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PLUNK GENEALOGY -- see "Family" label on this blog and/or write Mike at mdplunk@hotmail.com

Friday, June 13, 2008

Chattanooga Trip Notes


We live in lovely Southaven, MS which is to Memphis (where we grew up) what your yard is across the picket fence to your neighbor’s yard. The suburbs simply spilled across the state line. So, on our way to Chattanooga last weekend to visit my brother, we took the scenic, southerly route to Chatt City in the far southeastern part of the state.

If you’re geography-challenged, Memphis is in the most southwesterly point of the state. Tennessee is such a horizontal state that it’s closer to drive from Memphis to Chicago than it is to drive from Memphis to the very northeastern point of the state. To scoot along the southern passage to Chattanooga, you spend most of your drive time in the very northern edges of Mississippi, Alabama and a tiny piece of Georgia before slipping north into the Chattanooga, TN city limits.

Therefore, we rolled into Tuscumbia, AL about lunchtime and found a treat. If you’re ever in the area, be sure to stop at the Old Rocking Chair Restaurant on Hwy. 72. It’s down-home cookin’ and we enjoyed the most flavorful vegetables we’ve had in ages. It was a delicious lunch topped off by warm blueberry cobbler resting under a scoop of melting ice cream.

While there, we learned that Tuscumbia is the birthplace of Helen Keller. Her childhood home, Ivy Green, is open for tours. We plan to make a day-trip back to Tuscumbia to visit Ivy Green and have lunch at the Old Rocking Chair. Helen Keller and her teacher/companion Irish Annie Sullivan were phenomenal women.

Roadside Items of Note --

National Birddog Museum near Michigan City, MS

Supersized yard statues including a full-size elephant

Donkey rides – Get’em here

Gene’s Bar & Grill with sign “New A/C” (That’ll bring back the customers.)

And heard on the radio –

There’s a town in SW France where the local cemetery has reached its capacity. To manage the problem, city leaders have passed a law declaring it illegal to die within the city limits without already owning a plot. Please tell me how this will be enforced. What can they do? Kill you? Have a dead body jail? Oh, those crazy Frenchmen.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Willow Goldentree said...

I'll be sure to stop and see that full-size elephant the next time we stop by. I'm still hoping for 2009!

Scarlett said...

We'll take you down to Clarksdale to Morgan Freeman's blues club.

Willow Goldentree said...

AAHH! Oh that would be wonderful! It was that blog post that got me hooked on you. *wink*