Christmas in Chattanooga

It seems that everytime we go downtown and see something worth photographing, I don't have my camera on me. So, here is a photo of Chattanooga in the summertime taken off a web-site.

I show this picture so when I tell you about Christmas arriving in Chattanooga you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about.

On Friday evening, Chattanooga celebrated the beginning of Chrsitmas in a big way. People started gathering in late afternoon. Many ate dinner at one of the downtown restaurants, sitting inside or out. It was a lovely evening. As it grew dark, people headed for the riverfront. The festivites started with a parade of boats (I think I counted 35 of them). They were decked out in lights from bow to stern. While they paraded on the river, a bell choir played carol after carol. There was also a live nativity scene, sponsored by a local church on city property! That surprised us. There were food vendors and such too.

Then Santa arrived, along with some kids and dancers also decked out for the holidays. There was some song and dance. Did you know that Santa has an excellent singing voice!?! ;-) But, then Santa did something amazing. He paused in the middle of all the song and dance and took the opportunity to remind the crowd of the real meaning of Christmas and drew attention to the nativity. Imagine that. I didn't know any city in the USA had the fortitude to put Christ in Christmas.

They finished the evening with a grand fireworks display over the river. It was spectacular. I sure do wish I had my camera with me.

New Address

Believe it or not, we now have a house in escrow. Here's a photo. It was built around 1950 and is one-bedroom, one bath with a small kitchen. Actually, we haven't even seen the inside of it yet because it's being rented. We'll continue to rent it out because we're going to live in...


The big house that came with it. Here's a photo of it.

This one was solidly built about 1992 and has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. The kitchen has solid oak cabinets. It has a 1600 sq ft basement/garage below. Larry thinks he could squeeze six or seven Saturns in there. Ha! While I will admit it's big, he'll have to prove that one to me. We got both of these on a huge lot for $155K.

Oh yeah, and in addition to a couple of maples, it has 5 Dogwood trees on the lot! Flowers in the Spring, red leaves in the Fall. So cool. (Did you know you can click on the photos to get a larger version?)

For one final photo, here's a view toward the Southwest. This is one of those parts of the country where fences don't exist between neighbors but it doesn't seem odd to us at all. We're on a corner so there is only one neighbor to one side, separated by our driveway (the one you see here) and two behind us which wouldn't be obscured by a fence anyway because we're higher than them on a hill.

I'll post more photos in our online photo album over the week-end so you can check there in a day or two (or three).

We plan on having a guest room, so y'all come see us now, ya hear?

Florida highlights

If we don't leave Florida later today then we'll be leaving early in the morning. I have a job interview in Chattanooga Tuesday afternoon. It's for a HR/Payroll Manager for a natural foods grocery store.

Before we go, I'd like to share a couple things. First, unique to Florida alone (for us) is the unusual wildlife. There are several of these cranes making themselves at home in the RV park. They walk around like they own the place. It may be difficult to tell in the photo but they're about 4 feet tall.

On Friday we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom and Epcot Center. The safari ride is one of my favorite things because every ride is different. Five years ago a Rhino walked in front of our truck. This time, giraffes did the same thing. However, the ostriches made even more of a scene. They held up our truck for about 15 minutes while they pecked at it's trimmings. They were probably within touching distance of the people on the first row. We were on about the fourth row. Seeing an ostrich up close like this was pretty neat.

Then, in Epcot I saw a new egg art. Well, the art itself is about 2000 years old, but it was new to me. It originates in Germany. For those of you who know about the Ukrainian Egg Art that I've done, it's similar in that the design starts with a pencil drawing. The artist then paints on the egg using water colors. The end result is just as amazing with as much, or as little, detail as Pysanky (Ukrainian).

Saturday we went to one of Disney's water parks called Typhoon Lagoon. We had a ball! My camera stayed home so I can't share any photos but I'll try to share some highlights. First, there is the wave pool which is a lot of fun. Secondly we snorkeled (briefly) in a tank with lots of colorful fish, small sharks and some stingray. So, this is the second time I have swum with sharks! I was exiting a very large stingray was on the platform in front of me. Not to worry though, their barbs were removed.

