Chatanooga to Highlands

On the last day of our journey, I go outside to do my morning Tai Chi, and find myself gazing at a little mountain behind the hotel upon which a cloud had nestled overnight, just like it does in our part of the world, and it makes me a little homesick.  And then I run out of ink in my pen for taking notes in my journal!  I have run out of everything, including the last of the Holy Granola from San Simeon 4000 miles away.

Lookout Mountain is a revelation, a beautiful place, and I regret that we did not make a special trip here years ago to walk on these trails, through Fat Man's Narrow, up to Lover's Leap, through narrow passages, over gracefully arching rock bridges and across swinging bridges.

I have indeed run out of everything, because at the top of Lookout Mountain, a message comes up on my phone that I have no more storage and can take no more photos.  So I reluctantly begin deleting some of them, including a great shot of a soaring hawk that keeps circling high above us where we sit down for lunch at Cafe 7.   There we sit and enjoy the view of seven states, as advertised (although in the haze of the morning I admit that I could not see them all).

I know we are back in the South, in Tennessee, when our waitress tells us her name is Scarlett, and she grew up in Chattanooga.  "That river used to be polluted!" she said.  "But now it is beautiful."  And we have the quintessential gourmet foods of the South:  not tacos or pasties or buffalo quesadillas, but catfish, fried green tomatoes, pimento cheese, and succotash.

I have always enjoyed the drive back to Highlands along the Ocoee River (which we have made many times after marathons), site of the 1996 Olympics.

It is hard to believe that they were held exactly twenty years ago! ( I am looking forward to watching this year's contests when we return.)  Today the river is packed with white-water enthusiasts as it never is in December when we have always driven this road.

And so the roads become more and more familiar as we near Highlands - Murphy, and then Franklin, and then as evening approaches a lovely little town unlike any we have seen on our journey.

I try to take a photo of Main Street as we drive down it, but by now I have definitely used up all my photo storage.  But there it is, peaceful, with a little bit of August haze on the mountains.  It is good to be back home again!

And as if a book-end for our long 9000-mile journey, we pull in the driveway in heavy rainfall, dash down the walk in the kitchen, turn on the light switch, and . . . nothing.  Our power has been out since 11:00 a.m., we later discover, and will not come on until 1:00 a.m.  As it was the night before we left!

But perhaps it was meant to be.  Instead of busying ourselves with unpacking and doing laundry and sorting through our mail, which we have stopped to pick up at the Post Office, we sit at our little bistro table on the back porch in the waning light, straining to read the newspapers and find out all that has happened in our little town in our absence, enjoying a cool glass of Pinot Grigio.  And thinking back over the last 30 days and our epic journey across America in our little Mini.