Back to Knoxville

Knoxville's iconic SunSphere

On our way north, we decided to stop at Raccoon Valley RV Park in Heiskell, TN, just north of Knoxville on I-75. We had stopped here going south in the fall of 2006. The weather forecast was terrible, and we ended up spending 4 days waiting out the rain. When it cleared up some, we discovered that our friends Mary Jo and Wayne Lorhmann were hiding out in another part of the park, so we spent another 10 days there visiting and sightseeing with them.

One warm and sunny day we went down to the McCluney Museum on the campus of the University of Tennessee. Though small, the exhibits were interesting. Consuelo especially enjoyed the exhibit on forensic anthropology, a subject that UofT experts teach to police the FBI how to recover evidence from moldering murder scenes.

Of course, we had to make a stop at the old Chocolate Factory and sample some of the handmade candies. I had the rum balls, they were yummy.

Redbuds and one of the fountains

Later on, we went down to the World's Fair Park, a lingering remnant from 1982. We saw the Sunsphere, Knoxville's iconic reminder of the fair. This gold plated tower has been virtually unused since the fair, although several entrepreneurs have proposed uses for it, mostly as a restaurant like Dallas' Reunion Tower. The 4th and lowest floor in the ball reopened in mid 2007 as a visitors viewing gallery, and we took the ride up the elevators for a look. The upper floors are owned by a catering company who uses the place for special events.




Mary Jo and Consuelo chatting

We walked through the park, which was beautiful on such a fine spring day. A concert tent provides seating for concerts and gatherings, and the lake stretches nearly to the river. The redbud trees were blushing the landscape with their rosy blossoms.

Visiting Knoxville

I decided that it might be appropriate for us to start a blog. I'm not sure who cares where we are, or what we're doing. But it might be a way to journal our travels in a concise, readily available way.

Today, we're in Knoxville, Tennessee. It's raining. Of the 8 days we've been here, it seems that it has rained on half of them. Though yesterday and Thursday were beautiful, sunny warm days. We're parked in the Escapees Raccoon Valley campground in Heiskell, waiting for our wayward mail to arrive. We've been here since 11/2.

Enough about the weather. Yesterday we did some touring in downtown Knoxville. The city was holding their Veteran's Day parade, though today is Veteran's Day. We had fun. We watched the parade for a while, then went to the Visitor's Center, which turns out to include the stage for a local radio station, that was having a live show by Jennifer Brantley, a local artist of the pop/bluegrass persuasion. After that we walked through the Market Square Mall. I believe that the day was a local holiday, as many things seemed to be closed. Our impression of Knoxville is that it is being rebuilt. Much renovation was going on downtown.

We did find a nice outfitters/department store downtown called Mast General Store. They sold Woolrich, Carrhart, and other heavy duty clothing, candy, boots/shoes, etc.

We left there around 2:00 to find a mid-century antique store called Nostalgia that Consuelo had seen advertised, and we did find it, after having lunch at Marble Stone Creamery. Turns out the ice cream was better than the antiques.

I took the first travel pics with the new cell-phone camera. It's not great, but having it along where ever we might go will be handy.

Knoxville Skyline