This is long. Go get a drink and get comfortable.
Steve, Anthony, and I went to Chattanooga a few weeks ago for a fun trip! Our main reason for going was to go on a long train ride on a museum train, but we decided to make an entire weekend out of it.
We drove up on a Friday (Steve, who apparently can't take a day off, had meetings most of the way up there, so Anthony and I got to sit in on some of the most boring and confusing phone conferences I've ever encountered.) and got there in the middle of the day. We were staying at a place called "Hotel Bo" which looked to be another kind of hotel at some point that had been converted by Days Inn or Wyndam. It was cute and clean, but it was in a weird section of town. There was an all night diner and lots of people just hanging around the place being very loud. Eh, well, we were only going to be sleeping there, so whatever.
We spent the rest of that day doing touristy things. We walked around the city for the most part, but we decided along the way to take an impromptu duck boat ride. That was a lot of fun! I like being on boats that are slow and lazy, and the guide was telling us history about the city. (We found out later that his version of events wasn't exactly accurate.) The captain let all the little kids drive the boat, and then asked if anyone else wanted to. Of course, I said yes. I probably wasn't as cute as the kids driving the boat, since I could keep it going straight, but I enjoyed that! There are no pictures, though. we got our wires crossed about who's phone would be used, so you'll just have to trust me that it happened!
I ended up having to buy a big sweatshirt to wear over my leggings in the boat gift shop because the wind was blowing so hard that day and it was making the dress I was wearing tangle around my ankles and it was annoying as frak. Believe it or not, I only packed exactly what I needed for this trip so I could take the tiny pilot's bag, so I didn't have anything else to change into. It's ok, though, because I really like the sweatshirt!
As an aside: It's becoming a habit that I have to keep buying sweatshirts when I go places because I'm freezing or not dressed appropriately. I don't do it on purpose, I swear! I don't need this many sweat shirts in my life, but here we are! We had to go back to the hotel so I could change, but that was fine. We were also resting up before going on a ghost tour that night.
The ghost tour was very interesting! You already know how much I love going on them. We had a great tour guide, and we walked all around the downtown area and got some good history, as well as the spooky stuff. We were also filmed for a Chattanooga tourist thing, so if you get bored, go to the tourism board web site and see if anyone looks familiar. As usual, I didn't see any ghosts. I don't think it's fair that I'm the only one of the three of us that actually believes in ghosts, but I'm the only one who never encounters anything! I need to write a strongly worded letter to someone.
Saturday we had to get up before the sun so that we could drive from downtown Chattanooga to Delano, Tennessee to catch a sight seeing train! The Tennessee Valley Railroad has a museum train, that is to say, the train cars themselves are historic (from different places) and they offer something called the Copperhill Special, which is a long train ride with a 90 minute layover in Copperhill, TN! Steve and I found this particular activity online while looking for something to do, and since we all were already signed up with them for a Christmastime dinner train ride in December, we thought we'd try out the long ride as well.
We splurged and got in one of the "first class" observation cars, which is a section on top of a regular car with windows along the walls and ceiling. We would be able to see all the way around us as we made the 3 ish hour drive to Copperhill and back. I'm really very glad we had Anthony with us, not just because he is our very good friend and a complete delight to have around, but also because the train seats were grouped into pairs facing each other and he sat across from Steve and I. If you didn't know the people who sat in front of you, you had to make awkward small talk and pretend like you enjoyed the fact that they were staring directly into your face for the whole ride.
The scenery was absolutely gorgeous! The fall colors had really advanced there, and we also spent a great deal of the trip driving along the Hiawassee River. A tiny bit of info according to the website:
"The railroad over which Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum trains travel on its Hiwassee River Rail Adventures was formerly part of the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad’s Atlanta Division stretching between Etowah, Tennessee and Marietta, Georgia."
I kept dozing off on the first leg of the trip because it was so cold in the car, but other than that we had a great time. The only detail that marred our very fun trip were the people sitting across the aisle from us. I would think my annoyance was just latent misanthropy rearing it's ugly head, but both Steve and Anthony were also annoyed by them, so I know I'm not just being a bitch here. I don't remember their names, but they were two older teenagers, 18 or 19 years old, I think, and they were ENGAGED. We know they were engaged because they kept telling the people across from them they were ENGAGED. They'd never dated anyone else, EVER, and so they couldn't sympathize with people who feel heartbreak due to failed relationships because they'd never had one! That was said out loud. Dear God, they were insufferable. They bragged about how they were only teenagers, but they liked doing stuff like train rides, instead of things kids their own age liked.
