This is Nashville.  No-cover bars with the doors flung wide open spilling every type of music out onto the sidewalk nearly any time of the day.  Street musicians dot a few corners.  It was one such band that gave us our most unique sight so far:  a young woman sitting cross legged on the sidewalk, head half shaved with long back dreadlocks, a baby at her breast.  Still, she is playing trumpet.  True devotion to her craft.  Preserved and rebuilt buildings and forts that remind all how come here of the Confederate States of America and all who fought to protect it.

What makes it Tennessee Whisky (ey)?  There are only two distilleries that are licensed to produce it and they both say it’s all about the slow filtering through charcoal (to remove “impurities”) that transforms bourbon into the good stuff, Tennessee whiskey.  We toured Jack Daniels and George Dickel distilleries.  Simple earthy smelling grains go to stinky sour mash on to a heady, sweet smelling liquor.  The two differ slightly on process since Dickel chills while they filter and Jack does not but the real difference is scale.  Jack Daniels has 83 multi story barrel aging warehouses as compared to the 8 single story of Dickel.  They both show lots of pride in what they make and how they do it.  It may take some serious taste testing to pick a best.

Malt barley means sprouted barley.  They heat it with a little moisture and let it sprout just enough to break the seed open.  It changes how it participates in the fermenting stage.

I went Tennessee wine tasting today.  It was a bit disappointing.  Maybe it is just a matter of time; they have pretty much mastered the making of sipping whisky down here but they have been at it for more than 150 years.

1906 and still running.  An overshoot waterwheel gear drives through multiple shafts and belts.

The mill has powered many a business: a lumber mill, a cotton gin, cotton and wool carding, fiber making, and weaving.   It has had its periods of disrepair too but fortunately still survives.  I always enjoy seeing the ingenuity and craftsmanship of this old technology.  Nowadays they grind corn and wheat for flour, corn meal and grits and a bit of coarse cracked corn for the local distillery.

The mill has been though many owners/operators.  It is part of a bed and breakfast property now that is run by a “retired” couple.  They have a log cabin guest house.  It was pretty cozy looking.

A cotton bag.  It is amazing how complete an image this one item can conjure up in my mind.  It is a long cloth bag that the pickers (when it was a person not a machine) looped over their shoulder and dragged though the field as they stuffed it full of ripe cotton.  When it got full they dragged it to the filed scales where it was weighed and emptied and they started all over again.  They had one of these bags in the little museum at the mill.  Made me glad I didn’t grow up in the rural south.

Walk into an ordinary exhibition hall at the convention center.  Arched rows of folding chairs are set up on the plain, flat concrete floor.  Bright pink tape outlines an oval on the floor.  A second, larger caution-yellow tape oval encircles the pink.  Skaters wearing an eclectic mix of shorts, leggings, fishnet stockings, tights, bright knee socks, and all variety of helmets are circling the oval.  They all wear pads and their jerseys mostly match.  A handful of zebra black and white shirts are also in the mix.  This is the setting for Flat Track Roller Derby in Chattanooga.

A bit of preamble with safety equipment check, a rules review, demo for the new fans, and the National Anthem.  Now the bout; two 30 minutes periods broken into jams that last as much as 2 minutes.

Music is playing loudly.  An announcer named Rabbit gives the go ahead.  Fans stand, sit in the arches of chairs, and sit on the floor along the yellow oval in the suicide seats.  A cluster of skaters collects on the pink oval.  Ten in all, five green jerseys and five blue.  Jammers wear a star on their helmets and are in the back of the pack and blockers a solid colored bar on their helmet.  A whistle sounds and the skating/pushing/pulling begins.  The noise of music, skate wheels on concrete, bodies thumping together and to the floor is punctuated with lots of quick whistle bursts that track scoring and rule infractions.  The pace isn’t super fast but the action between players is so chaotic and the manual sort of scoring by refs and non-skating officials so entangled that I never really got so that I could follow everything.

The result 128 Chattanooga vs. 107 Classic City (AthensGA) and a fun new experience of us.

Slow motion:  Western Barrel racing (actually ground driving not in saddle) with Clydesdales…fastest 36 seconds.

The power of shear will and/or a favorite treat:  Obstacle course on cart, lead from the ground, or on foot and off-lead, just bribed with their favorite treat to follow “their human” over and around all sorts of obstacles.

Pure power and beauty:  4 horse Percheron hitch at full gallop on a pimped out wagon

We spent a bright beautiful afternoon with a great sampling of the members of the Georgia Draft Horse Association.  Amazing strength.  Regal carriage and step.  Great dispositions; kids weighing maybe 80 pounds handled 2000 pounds of gentle giant.

It was been an afternoon and evening of wild storms across the southeast.  Just some rain and a bit of thunder and lightning here.