Then, of course, there were water slides. I declined to do the really steep fast one but the others were all great. Finally, there was the creek filled with inner tubes. When our feet would start to get sore from walking we'd float on the creek for a while. Sometimes we just relaxed but most of the time we'd play bumper tubes or try to push each other into the different streams of water designed to get you good and wet.

The temperature was just right for playing all day. It started getting cool about closing time so it was perfect.

It may have to wait until we get to Chattanooga but I'll post more photos in our online photo album. Feel free to check it out. http://travelingturtles.myphotoalbum.com/

Chattanooga for keeps

The Traveling Turtles are taking a big turn in the road. We've decided to settle down again. Are you surprised?

This has been brewing for a while. Maybe you've been able to tell. As I look back at our blog it's not a total surprise because I've talked about housing in Sioux Falls, Evansville, Nashville, and who knows where else. The idea of the "best place to live" has been a topic of many conversations. It still seems odd to us because we were so enthusiastic about traveling again. However, now that we've done Autumn in New England and visited the sites in the Eastern Time Zone that we missed last time, we feel as if we've completed the trip. This surprises even us!

As you know, we checked out Chattanooga a couple times in the last few weeks and we like what we see. The size is nice: about 175K in the city but serving about 500K in the area. The community has revitalized the downtown area, complete with a riverwalk. They have 4 seasons but the winters are not bitterly cold like up North. Housing is affordable, especially compared to what we're used to seeing. There would be family on both sides - a cousin in Atlanta area and a brother in Memphis. Oh! and more cousins in Virginia. In fact, that's another benefit. Chattanooga is within a day's drive of 75% of the US population. There are so many places to enjoy on the week-ends. We're excited about making this move.

We're going to visit Disney this week-end and then end that way next week. We'll continue to live in the RV while we get to know the area and eventually get into some housing.

Please continue to check the blog as I'll continue to update it.

Hello Again!!

It's been an interesting trip from North Carolina to Florida. I'd love to share a bunch of photos here but the blog is slow to load. I'll include a couple here but please feel free to check out our photo album. I'll load some photos before I go to bed tonight and let them download while we're sleeping.

When we left North Carolina we drove to Brunswick, GA. We stopped in Savannah on the way. Larry noticed that the distressed stucco with brick exposed on this building in Savannah was authentic.

Here's where our path takes a turn. We left the rig in Brunswick and took the car back North and then East to Knoxville. Larry and I have been talking alot about jobs and our plans. Since Accountemps didn't serve me so well in New England, we're thinking we may have to settle somewhere in order for me to work. We were thinking about Knoxville so decided to check it out. The drive there, through the mountains in Western Carolinas, was beautiful. The autumn colors were spectacular - better than New England (believe it or not). This photo is from Georgia but it's indicative of the whole area.

Knoxville was nice but it wasn't what we expected. Larry had been there before but I hadn't. We decided to keep going and check out Chattanooga. We had just been through there a couple weeks before and liked what we saw. Again, the drive was beautiful. It turns out we like Chattanooga enough to think about settling there.

In the meantime, we stayed with our original plan and have come all the way to Florida. First though, I spent some time with my cousin and her family in Georgia while Larry went to St Louis for work. We had a great visit. Here are (from left to right) Casey, Linda, Joel (me) and Jamie. Let's not forget Max, the toy Schnauzer. :-) They have 3 more kids who are living in other parts of the country.

So, we arrived in Orlando yesterday and I started looking for a job right away. It may be a temp job or even a permanent job. Depending upon what happens, we may live in FL for a while (even a year or two) or maybe not. The next week to month will have a great influence on our plans.

So, stay tuned for more news. And check out our photo album: http://travelingturtles.myphotoalbum.com/