three stars for a beer
The flag of Tennessee incorporates three stars into its design, representing the state’s western plains, central rivers, and eastern mountains. My Uncle Dave lives in star #3, within easy reach from Atlanta. Time to rent a generically inexpensive sedan and cruise-control my way into a brand new state.
Because I’m insane, I got up at 4:25 AM, after going to bed sometime after 1:00. Meh. Sleep is for the flight home. Pilots, please disregard the previous sentence. The hotel staff had previously warned me I couldn’t check out at 5:00 due to a shift change- under an interstate overpass (is that a piece of broken window, or a crack needle?)
- past the all-night XXX Live Girl place (“Live Girl?” Just the one? She must be tired….)
- alongside rows of flashing cop car lights
The train whisked me efficiently to the airport, where I quickly found out how it is that E-Z Rent-a-Car can afford to charge such low rates. No regular shuttle. No phone number posted. No one at the desk. No sign at the desk explaining what to do. No functioning latch on the door to their back office, apparently. No matter. I used a little good ol’ Texagonian resourcefulness to find the number, call ‘em, and get a ride to the lot. Okay, look, E-Z’s facilities are remote, undiscoverable, and shabby, but once you actually get hold of a desk clerk, they’re super-nice. Ooh, and none of this “bring it back full or we’ll slit open your favorite teddy bear” crap. I picked the vehicle up on fumes, and I dropped it off on fumes, too.
Three relatively risk-free hours later, I was at Unca Dave’s breakfast table in Spring City, on the shores of 70-plus-mile-long Watts Bar Lake. I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for huge public engineering projects: dams, bridges, and crap like that. Here’s the story behind the lake. After the farmers living in what was once a valley were flooded out time and time again, FDR’s Tennessee Valley Authority dammed the river and flooded everyone out once and for all. The result is a source of recreation, transportation, and power (both hydro and nuclear).
Dave and Isabele filled me with yummy breakfast goodies, and then Dave and I went cruising around the lake. We spent nearly the duration of my 26-hour stay in Tennessee talking in the boat drinking Dr. Pepper, talking on the dock in hammocks drinking beer, and talking on the porch drinking wine. That’s probably the biggest solid block of time I’ve gotten with Dave, and we got to fill in a lot of blanks in family history and what’s going on in our lives.
As awesome as their hospitality is, and as cute as their pets are, it was all too soon time for me to head back to Atlanta for one final visit before my flight home….