Spring Break

A week ago we loaded up Big Whitey (our family friendly name for our giant, white, shoulda-been-sold-to-a-retirement-village mini-van) and headed south for Birmingham. Spring Break gives us a great opportunity to go hang out with family, get warm in the 70+ degree weather, and eat everything not bolted to the countertop at my aunt and uncle's house.

This year's visit was no different. We had a wonderful time seeing everyone down there, and I did, indeed, eat most of their food. When I wasn't eating their cupboards bare, they took us out for a couple of great meals. The first was at a place called Dale's Southern Grill. An upscaled version of the classic meat and three, this place provided us the opportunity to try fried pickles, fried green tomatoes, and various other Southern cuisines. I love eating at these types of places while in the South, since we don't have anything similar in central Indiana. How hard can it be to soak stuff in butter and breading, then fry it? I think perhaps someone needs to take the opportunity to open someplace like Dale's in Indianapolis. You could even make Lipitor one of the sides.

The other big meal out was at a place called Newk's. We all had various sandwiches and pizzas, although there wasn't enough evidence of excessive use of a deep fryer for my liking. The crazy part of the Newk's experience for me was that I looked up midway through my lunch and saw a couple of old friend's from high school waiting in line. Given that we were over 500 miles from where all of us went to school, it was crazy running into them in Birmingham. One of them had moved to Birmingham five years ago, and the other one was visiting him. It was great to spend a moment catching up with those guys, although the presence of kids, wives, gray hair, etc did remind me that high school is drifting into the past at a rapid pace. In any case, it was great to see Mr. Keene and Mr. Corbin.

After saying our goodbyes to Birmingham, we headed north to Cullman, Alabama, home of the Ave Maria Grotto. Now I've been seeing the signs on I-65 for this place since I was a kid, but I had no idea what it was. Who uses the word "grotto" with any regularity? "Grotto" always evoked an image of a man straining. I have no idea why. Erin found out about the Grotto on her own and insisted we stop. The basic story is that this monk named Joseph Zoettl created miniature versions of various sites from around the world. They've been collected and placed on a hillside behind a monastery in Cullman. Monks in Alabama. Who knew?

As it turns out, the Ave Maria Grotto is relatively fascinating if only for its scope. There is a whole hillside covered in little buildings and shrines made out of old shells, buttons, hunks of rock, broken dishes, etc. The buildings are literally made out of whatever Brother Zoettl had lying around. If you went to someone's house where they had a front porch stacked with various old appliances, bedding, dishes, and car parts and started having your kids make little buildings, you might end up with something similar. But the work is definitely fascinating, and it's interesting in that Zoettl made so many little buildings. It's definitely worth a stop if you're ever trying to break up the monotony that is northern Alabama.

Part of the Ava Maria Grotto

After departing Cullman, we headed northeast toward Scottsboro, Alabama. Most people's knowledge of Scottsboro ends with the Scottsboro Boys, but as it turns out, they now also have the distinction of being home to the Unclaimed Baggage Center. How this ended up in Scottsboro, Alabama -- hours from the nearest major airport -- is beyond me.

The Unclaimed Baggage Center is a store filled with all of the stuff left in bags which are collected up by the airlines. Seeing the amount of unclaimed baggage lying next to baggage carousels around the world, I expected this to be a cornucopia of untold riches, and to some degree, I was correct. On one floor, they had piles of clothing, shoes, and books to peruse. On another floor they had a wall of golf clubs, luggage, CDs, DVDs, and various other electronics. You could find a cell phone charger for any model from the past 10 years at this place. Somewhat disturbingly to me, they had piles of earbud headphones available as well. My mind replaced the image with a giant pile of flowing ear wax. Ick. There is some unclaimed baggage that should just be pitched, and this would include earbuds and underwear. This place sold both.

Initially I was excited to look through the piles of treasures, hopeful to load the back of Big Whitey with loot. But after I got started, I realized that the trip wasn't going to be as fruitful as hoped. For example, they had a handful of iPods. Most were one generation old, and most looked as though they'd ridden on the floor of the lavatory for the duration of a flight from Atlanta to Kyrgyzstan. Price? Approximately $50 off their original new price. Maybe 25% off.

Now if I'm going to load up my cart with treasures, I want to pay, oh, 10% of the original price, not 75%. Clothing appeared to be the same story. CDs were $6 with no artwork...the disc only. Since I heard several others griping about the prices in the store, apparently my reaction was common. Apparently the place is selling stuff, otherwise I can't imagine it would stay open for long. In the end though, it was a disappointment. I guess the only cheap way to get this stuff is the old fashioned way -- to grab it off the baggage claim carousel and run like mad.

After leaving Scottsboro, we headed for Chattanooga. We had planned to spend a couple of days in Chattanooga, and we had booked a room at the Holiday Inn an the Chattanooga Choo Choo complex. Priceline netted us the room for $45 per night, and the reviews online were good, therefore I was optimistic about our stay.

The lobby of the hotel was very nice, having been restored with a great deal of care. As I was checking in, a manager of some sort came over and chatted with me. He then had the attendent put us in a "new" room that had recently been renovated. He made a big deal of the room being new and in a nice building, so I was grateful.

As we drove to Building 3 at the back of the complex, I became aware that the Choo Choo complex has the feeling of a once great entertainment venue that is now merely staying open. Everything looked a little worn, and places taht looked as though they were begging for crowds of people with drink in hand, were strangely solemn. It was like being in an amusement park when it's closed off-season. We drove across two empty parking lots before finding our building, which had a handful of cars parked out front. The outside of the building was nothing special, but there was a nice pool with a jacuzzi in the middle...again, all empty. (It was in the 50's that day, so this was understandable.)

