2024 Saturday, September 7, Train Trip from Chattanooga to Chickamauga, Ga

Train 5000 from Chattanooga, TN, to Chickamauga, Ga

Saturday, we had to be in Scottsboro by 7AM, about a 2-hour drive. We loaded onto the bus. I think there were 30 of us, including the driver. We rode to Chattanooga to ride the train to the Civil War battle town of Chickamauga, GA. We visited the Gordon-Lee Mansion and walked among the Jeep Festival.

Wilder Brigade Monument 

We stopped at the Wilder Brigade Tower in the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.

There are 136 spiral stairs to the top if you dare.

Lunch was served as if we were fine dining.

It was a beautiful day traveling and making new friends.

It was around 8 PM when we arrived home Saturday night.

Lunch on the train

bowl of fruit cocktail, potato salad, cole slaw, tomato, lettuce, baked turkey, and Swiss cheese on a croissant. For dessert, we had chocolate cake or red velvet Cake.

Chocolate Cake 

Red Velvet Cake 

Train we rode and the Visitor Center/Depot in Chickamauga 

We stopped at Chick-fil-A in Athens for dinner.

I ordered a kid's chicken nugget meal with waffle fries and Ice cream, and my hubby ordered a Number 1.

2023 Sep 22, James D. Vaughn, Old Jail Museums and David Crockett's Log Cabin Lawrenceburg, TN

 Today, we rode to Lawrenceburg.

Our granddaughter didn't have school today and wanted to go to a museum. 

Just this year she has gotten interested in museums so we are always looking for a new one to visit.

Today, we went to the James David Vaughn Museum located at the 

Visitor Center 31 Public Square Lawrenceburg, TN 38464. 

Opened Monday-Friday 9:30-11AM and 1-3PM  call to get an appointment (931)762-8991 

A Piano, Microphone and Worship and Service Hymns of James D. Vaughn 

Sheets of his music: Gospel Chime, Working on the Road, Hills of Tennessee, Jesus Forgives and Forgets, I Believe in the Lord, Jesus is All I Need, Talk it Over with Jesus, Love Lifted Me, My Loved One sare waiting on me, Heaven Must be my new home, and O what a blessing he is to me.

Vaughn School of Music 

David Crocket Log Cabin (Closed for Repairs)

Old Jail Museum Waterloo St Lawrenceburg, Tn 38464
Opened only 
Tuesday-Friday 10-2PM 
Please call (931-212-1944) 

Upstairs are the jail cells, the Sheriff's office, and the home. You can walk inside the cells that once housed prisoners, which Ave didn't like She would not go inside the prison cell blocks.

News Paper Article about Sheriff Greg O'Rear killed by a prisoner. 

Inside the cell with prisoners

The museum had artifacts about people, places, Military Uniforms, School Uniforms, cameras of every shape and size, famous people from Lawrence County, Old Apple Computers, bicycles, quilts, etc. You just have to come to see for yourself. 

Our historian could go on all day and never cover everything in this build. It is loaded with information about Lawrenceburg. Well worth a visit.

A.L. Cantrell Lawrence Co Confederate Veteran 
I lived to be 112 years old 
Bet he had some stories to tell!

People from Lawrenceburg went on to be famous or important in different fields.

Senior Texas Ranger Captain Bruce Casteel (also Texas Rangers Hall of Fame Waco, Texas) 

David Crockett 1786-1836 King of the Wild Frontier  

James David Vaughn 1864-1941Gospel Song Writer  

Silas Mercer Beasley 1834-1914 Early Settler 

Rollie D. Beckham (1879-1978)

Fred Dalton Thompson 1942-2015 Actor, politician, attorney, lobbyist, columnist, and radio personality

J.H. Stribling (1863-1951)Church leader, entrepreneur, financier 

2023 July 7, Day trip to Savannah and Shiloh, Tennessee

 We started our day at the Tennessee River Museum in Savannah. 

A true air-breathing MOSASAUR

The City of Florence, a St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company boat, was named to honor the fast-growing city at the foot of Muscle Shoals. Upbound near Coffee Landing on February 8, 1913, she got out of control and was lying cross-stream when the towboat Tomahawk, down-bound and loaded with crossties, rammed and sunk her. One member of the crew and a young passenger lost their lives in the accident.

The picture below is the ship of 2 girls.

12-year-old Ruth Tarbet (left) was one of two casualties of the sinking ship. The daughter of a prominent Saltillo merchant, Ruth, and her daughter had boarded the doomed steamer for the short trip to visit relatives in Savannah.

We saw this picture in the Tennessee River Museum in Savannah.

US GRANT HDGS

We stopped to get pictures of the cannons and cannon balls before crossing the Tennessee River and heading to Shiloh. 

HAGY'S CATFISH HOTEL 

We ate fried catfish, coleslaw, hush puppies, and grilled veggies. Ava ate fried chicken fingers and fries. She said that was the best chicken fingers she ever ate and she told our waitress she rated the food at 100. She ate every bite. We took several pictures at the restaurant and near the Tennessee River. 

Garfield's Cabin 

The History of Garfield 
Garfield's Cabin 
If the walls of the cabin could talk, they would reveal the intriguing story of an extraordinary yet wonderful resident for many years, Garfield Luster.
The story begins on a hot summer day around 1920 when Garfield is given a ride by Mr. Narvin Hagy, a local traveling salesman.
During this time, Garfield worked for a family that had mistreated him for many years. He decided to flee from this harsh environment, at which time he met Mr. Norvin Hagy on an old gravel road. 
Mr. Hagy lived on a large farm, bonding the Shiloh National Military. His parents were Frank and Mary Hagy. Frank, who had grown up on the farm, was a young boy of 13 when the "Battle of Shiloh" took place around their home in April 1862.
Garfield eventually planted his roots with the Hagy family and, over the years, developed a close bond with them.
During the many decades he lived with the Hagy family, he helped care for four generations.

He not only cooked but also laundered and did other basic chores around the house, but also helped raise the youngsters... a duty he enjoyed the most. He nurtured the young family of Norvin and Dorothy Hagy, showering upon them devotion and care as if they were his own children. 
But Garfield did more than comfort, console, and, when necessary, scold the children, he could also entertain them as well. 

Many years before the fables of Uncle Remas were popularized by Hollywood, Garfield charmed the young Hagys with his folktales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. Another of his talents was acting. He could dress up as a comical character called "Aunt Emiley" and play her so convincingly that the c children momentarily would forget that they were watching Garfield in disguise.


One of Garfield's favorite stories was his explanation of how he got his name. Garfield always chuckled when he told how Garfield was bestowed upon him following the assassination of President Garfield.

Like his namesake, Garfield had experienced hard times: he refused to dwell on the past, only occasionally recalling his unhappy childhood. Garfield was born and raised in the small rural community of Red Bay in North Alabama, probably the son of a former slave.
Garfield was deprived of a formal education, although he was highly intelligent and could have done well in school if he had been given the opportunity.

Even though he was not articulate, his speech was peppered with homespun, folksy southern colloquialism, slow as molasses, dead as a doornail, hot a blue blazes, sharp as a tack, strong as an ox, to quote a few.

King Kong 911 1h
Garfield lived a long and happy life in Shiloh with the Hagy family.
However, he suffered much bereavement at the death of Norvin Hagy in 1960, never fully recovering from the loss of a man who had provided a sanctuary for the greater part of his life. 

Shortly after Mr. Hagy died in 1961, Garfield was diagnosed with prostate cancer. During the last weeks of his life, Norvin Hagy Jr and his wife Teke took Garfield home for a final visit with his relatives, who, at the time, were living in Mississippi.
After his funeral at his church, Saint Rest in Guys, Tennessee, attended by the Hagy Family, Garfield was laid to rest nearby in a small grove of trees. 
The Hagys will always remember Garfield with much love and gratitude as a person who embraced and enriched their lives.

By: the Hagy Family
Dr Don Hagy/Dean Hagy

Next, we stopped at Shiloh Battle Field. The Museum was closed for repairs, but you could watch a film. We did not stay to watch the movie. We heard gunfire and went to check it out.  

Young Park Ranger giving a demonstration. 

There was a young man (Park Ranger)doing a reenactment and was finishing up when we arrived. But he did show Ave the bullet and let her feel the weight of the gun ( I think he said it weighed 10 lbs.) When we stopped at the Tennessee River Museum, there was a gun ball behind glass that you could put your hand through to see if you could pick it up with one hand that weighed 7 lbs. So, she compared the two. 

Park Ranger talking to Ava about being a nurse in the Civil War

We stopped at the Book Museum, where we bought her a book about not being a Nurse in the Civil War. We walked to the National Cemetery, where a young woman was giving a talk about the battles between the North and South at Pittsburg Landing.

Ava had read several pages about the Civil War in her book and was asking several questions about the War.

The Park Ranger finished her talk, but Ava kept asking her questions. It began to sprinkle, so we hurried back to the car. We rode around the park, stopping for a few pictures. 

Shiloh Log Church 

We stopped at the old log cabin church to take a few pictures.

We started for home, and the sky got darker and darker, and it began to rain. The closer we got to Alabama, the harder it rained.

Our last stop was at Wendy's for a Strawberry Frosty. That's what Ava wanted, and I had never tried one. We all ordered a Strawberry Frosty, and it was good. Ava and I played a game all the way home in our Imaginary worlds.

2021 April 24, Touring the Antebellum Home of Presbyterian Minister Robert Donnell Athens, Alabama with Tour guide Alice Tiller

Pleasant Hill 

Home of Rev. Robert Donnell (1784-1855) 

Built abt. 1849 by Rev. Robert Donnell, a native of North Carolina, and his second wife, Clara Lindley Donnell. 

He was greatly inspired by the Great Spiritual Revival of 1800 and became a Presbyterian circuit rider, one of the "flaming fires," so-called because of their spiritual intensity. Donnell held the first camp meeting in the settlement that became Huntsville, started new churches in North Alabama and Tennessee, and retired as minister of the Athens Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 

For his service and dedication, the North Alabama Presbytery was named in his honor. After the death of Rev. Donnell in 1855, this house and surrounding acreage passed to his son, James Webb Smith Donnell. J.W.S. Donnell and his family lived here during the Civil War, even though he was wanted by the Union Army for aiding the Confederacy. 

In 1862, during the sacking of Athens, Federal troops camped on the house grounds, looted, and damaged the house through bankruptcy after the war. 

It served as a boarding school for boys for a time and later as the home of Athens School Superintendent Julian Newman and his family. 

 In the 1970s, a campaign to save and restore the house was initiated by local historians and authors Christine W. Edwards and Faye A. Axford. Local citizens, businesses, and Donnell's descendants contributed to the restoration of this historical landmark.

Pleasant Hill Historical Marker

Pleasant Hill Historic Marker

Donnell House

The Donnell House is located at 601 South Clinton Street. 

It hosts events throughout the year, such as a Christmas tree presentation during the holiday season. Because it is located on the campus of the Athens Middle School, students have conducted school projects, including interpretive videos that are centered around the history of the house. 

April is the month to showcase the local history in counties in Alabama by featuring walking tours every Saturday in April. I chose the *Robert Donnell House & Museum to tour it was the only walking tour that I had not attended. 

 *Tour options were: *Beaty Historic District *Downtown Athens Historic District *Athens City Cemetery *Athens State University *Houston Historic District All the above are excellent tours, and many tour guides dress in the period of the tour. 

 Unfortunately, the Governor George S. Houston Library and Museum were not offered this year. 

 The Donnell House and Museum were hoasting a wedding later that day, and food was being prepared and finger foods placed on the table.

Wedding Buffett

What caught my eye was the Armadillo pink cake. Hanging in the parlor were pictures of Rev Donnell and his two wives. 

Two staircases were leading to the upper level, which showcased the history of the home and its occupants. 

 Outside was an 1830s log cabin donated by Don and Ed Horton, sons of Judge James Horton, and nearby was an herb garden. 

 I had driven past the Donnell House Museum many times but never noticed it until the tour because it was located in the Athens School system.

🚗2018 July 31, Adventures trails that lead to Pulaski, Tennessee

Hubby and I rode north along the 101 highway and took Highway 64 east in Lexington. 

We turned left onto Alabama County Road 89, which took us into Tennessee. 

In Tennessee, we followed County Road 98, also called Rabbit Trail Road.

We turned left at Bonnertown Deli, Gas Station, and Lottery Store onto Appleton Road. 

Bonnertown Deli, Gas Station, and Lottery Store

We stopped at the Big Red Store (closed except for 4 days a year) to take pictures. 

This is where we saw a historic marker telling about the Confederate leader Forrest and his troops that camped along Sugar Creek in Giles County, preparing for a Federal attack. 

We continued on Appleton Road, which was dead-ended at Sugar Creek. 

We took Blooming Grove Road, a narrow, two-lane, rough, snake road for several miles. Along the way, we passed the Appleton Church of Christ, goats, turkeys, horses, cows, and a flock of vultures. 

Once again, we encountered Sugar Creek, where we saw a family with two little boys wearing life jackets and two girls swimming.

They scurried out of the creek as we proceeded to cross.

The cross-over was concreted with water flowing over the top. 

Nestled on top of a hill across Sugar Creek stood Mount Zion Cemetery and Church, with Sugar Creek flowing from two sides. 

We continued along Blooming Grover Road, where we saw fields of Corn, Black-eyed Susan, and a barn full of hay.

We saw a John Deer Mail Box at 8125 waiting for the mail carrier. 

We stopped in front of a white wooden farmhouse that had a red tin roof, in the front yard was a row of pink Lilies in full bloom. 

After many turns and twists, we arrived at Minor Hill Highway. 

Narrow Roads

Farm House

The Yellow Deli with a beautiful garden caught my eye, so we decided to stop for lunch.  

I took pictures of the garden as we approached the entrance.

We were greeted by the owner and told the upstairs was closed.