Another aside: I can't be the only person who cannot stand people who feel like they are somehow remarkable because they don't like something other people like, right? Some people don't like coffee while lots of other people do. Some people don't like country music, or lipstick, or biscuits, but not liking a thing doesn't make you special. It just means you don't like something. Geez.
Anyway, I mean, it's fine for them to like to ride trains instead of party or whatever teenagers do, but it doesn't make them somehow special. I wish I could have told them that. Oy. I also wish they could have talked a bit softer so that they didn't overshadow an otherwise pleasant trip. I mean, they were having a good time, so maybe I shouldn't be so judgmental. They were teenagers (ENGAGED teenagers) after all and their frontal lobes still haven't fully developed, so maybe they don't know how to behave in public yet. They were both very taken with how awesome they believed they were and talked about it at length. I dunno, man. Anyway, the scenery was nice.
We stopped in Copperhill, TN, which is *surprise* a defunct, old copper mill town that now exists, at least partially, for tourists to visit on the two trains that travel there. It was cute and had the requisite shops and restaurants. We ate some top notch Cuban food at a place called The Rum Cake Lady Cuban Cafe for lunch, and spent the rest of the time wandering the shops. It was fun! I got to pet a dog that I suspect may have been a polar bear in disguise (it was a huge, white dog) and we looked into all the local color we could with he time we had. Believe it or not, I didn't buy anything. I kept thinking I would and then not. Maybe it was because of the earlier investment in the sweatshirt keeping me thrifty. Heehee. Pretty soon, though, it was time to get back on the train for the return trip.
Ok, so...when you buy your tickets, you don't get an assigned seat. You just pick a seat in whatever car you were booked on. Some people were on the river side of train on the drive out, and some were on the mountain side of the train. Some people ended up facing the front of the train on the way up, and some people were facing the back of the train, so the ride was technically backwards to them. What the conductors asked people to do on the way back, was swap to the seats on the other side of the train on the way back, so that everyone got a chance to see the scenery on each side of the train and also face the "Front" of the train. (They moved the engine from one end to the other because there wasn't a round about to turn around in.) So when we got back on the train, we took the seats that our annoying fellow passengers had been in on the way out. All of this was fine. We were where we were supposed to be. In a perfect world, everyone would have just swapped sides of the train from where they sat on the way up, but the world isn't perfect. Please bear with me as I try to explain this next bit.
I paid attention to where the people I could see were sitting on the way out (in case I had to draw a diagram for a police artist due to crimes) so I knew that some people didn't completely swap sides. One family, who didn't get to ride together on the way up because they had been late, decided to all sit together on the way back, taking up two facing seats. This kept another couple from switching to the side they were supposed to be on, so that couple took the seats across the aisle from us. Technically, they were on the correct side of the train, but in the "wrong" seats. So, guess who came back to the train car and got upset about it? You guessed it! It was our annoying friends from earlier! Well, actually, it was just the girl who got so upset and she made kind of a scene. Oh, there was no screaming or crying, but there was some loud "WELL, I just don't UNDERSTAND how this could happen! I mean, we were supposed to make an exact FLIP to the other side of the train! The nice ladies who sat in front of us on the way out don't get to face the front of the train now and that's not right! I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND how this could happen." She would not. Shut. Up. She was even embarrassing her fiancé, who tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn't be stopped. It was so fucking embarrassing and awkward, and she was looking around like her mini-tantrum was going to get us all to rise up and throw that family out of the seats they took. We didn't, of course. She even went as far as to turn around to that family and make pointed remarks about how they weren't where they were supposed to be. The mother of the family snapped at the girl and flat out lied and said she was sitting where she was supposed to (she wasn't) and even that didn't shut the girl up right away. She also made a huge, embarrassing production of going to the two women who had been displaced and loudly offering to give them their own seats - an offer that was refused. It was so cringy and stupid and awkward. I think the girl finally realized she was being an ass, because she finally sat down and shut up about it. Thank God.
At least the scenery was nice!
