw one of THOSE signs. And we ended up in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. Why? Well, obviously, because it is the home of cast iron skillets. At least the Lodge brand. And not just that. It is the home of the World’s Largest Cast Iron Skillet. That’s right. We took a selfie in front of a skillet that we both could have napped in, along with six or eight of our closest friends. The skillet is actually big enough to theoretically cook 650 eggs at once. Theoretical because no one has ever tried it. The thing is huge. How could we not turn aside from our pursuit of national parks? No way I was missing this one.
Of course because of the detour, we only had time to do one of our two remaining target parks. Russell Cave was first up. We were actually the 17th and 18th visitors of the day (the Ranger told us). That place was pretty remote. You couldn’t go into the cave, but they had a boardwalk that led right up to its dual entrances. In fact, we were warned not to leave the boardwalk because of a preponderance of venomous reptiles. We obeyed.
One entrance was actually more of a massive overhang where the early inhabitants lived (lots of archaeological stuff going on). The other was the actual cave opening. Pretty impressive to be that close up. The most significant thing to me? The quiet.
From the cave we headed in the general direction of our last park target. Because of the time, though, we shifted gears and went straight to our hotel for the night. Holly, Dolly, Polly, and Molly Cart greeted us at the door. First time I have ever seen named luggage carts. Love it. We had Holly. She served us well.
Oh, and I almost forgot. As we puttered along yesterday afternoon (actually Chris was right in the middle of passing a couple of slow-moving 18-wheelers), all of a sudden, both of our phones as well as the car’s radio speaker all exploded at the same time. Test of the national emergency broadcast system. I guess it worked. Now the whole country can be simultaneously notified either when aliens land or … maybe when Jesus comes back?
Mark 16:15 says, He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”
Father, thanks for yet another really strange place for us to enjoy yesterday. Keep that creativity coming. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment