Chattanooga - the good, the bad, the gorgeous

Chattanooga is our destination. We have been dying to visit it for aeons. For me, it has been because of that wonderful name and that wonderful Chattanooga Choo Choo song. For Bruce and Aunt Libby, it is because of its significance in the American Civil War. Aunt Libby has not been there since she was a child.

Usually we could not fit anyone in the back of the Rogue because of our massive 6-month road trip luggage. Beyond the suitcases with which we arrived in the US four months ago, we have accumulated a complex and bulky survival kit which now takes up the entire back seat. There are chiller bags and food bags, pillows, personal bedding for dodgy hotels, a special bag for quick-change shoes, my swim bag, coats, and more. We were able to leave this stuff at the farm and take off light and easy with Aunt Libby aboard for the side trip northwestwards to Tennessee.

We take the Dahlonega road which winds its way through the north Georgia Appalachian Mountains, past steadily occupied countryside: farmlets, smallholdings, humble houses with gardens and mown lawns, churches, churches, and Trump signs. There is a steady supply of gun shops, often very close to pawn shops. Sometimes they are gun and pawn shops. I suppose one can pawn the wife’s ring and buy a gun. Or pawn the gun and buy a ring? Hmm.

Church, church. There are so many churches. They seem to go with guns and pawn. And, right now, they go with pumpkins. Oh, my, did you ever see so many pumpkins? Are they a religious symbol? Harvest plenty, probably. And, like so many things American, they do it big.

There’s a very dead corn crop. Sorghum, not corn that one, says Aunt Libby. Farmstands selling Crazy Cajun boiled peanuts and biskits. Vote Republican. Vote Trump. Orchards. More farmstands. More boiled peanuts. A sign bids us to Have a Blessed Day. Another offers Appalachian Bail Bonds.

With a burst of giant, towering billboards, the road leads into an exceptionally unprepossessing little valley. We swing onto the Appalachian Foothills Parkway and past Ellijay, a darling town famous for marble, says Aunt Libby. It has a beautiful bronze bear sculpture. Fort Mountain State Park is ahead. And American flags, Trump signs and endless neatly mown expanses of lawn. Oh, the mown lawn phenomenon of the USA. I am becoming fixated by it. The equipment. The working hours. How does the country maintain this epic acreage of grand, green smoothness?

The landscape undulates and the road winds as we rise into the mountains. Trees are tall, leaning over the road, many of them festooned with the lacy, white bags created by tent caterpillars. Mown clearings reveal rustic wooden houses with swing seats on their porches and lots of odd collections of, er, stuff.

Then there are houses with porches as stark and neat as others are zany with possessions. Oh, look, a donkey. A Cherokee trading post does business beneath a brazen Confederate flag.

The road winds upwards, thick with trees. Our ears are popping. A sign touting a mountain overlook lures us to turn off. We bump rather perilously around a U shaped track but we’re still enclosed by trees. Heavens, the forest has overgrown the view.

The road summits and then makes a merciful descent and reveals a small valley community called Chatsworth.

Hungry and in need of a nice, clean rest room, we swing into McDonalds for Santa Fe grilled chicken salads. Rest room is nice. Salad is good. Then Aunt Libby spots the sign. It warns guests not to “loiter”. To sit in the restaurant, food must be purchased and consumed within 30 minutes. Aunt Libby is appalled. I’m a slow eater, she gasps anxiously. How long have we been? I snap the sign as we leave and, while we are making jokes about Maccers using chalk marks on customers to check their duration at the table, I ping the photo off in a Tweet to @mcdonalds commenting: Fast food for fast eaters. #inhospitable #EpicFail

Well, we have not gone a mile when @mcdonalds is back to me with an apologetic Tweet requesting further details to its website, please. I do this later in the day on the computer and, within hours, not only has the offensive sign been removed but apologies have been forthcoming from both HQ and the Chatsworth Maccers whose manager subsequently phones in person, explaining that they had had issue with rowdy teenagers upsetting customers by using the place as a hangout. I suggest they rephrase the sign. We are all blown away by Maccers’ efficient response.

Our next town is Dalton, settled in 1847. "Chenille bedspreads", says Aunt Libby casually. Huh?

It turns out that not only was chenille created in this town in the 1920s to become the most popular bedspread and dressing gown fabric in history but that it is still being made here. Chenille, tufted bedspreads. Chenille factories, no less. Well, I never.

Onwards to Chattanooga through Catoosa County on a big highway heavy with trucks and heavy transport. Huge billboards - Bacon and Hashtags, Vaccines Save Lives, See Rock City, I Brake for Fried Steak. We turn onto Battlefield Parkway. Sign to Chickamauga. Signs for Rock City and Ruby Falls, Burns Tobacconist. Acres of commerce.

Now it’s the Senator Albert Gore Highway and onwards through huge strips of commerce, everything from healthcare to ammunition stores, past the Battlefield Shopping Center and the Battlefield Cinemas, past thrift stores, gold and diamond stores, dentists, burger joints, waffle houses.

We swing off to the battlefield. This is the real purpose of our trip. Another Civil War pilgrimage. The Battle of Chickamauga took place here.

It was the second bloodiest battle of the Civil War and the last significant Southern victory.

After pushing the Confederates forces out of Chattanooga, the Union forces were attacked at Chickamauga. Gen. Rosecranz was the Union commander and Gen. Braxton Bragg the Confederate.

We head to the National Parks Information Centre where there is an excellent museum tracing the conflicts and their participants.

We have the place to ourselves, including the spacious cinema where we watch a documentary which gives one a clear idea of what happened where and when and to whom.

Thereafter we drive out onto the battlefields and reflect on it all.

Once again, there is that sense of intense melancholy. This was the

last gasp for the Confederates. They would never have a major victory again.

There was more than one conflict in this area. There were battles on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. We seek to have a look and take the winding and vertiginous road to the top of Lookout Mountain which also brags a waterfall and, for heaven’s sake, a fairy village. It is, in

fact, the Rock City which has been much advertised along the route. And, in private hands, it charges a whacking great entrance fee.

This important Civil War landmark belongs to the tickytack capitalists, not the nation.

Rather peeved at this, we choose not to pay.

We drive slowly down the hill and look at the crucial vantage point from the road.

Missionary Ridge is an even worse story if one is seeking heritage sites. It is now a suburb. We reflect at length on what happened to those boys on that hill, the fierce and brave ascent, the horrors of defeat and, indeed, the sour, murderous taste of

victory.

And into Chattanooga.

We stay in the grand old Read House Historic Inn. It’s a stately old 19th century hotel with a grand piano in the middle of a huge and impressive, high-ceilinged formal lobby.

We have adjacent rooms; big, airy, old-fashioned rooms. Very comfortable.

The swimming pool is sensational and housed in a huge, steamy room

with a whole wall devoted to waterfall. Needless to say, I do not leave Chattanooga without enjoying its splendour.

Chattanooga itself is not too splendid at all.

Booking a table in the hotel restaurant for dinner, we go out for a pre preprandial exploration on foot. It is still devilishly hot. It’s very, very quiet and all a bit down at heel.

There are odd itinerant types in the street, some of them out cold, a bit mad and scary.

We find a wee convenience store down the road. Oh, my. Talk about rough and dubious. It’s the place people go to cash their unemployment cheques. Bravely, we make some snack purchases for our rooms.

We chance upon a lovely fountain waterfalling down a curved retaining

wall into a large semi-circular pond. There are lots of shady trees and benches and we zero in for a pleasant sit in the shade - until the smell in the air assaults my olfactory sensitivities. Oh, my. What a nasty stench. Putrid water? The benches around the pond are occupied by very grimy homeless people and obviously they are not affected by the pong. Me? I just stop breathing and scuttle until I can gasp fresh air.

We meet more homeless people, ranting nutters, and beggars as we make our way back to the sanctuary of the hotel. Aaah. The lovely hotel. The dining room and bar are packed with people. It is well we booked. We enjoy wine and a pleasant unhurried dinner and a safe and quiet night.

After a glorious swim and a stunning breakfast, we head out into another hot day.

We have a special quest.

My friends Mia and Ella are stranded on the road after their car breaks down and are out of money. I am trying to wire them $200. But it is

Saturday and all the banks and appropriate offices seem to be shut in Chattanooga.

We finally Google up an open Western Union office and try to find it.

