Day 23 - Friday, June 11
Helllloooo Tennessee, goodbye Georgia after 499.25 miles!
Our day began a little later than normal - 5am, after a rock solid sleep. I went out at 8pm and really needed the rest because my shin is displaying the same characteristics as round 1 - radiating pain into my right front ankle. I have been icing at every possibility, decreased running and mileage to try to get ahead of this. I also think more sleep will help and when I awoke this morning I felt somewhat better.
Within a mile of breaking camp I stumbled upon a possum that was fresh roadkill. What tore me up was that the possum was pregnant and all the pups except for 2 were also smashed in the road. The remaining 2 were moving and fighting for survival on the mother. I began frantically hailing cars to no avail when up comes Chris in the RV as he is going by and as I ask him about finding a shoe box and feeding them half and half he talks me off the ledge and tells me to just walk away. Not a good feeling to start the day…
Next up was a real treat - heading into the massive Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. So many battles were fought in this area and there are monuments all over the road commemorating small skirmishes as well as the key battles. According to National Park Services:
President Abraham Lincoln believed that taking Chattanooga was as important as taking Richmond. Why was a small town of 2,500 as important as the capital of the Confederacy? The small city lay on the banks of the Tennessee River where it cut through the Appalachian Mountains, allowing four major railroads to converge. If the Union captured Chattanooga, it could cripple Confederate supply lines and strike at the industrial heart of the Confederacy.
In the summer of 1863, Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg and his Army of Tennessee controlled Chattanooga. But Union Gen. William Rosecrans skillfully moved his Army of the Cumberland south, across the Tennessee River and over Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain, threatening the Confederates from behind. By early September, Bragg realized he had been outmaneuvered. The Confederate Army had no choice but to abandon the city and its remaining residents.
Rosecrans thought the Confederates were retreating toward Atlanta, prompting him and his army to pursue the gray-clad soldiers into Georgia. However, the Confederates had a surprise of their own. Bragg, now heavily reinforced, was not going to give up Chattanooga without a fight. At the Battle of Chickamauga, little went as planned and thousands of men lost their lives. Yet, it would be late November before the city’s fate would be decided—and perhaps that of the Confederacy.
Chris was definitely affected by the heaviness in these woods thinking about all of the young soldiers taken off the farm to fight this war against each other.
At the museum for the park I made a sharp right hand turn and exited the park and headed north toward Chattanooga. I made a friend along the way who needed help. We chatted a bit, he liked Lucky and then we parted.
I came upon another landmark, The Chief John Ross House:
The house was built near Missionary Ridge in 1797 by John McDonald, a Scots immigrant to the area who had married a Cherokee woman. The entire area was at the time Cherokee land. McDonald's grandson, John Ross, became chief of the Cherokee in 1828, leading a political faction within the tribe that opposed state and federal taking of the Cherokee lands, and of the Cherokee Removal. Ross was dispossessed of his own home by the state's takeover of those lands in 1830, and moved into the house of his grandfather, living there until 1838. Ross was a leading figure in the adoption of the Cherokee Constitution of 1827, and represented the tribe in its unsuccessful legal efforts to retain its lands.
The city of Rossville, chartered in 1905, is named for John Ross. The Ross House is one of the oldest in the area, having survived the American Civil War, in which it was used as a hospital by both sides
A short while afterwards, in the middle of a run down town, we hit the sign for Tennessee!!
A good break where i refuel, ice my shin and ankle with a little help from Lucky I’m on my way again. As I’m moving on the traffic side of street a Jeep pulls into a driveway right in front of me and a woman is asking where I got Lucky from because her niece recently lost a dog that looks just like him. She is frantically trying to find the picture on her phone while I am trying to slow this conversation down to figure out how to address the fact that there is no way Lucky is the lost dog! We of course agree to this conclusion and Beth is kind enough to give us insights on the area, what makes her happy - she is full of energy and life; I’m glad she pulled me over as I left energized.
I met up with Chris at our agreed spot - Montague Park. Turns out it is a sculpture park at the doorstep of Chattanooga and a wonderful place to visit. Incredible works are scattered through the area the pieces are at a huge scale. While I took a break we met up with a triathlon group doing a time trial. Of course Lucky ran up to the runners thinking there is another pack to follow and I made my way to speak with Mike who was sitting down to ask about the local trails and what was happening. He was kind enough to give me his story.
Our day came to an end at Finley Stadium where we found parking for the night, Naked River BBQ for dinner and a big dog park for Lucky.
Hopefully the shin/ankle feel better tomorrow after a good nights rest.
Thank you for the support -
Cheers,
David.
