Day 24 – The Chattanooga Reveal (Ken Fulfills A Bucket List Item)

We left Athens, Tennessee around 9:30 a.m. today for the hour ride to Chattanooga.   It was raining when we left, but we had an easy ride and got to Chattanooga around 10:30 a.m.

Some of you may know this already, but when I met Ken in 1975, he was working as a manager at a AAA towing facility in Hayward.  A few years after we got married, we started our own towing company called “Quality Towing”.   We had five trucks and several employees.  We were very busy because we had many police contracts in the San Francisco/Bay Area.  Ken drove our big rig truck and I was the dispatcher.

I give you this background to explain why we wanted to go to Chattanooga, Tennessee today……because that is the home of the International Towing & Recovery Museum !

The museum is not large, but it held around 20 tow trucks and lots of towing/recovery memorabilia.   Ken was definitely in his element as he recounted his experiences using some of the same type of equipment that was on display in the museum.  There was a cute little “mini” tow truck there and I had fun capturing Ken behind the wheel.

Outside of the museum was a statue and a “Wall of Rememberance” for those tow truck drivers who were killed while doing their job.   It was very respectfully done and you could tell it meant a lot to Ken that tow truck drivers were given this recognition.  He knew of two tow truck drivers in the Bay Area who had been struck and killed on the highway while performing their duties.

Statue at the Wall of Remembrance

After spending a couple of hours at the museum, it was time to take off for Nashville.  The rain had subsided by the time we left the museum, and we enjoyed a trouble free ride from Chattanooga to Nashville.  We arrived at the KOA  around 3:30 pm, so we had plenty of time this evening to explore all that Nashville has to offer.

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  KOA campground

Unfortunately, Ken did not sleep at all well last night, so he really didn’t feel much like going out.   He insisted Dick and I go see the area, so we took a shuttle bus from the RV Park for the 30 minute ride to downtown Nashville.

Nashville Felt Like New Orleans

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but downtown Nashville was reminisent of a trip I took to New Orleans years ago.   There were bar trollys everywhere (mobile bars that people sit on and peddle as they go down the street), mules pulling carriages and lots and lots of people !   On every block there were several honky tonk joints, and out of all of them you could hear live music being played.

We stopped at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville for a drink and to do a little people watching.  There were a couple of performers in the club singing and they were very good.

Right across the street from us was a three story honky tonk and there were so many people hanging out on the balconies…drinking and dancing.   We kept thinking someone was going to tumble down onto the street from the balcony!

We walked around the area for awhile…..and went by the original Ryman Theater and The Ernest Tubbs Record Studio…the two locations I was most familiar with.

There is a small stage in the back of the Ernest Tubb record company and there are shows there on occasion.   A sign indicated that Loretta Lynn had been there a couple of weeks ago for a TV interview.

After spending a couple of hours Downtown,we walked back to the location where the shuttle bus would pick us up.

We got there a tad early, so were able to check out a couple of nearby places.  The below picture is the inside of the BB King jazz  room.

Once back home, we barbecued rib eye steaks and enjoyed dinner.  Ken was feeling a little better, so we regaled him with our downtown adventures in Nashville.

For some reason, he said he was glad he missed it!