The owner said you are welcome to go upstairs and look around while you are waiting for your food. 

I ordered the Cranberry Cashew Salad with Mixed greens, cashews, craisins, Havarti cheese, peppers, and tomatoes with house dressing and cranberry bread.

Hubby ordered Deli Rose Roast Beef Sandwich with Pepper Jack Cheese, Provolone Cheese, Onions, Tomatoes, Mayo, Mustard, and special sauce on an onion roll served with chips and a pickle.

We finished the meal with Carrot Cake topped with Cream Cheese icing and nuts.

Cranberry Cashew Salad 

The Inside of the Deli was as beautiful as the outside. Murals dotted the walls, and Common Sense Soaps and Body Care lined the entranceway Way, leading to the hosted area, cashier, and bar. 

Plants were everywhere, including the window seals and the windows were dressed in tied-back yellow and white check curtains.

Half-bushel baskets were used as light fixtures.

Wooden Tables, iron back chairs, and wooden booths were throughout the lower and top levels of the deli. 

The top level had an enclosed garden where you could enjoy dining outside. 

This beautiful building was built around 1900, called the HGH Gladish Heritage House. 

Inside The Yellow Deli 

Inside The Yellow Deli 

Outside the Yellow Deli 

We rode to the Trail of Tears Interruptive Center the museum was closed

We walked around outside, looking at the markers, benches, statues, dog fountains, and beautiful plants. 

We stopped at Home Depot for a few items.

We ran into a patch of rain traveling home. 

The days' adventure included traveling on narrow, winding back roads, with one a dead end. 

Traveling across water-covered roadways along Sugar Creek and people enjoying a swim. 

Enjoyed lunch at The Yellow Deli and Gardens and a stop at the Trail of Tears Interruptive Center. 

Sugar Creek 

🚗2017 July 18, Tuesday, Day Trip to Discovery Park of America Union City, Tennessee

We took Highway 20, crossing into Tennessee at Highway 69 through Savannah, turning on hwy 22 to Lexington, Parkers Crossing, Clarksburg, Huntingdon, McKenzie, Dresden, and Martin to Union City, TN.

Lexington, Tn

Clarksburg, TN 

Huntington, TN

McKenzie, TN

Gleason, TN 

House in Dresden, TN

We made a quick stop at Parker's Crossing to take some pictures of the Civil War Site.

(Need to return to visit here)

The Battle of Parker's Crossroads 

We purchased our tickets at Discovery Park of America around 11AM.

We walked inside an earthquake simulator where we experienced the recreation of Reelfoot Lake.

The Legend of Reelfoot Lake

The lake is named for a clubfooted Indian Chief of the Chickasaw Tribe. The chief is blamed in the legend for the earthquake that caused the lake. Chief Reelfoot was in love with an Indian maiden who lived further south along the Mississippi River. She repulsed his offer of marriage because of Reelfoot's clubfoot. In revenge, he set out with some of his braves in canoes, raided her father's camp at night, and kidnapped the girl. 

Medicine men bitterly disapproved of Reelfoot's act and predicted it would bring disaster to his people. Their predictions were fulfilled, the legend says, by the earthquake that wiped out the tribe and formed the lake.

We spent 40 minutes in the Starship Theater, where we journeyed through space. It was an interactive movie where people in the audience could participate as engineers, scientists, or pilots.

We enjoyed a nice lunch in the Cafe, where I ordered chicken fingers, chips, and a drink.

Hubby ordered a dressed hamburger, tater tots, and a drink.

After lunch, we rode the elevator up to the Tower. The tower is an observation deck where you can see both sides of the park and miles around Union City, TN.

Children's Exploration, Energy, Enlightenment, Military, Native Americans, Natural History, Regional History Science, Space & Technology, Transportation, and Made in Tennessee

It also has a glass floor, which I am not fond of.

Natural History 

Made in Tennessee

Car Museum

Science, Space, & Technology

Energy

Children's Exploration Slide

We only visited one side of the park, where we saw Freedom Square, The Chapel, The Depot, and Stem Landing.

The Chapel and Depot 

Freedom Square

Stem Landing

We took a different route home.

We traveled through Newburn, Dyersburg, Friendship, Alamo, Bells, Jackson, Finger, Savannah, and Walnut Grove, TN.

Construction Union City, TN 

Savannah, TN 

Walnut Grove, TN 

Henderson, TN

We stopped at Catfish Cabin in Jackson, TN, for dinner.

We split a seafood platter and fried green tomatoes.

The trip took about three and a half hours. We spent about five hours at the museum and another three and a half hours at home. We were home around 8:30 p.m.

We will have to go another day to see the rest of the park, visit Reelfoot Lake, and stop at the Tennessee Safari Bells, TN.  

The end of another day trip.