As we approached our room, we passed a room that was barking. Not one dog, but multiple dogs. This is never a good sign with me. I can appreciate people loving their pets, but I don't need to stay in a hotel with them. Luckily they were well away from our room, so it wasn't a problem, but it did leave me with a questionable feeling.

Our room turned out to be fairly nice. Like much of the rest of the complex, it was nothing spectacular. It had, indeed, been renovated. But there were still plenty of hints that it was an old building. The AC didn't work quite right. The tub dripped continuously. The bottom of the bathroom door was water damaged. We were paying $45 per night though, so it didn't bother us much. In China, they'd be telling me "5 Star...5 Star!"

Chattanooga turned out to be pleasant enough. It's obviously a city undergoing a downtown renaissance, with lots of new buildings and restaurants. We had a good, but not unique dinner at the Big River Grille & Brewing Works. Grant had the grilled cheese and left enough food on the floor to feed the previously mentioned Kyrgyzstan for a year. We had some teriffic barbecue at a place called Porker's. (This might be the only restaurant in America for which I could serve as a pin-up model.)

Our last night we had pizza at a local place called Lupi's. The food at Lupi's was great, but the long wait for our food to arrive didn't settle well with Grant. He spent the majority of the meal flinging various bits of bread and pizza all over downtown Chattanooga. At one point he scowled, grabbed his bib, gave it a yank, and through it on the floor all in one motion, as if to say, "I've had it with all of you."

Our favorite meal in Chattanooga was breakfast at a place called Aretha Frankenstein's. I read a great review of this little place online, so we hunted it down. (Plus the image of the "Queen of Soul" with bolts in her neck makes me giggle. Inexplicably, Aretha's website is titled "So Damn Happy." Sounds like somebody found the Zoloft jellybeans to me...)

The restaurant was situated in a neighborhood, away from the tourist center of the city. It featured only a few tables, but the food was great and the atmosphere was fun. There were lots of music posters everywhere featuring "my bands" so I enjoyed that. The only issue was that, again, the small kitchen meant a long wait for food. Grant serenaded everyone with various shrieks while we waited. He and Erin both fought colds for the entire trip, so he was in no mood to sit around waiting to eat. I do have to love a place that bills itself as featuring "breakfast, lunch and beer." Sounds like the food pyramid to me.

We hit several of the major tourist attractions in Chattanooga, including taking a ride on two trains. The first was an hour long ride provided by the Tennessee Valley Railroad. The other was a trip up Lookout Mountain on the inclined railway.

Mommy and Grant before boarding the train

The inclined railway chugs up Lookout Mountain at a 72.7% grade. It reminded me of the train up to Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong, although it was significantly steeper. Surprisingly, Erin had a much greater issue with this railway than I did. By the end of the trip, she had bent the steel on the rail in front of her. She was not pleased that we had purchased round trip tickets.

The view from the top was great, but it's one of those attractions that you do primarily to say that you've done it. I did find it fascinating that the gift shop featured multiple cookbooks featuring "Hillbilly" or "White Trash" cuisine. These items appear to sell hand in hand with magnetic rocks and fudge.

With a similar mindset, we headed over to Rock City. My knowledge of Rock City was only that the classic "See Rock City" ad was painted on barns all over the midwest, and you frequently see little bird feeders with the same message in our neck of the woods. As it turned out, this ended up being our favorite attraction on the trip. I carried Grant on my back for most of the visit, which meant that I had to pull him out of the carrier several times due to narrow squeezes through the rocks. (In reality, he was merely providing me an excuse. My aunt Karen's chocolate cake was the real culprit.) Erin and I both agreed that Rock City might make a good pit stop while on a drive to Florida in the future.

Daddy packing Grant around Rock City (one of Erin's fav attractions ever)

Upon leaving Chattanooga, we made our way across Signal Mountain to the town of Whitwell, Tennessee. Whitwell is the home of the Children's Holocaust Memorial, as featured in the film "Paperclips." Basically a group of middle school students started collecting paperclips as symbols of each life lost in the Holocaust. They have placed the paperclips inside an authentic German transport boxcar, along with many other related items. It's a touching memorial and was worth the stop.

We next proceeded to Fall Creek Falls state park in Tennessee. A colleague of mine had suggested that this was a very scenic park. We did enjoy the couple of waterfalls we visited, but Erin and Grant both felt pretty miserable, so we ended up heading home. My only comment on Fall Creek Falls was that Tennessee should take a lesson from Indiana on how to present a state park. We had to hunt for an information booth, where I received hand drawn maps of the trails. I never did get a good map of the roads within the park. It was definitely a little tricky finding our way around the hills without a good map.

Some of the Falls at Fall River Falls State Park

Our final stop was at Barren River State Park in Kentucky. We happened to be passing through the area and made a brief stop so that I could show Erin and Grant where I almost died as a 6th grader. My family had descended on Barren River for Thanksgiving. My cousin and I decided to take on one of the hills on our skateboards. The net result was that I spent Thanksgiving throwing up and watching the room spin. (Although truth be told, I probably would have spent the holiday throwing up anyway, due to an excessive intake of cobbler and pie.) I banged my head pretty good, and I was glad to see upon returning to Barren River that the hill was, indeed, a steep one. (I greatly feared that I would return to find a nice shallow grade that even a small child could negotiate on a skateboard. I was vindicated.)

Overall we had a very nice visit with our family, and we were impressed with Chattanooga. It's sort of a shame that Erin and Grant both felt pretty lousy by the end of the trip, but I think we found some places we'd like to visit again in the future. I can now say "I seen Rock City" with pride.

The End