Suddenly Google Maps seems to be playing games. According to the map, we are on top of our target. But this is wasteland. We drive to and fro. It is not there. Huh? But Google

says it is. We drive into back alleys and parking lots, thinking that maybe it is tucked in the rear of a building. No Western Union. We park the car and take a walk in the heat to have a close look. Down the road, around the corner. Shut businesses. No Western Union. In fact, it is a fairly dodgy neighbourhood. I’m messaging with Mia all the time. She is waiting anxiously, perplexed at the delay our end. Of all things, the Western Union office turns out to be inside a Publix supermarket. We drive up and park. It is a fabulous supermarket with a festive autumnal celebration of pumpkins arrayed just inside the door. And there, beside the checkouts, of all things, a Western Union desk. A young man gives us forms to fill out and we begin the process. An hour later, Mia has the money and we are back on the road.

But not so easy.

Damn. Missing an exit on an American highway is a ticket to chaos. Bruce is a slick master of the American road system but even he can screw up. Who knew that Chattanooga’s suburb of Cleveland was so big? Isn’t it prosperous! Around and around we seem to go, Route 11, Route 60…where the hell is Route 74? GoogleMaps. Help!! And so she does, in her cute little Aussie accent. And suddenly we are on 74 with mountains on the horizon.

And it’s over the Ocoee River pondering as to how one should pronounce its name. There’s Corn Corner with a corn maze. Ah, yet something else one can do with America’s prodigous corn crops.

Here’s the Cherokee National Forest. Oh, this is just beautiful.

There’s a huge lake which just goes on and on and trucks are lumbering along carefully delivering loads of rafts and kayaks. A whitewater river rushes alongside the road. There are the rafter drop-off points, and the rafts and kayaks on the river.

Oh, this is stunning. Around bends the river surges and splashes and whirls, the road following beside it,

close enough to give us a glorious view. This route turns out to be one of the loveliest drives in the world. Or certainly in our experience of it. We are in seventh heaven, besotted by the rapturous beauty of these mountain valleys and the whooshing, sparkling clean waters which run through them. What a joy.

Frustratingly, the road is too winding and narrow to afford a photo of the river. Sigh.

We emerge in an open valley in which sits the settlement of Ducktown, Tennessee. It is not glamorous. There are the usual food outlets and we are hungry. We try a Hardee’s which serves hamburgers and only hamburgers. Laughing, we choose the only alternative on the menu, Thickburgers. They are stunning. Generous burgers with quality meat cooked to succulent perfection. Best hamburger I’ve had, I think.

Onwards through the valley and, what? The Burra Burra Creek? There are two Burra Burras? I thought Burra Burra was an Aboriginal name, but there it is in the Tennessee mountains. And then we cross North Potato Creek. They certainly go for offbeat names in these parts.

The road winds back into the mountains amid dense forests, pop out into North Carolina where farmstands are selling Amish butter, along the Appalachian Highway and invitations to wine tastings. No thanks. Down route 19. A trading post brags ammo, tacos, knives.

The mountains have softened now. They roll like the Adelaide hills. Caravans and mini storage line the road. Settlements and smallholdings. A huge music store sits alone on its own small hill. Oh, look, there’s Christian Plumbing. Hmm

Mountains loom large again as we head past sedate homes with their vast mown lawns on the outskirts of Blairsville, Georgia. A large lake shows that the area badly needs rain. The water level is low. Pontoons sit on shores of cracked mud.

Now the town of Young Harris. No relation. I’m old Harris these days. It brags Young Harris College, gun sales, a Baptist church and an agro-tourism trail. A roar of bikers pours through it. And then it is gone and we are heading into the Brasstown Valley gasping at another vast vista of rolling Appalachian mountains. The trees are tinting orange yellow, hinting early autumn.

Onwards towards Sautee we roll, past another lake, a marina, condos, the Cornhole Country Store, developments gouged into the mountain forests, another lake complete with a white sand beach and sunshade umbrellas. An odd sight. Hiawassee is a busy town full of businesses clamouring for attention. Also full of Trump signs.

Another turn and it’s pastures and barns, hay fields and then a smooth new road which we really appreciate. We’re passing through high mountains again. The trees around us seem to reach into the sky.

And then it’s winding down again and into a valley, along the side of the Chattahoochee River with its tubing attractions, through the Alpine village of Helen with its little horse carriages and fudge shops, past the Cherokee burial m ound, the Scarlett O’Hara museum, the Old Sautee Store….and...

….we are back…sitting on the farm house screened porch watching hummingbirds again.