The Husband has a seminar to attend in Chattanooga. When he registered for this event a long time ago and asked if I wanted to go, too, I said, "Yes!" These seminars usually have a fun activity or two - a big party with a band, or some excursion - and I planned on driving to Georgia to visit a friend after the fun stuff, while The Husband was in the seminar.
As it turned out, the thing isn't lasting as long as I thought, so the trip to Georgia came off the agenda. Still, I thought I might have some fun on my one "solo day" here in Chattanooga.
We arrived Tuesday evening. The hotel lobby was fairly well draped in black plastic sheeting. Looked like repair work going on, or maybe just remodeling. In any case, it was noisy - electric drills and cutters buzzing, workers and guests yelling at one another over the noise.
At dinnertime, we walked up the street to a hamburger joint. As we waited to order, I spied some good-looking onion rings on nearby tables, and I ordered some for myself. They were as delicious as they looked, and I ate every one of them. Huge mistake. My digestive system is unaccustomed to deep-fried food. I spent a great deal of the night in the bathroom.
Yesterday morning, we took breakfast at the hotel dining room. Just as we were about to finish our meal, lights started flashing over the exits, and soon a voice came over the intercom and instructed everyone to leave the building - "Do not use the elevators." As the voice was speaking, a fire truck drove up to the hotel. Then another fire truck. We hurried to pay our bill. The hotel staff did not seem too panicked. The cashier told us that probably someone was smoking in a room. I was grateful that we were on the second floor instead of in our room on the 10th floor.
The official seminar festivities weren't scheduled to start until early evening, so we had a little time to burn in the morning. After an hour or so of, "What do you want to do?" - "I don't know. What do you want to do?" - I booked us for an hour-long train ride. The booking site had a link to "Get Directions." According to the map, it was supposed to be a 20-minute drive. I saved the directions in my phone's map app, and we hit the road. We left the hotel far earlier than was necessary, thinking we'd locate the train depot, then do a little sight-seeing until it was time to board. Good thing we started early.
The map app took us on a winding trip to the buttcrack of nowhere - down a narrow road to a small metal shop building enclosed by a chain-link fence. No train - nor even train tracks - in sight. Fortunately, there was a worker in a truck in the driveway. He knew the street address of the depot where we were to catch the train. Evidently, he gives it out quite often.
At the train depot, I told the lady at the ticket window about the mis-guidance on the map app. She knew. "Believe me, we've tried!" she said, when I suggested they should get the ticket app to fix it.
The train ride was okay. I'd thought it might be a scenic ride, but it wasn't; it was a lesson about train history. The train rolled slowly along tree-shaded tracks while one of the conductors told stories about the rail and the cars. At the end of the line, the engine un-hitched from the cars and drove onto a turn-table, which pivoted it around to pull the cars back to the depot. While this was happening, the conductor gave us a tour of the shop where old engines and cars are repaired and revamped for use. After the shop tour, we all got back on the train and went back to the depot. The whole thing took about an hour, start to finish.
The seminar's welcome festivities were here at the hotel, and across the street at the convention center. There was complimentary liquor, a buffet-style dinner, and a pretty good band that played 80s and 90s music.
I could not believe they were doing a buffet dinner in the midst of the covid surge. Thankfully, we were seated at the same table as one of the seminar "honorees," and they sent our table to the buffet first. Dinner was typical "event" food - roast beef or pork, mashed potatoes, salad - but we were glad to get it, for we hadn't eaten since breakfast. And I was glad that it was plain food, for my gut was still grumbling about the onion rings.
Despite the bland food, my tummy complained for much of the night.
I had hoped to do some exploring today, but I'm a little bit reluctant to get out in traffic. The streets in Chattanooga seem unusually narrow. And I'm no longer accustomed to driving in city traffic. And it's raining.
Maybe I should just curl up with a book, eh?
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