We got back late in the afternoon and then drove back to Chattanooga for dinner. You know what's hard to do? Find a place to eat dinner, when you don't want to wait a long time for a table, in Chattanooga on a Saturday night. It also helps when you aren't with picky people. Haha! I've completely given up on picking restaurants because I can't eat very much and it seems dumb for me to choose where everyone else can eat if I'm not going to really be able to enjoy any of it. We went from place to place until we finally decided that we could wait a bit longer than we really wanted to to get seated at a Pucketts Grocery restaurant. It took a while, and just before we got seated, a live band started.
Y'all...I have a confession to make. I know this will horrify some of you. I do not enjoy live music. Ok, well, sometimes I do. Like, if there is a party where there is dancing, I like it fine. If someone is playing off in the distance of a festival, I'm ok with it. However, if I'm in a restaurant with friends and I'd like to talk and visit with them, I loathe live music. I hate it so...much. It's...flames, on the side of my face... That kind of loathing. It's not even that the music was bad. It wasn't at all! The lady had a great voice and the band was good, but we were in a small space and they were really damn loud. We couldn't talk to each other without yelling, and it was too much sensory input in such a relatively small space. Also, I felt obligated to pretend I was enjoying it because the hostess sat us very close to the stage and the singer could see us. So I couldn't enjoy the company I was with or my food because a sledgehammer of sound was hitting me in the head the entire time I was at the restaurant. The only bright spot was that I was facing the bar where they had a TV on the Roku Bob Ross Channel, so I got to watch him paint three different paintings. So, that's my silver lining.
I don't meant to complain like my whole day was bad or anything, because it wasn't at all, but those are things that still stick out to me about it.
Sunday we slept in a while, checked out of the hotel, and went to the artsy section of town. At least I think that's what it's referred to. There is a hill where some shops, restaurants, and the Hunter Museum of Art is located. We wanted to eat at a particular Italian restaurant for lunch, so we sat at a nearby cafe to wait for it to open. This is where Anthony looked me in the eyes and told me he had lied to me the day before. I don't know about you, but that is a disconcerting thing to hear someone say.
On our way out of the hotel the day before, I had noticed that there was a police car literally right outside the hotel lobby. I thought that was weird, but the place had a lot of loud noises and loud cars during the night, so I thought it was security of some sort. I'd asked Anthony if that was the case, and he said he didn't know and we dropped it. However, Anthony, the liar-face, actually did know why the cop had been there. A woman on the floor right above us had been robbed at gunpoint right outside her room. He said that he had woken up that morning and gone to the lobby to buy a bottle of water, and cops had been swarming the hotel and the victim was in the lobby giving a statement. Steve and I had been getting ready to go and had the curtains drawn and the TV on, so we didn't see/hear all of that, and by the time we went downstairs almost all of the police had gone. Anthony had told Steve about it, but didn't want me to be scared to stay at the hotel, so they decided not to tell me until after we checked out. I thought that was nice! I also know it was smart, because yes, I would have wanted to leave, but at least he finally told me the truth! Heehee. Can I ever trust him again?!
Lunch at Tony's (clever name for an Italian restaurant, no?) was awesome, and afterwards we went to the Hunter Museum of American Art. I loved it! I don't think I've ever gone to a museum of nothing but American art, but it was fantastic! One painting in particular caught my eye:
I don't know who painted it, or what it is called, but I once kissed a boy and that kiss made me feel exactly like this painting looks. Maybe the kiss colors were different, but when I saw this painting, it threw me for a loop because I was immediately reminded of that kiss. And if you think spending time imagining kisses from my past is wrong now that I'm an old, married lady, I'll just have to ask for your forgiveness. I have had relatively few kisses in my life, and only a couple of them were museum worthy. This was one of them. Sigh. Wonder what that guy is up to these days...
We didn't want to stay in town too late, so went on to our next stop which was at the Chattanooga Whisky distillery, where Steve and Anthony wanted to do a tasting. Since I can't indulge, I went to the Hot Chocolatier that is next door. It's really not good for me to eat really sugary things like chocolates anymore because they make me nauseous if I have too much, but I don't care. I bought a huge box of assorted chocolates to stretch out over time. SUCK IT, BLOOD SUGAR!
After they were done, we walked over to The Frothy Monkey (I have a love/hate relationship with that name) and had brunch before heading home. It was a great trip and was a lot of fun! I hope we get to have a lot more adventures like that in the future.
