Sewanee Sunset, Chattanooga's Deep Cuts

There's something about being on top of a mountain, even a plateau masquerading as a mountain. That sums up Monteagle, the stretch of the Cumberland Plateau and finger of the Appalachian range that Interstate 24 crosses in southern Tennessee. For a short weekend out of Nashville – they are all too short – it was a perfect first stop.

With the University of the South out for the summer, the crossroads at Sewanee was mostly deserted. The Blue Chair Tavern, a comfortable bar just off 41, exclusively pours Jackelope beers on draft, so we helped ourselves to several pints of its otherworldly –strawberry-raspberry wheat, Lovebirds (seriously, this beer should not be a seasonal). Later, we wrapped up the night with a sunset view of the broad plain below Monteagle and appetizers and dessert at Pearl’s Foggy Mountain Café.

In the morning, we headed directly for the next mountain, Lookout Mountain, which towers above Chattanooga and the Tennessee River. Midway up the mountain and absent the crowds swarming at Ruby Falls, the Craven House was a microcosm of the battle sites below. Rebuilt after the Civil War, the home had been a headquarters for the Confederate Army.

View from Point Park, Lookout Mountain

In several trips to the top of Lookout Mountain, we usually stop at the railway overlook for view of Chattanooga, Chickamauga Lake and the Tennessee River. This time we went another half-mile up the road to Point Park, a portion of the national military park that includes Chickamauga and Lookout Mountain. Civil War monuments soared from this steep end of Lookout Mountain. The museum was slight, the crowds were large, but the views were great. Nancy bought us a Buddy Bison, a little toy buffalo that now sits on the dashboard of every trip we take. The NPS has a website for regional pictures of the little toy bison, and we've submitted a few.

Between Lookout Mountain and Interstate 24 lies a hidden gem of the Gig City -the Reflection Riding Arboretum and Nature Center, 300 acres of woods, creeks and habitats protecting some rare creatures. It’s been right next to I-24 all this time and we never noticed. I’ve past that stretch of forested foothills 50 times or not. But Reflection Riding is worth an afternoon.

Situated along a creek, the activities include canoeing, hiking and visiting their animal enclosure, the highlight of which is several red wolves. For the uninitiated, which is most of us, red wolves have been on the precipice of extinction for a long time. They were extinct in the wild for more than 20 years, and largely eliminated from their historic range on the East Coast and Southeast. They have been reintroduced to several wildlife refuges in eastern North Carolina but remain critically endangered, with just 100 wild wolves and 200 more in captive breeding programs. Their size places them between a coyote and a gray wolf; they could easily be mistaken for the former. Their rusty fur masks them well.

Red wolf enclosure

Like most wolves, they want nothing to do with humans and quickly retreated to cubby holes deep in their enclosure anytime we got close. We arrived just as the arboretum opened, and the animals had not retreated to hiding positions they maintained for larger crowds. The center’s elderly bobcat stretched then drifted deeper into the densely wooded enclosure, not wanting to be seen. We're not sure anyone else visiting that day would have gotten as good a view of him.

In a short drive through the grounds, we saw a flock of turkeys and some turtles lounging in a quiet pool. Around the last bend, three white-tailed deer pranced across a meadow, moving gingerly back into the forested grounds.

Lately every trip to Chattanooga comes back to the St. Elmo District, and this trip continued our streak. We once again debated whether this would be the trip when we relented and went to Chattanooga's towing museum. Our attempts to have lunch at Little Billy's BBQ fell through, but it was forgotten as soon as we tasted the barbecue served up at Purple Daisy Picnic Cafe, a stone's throw from the Incline Railway station. Down an alley just a turn away from the Purple Daisy, we came upon Moccasin Bend Brewing Company. The brewery felt akin to drinking at someone's basement bar. One large, white-muzzled dog visited repeatedly for pets and scratches. It was no frills, but the beer did pretty well.

Checking into the Sheraton, we immediately ventured out. A few blocks covers a lot of ground in Chattanooga, and shortly we were crossing the pedestrian bridge to the North Shore. It’s a hive of activity, with walkers, cyclists and watchers everywhere. We refueled with coffee drinks across the water.

One more wolf shot.

Coming back, we remedied a long omission in our trips to Chattanooga and stopped for a pint at Hair of the Dog Pub, one of the few neighborhood bars in the city's core entertainment district. It had a neighborhood corner beer atmosphere, a bit surprising when surrounding by tourist destinations. There has been no corner pub in my life since moving to Nashville so it felt good to find one, albeit 140 miles from our house.

We freshened up as afternoon gave way to evening, and looked for a little night life.  
Every bar has signature cocktails in 2014. That cannot save them all from boring choices. This trend should get dropped by those who cannot or will not do it well. I’ll spare you the name of the one that served them up and move onto a bar worth mentioning.

 A few blocks from the hotel, we found Urban Stack, a burger and bourbon bar. They had a solid list of classic and craft bourbons, plus some local taps - Chattanooga Imperial Pilsner is worth repeat visits. Despite being just blocks of mobs of tourists, it felt comfortable and without the ego of similar places in larger cities.

To cap a night in Chattanooga, we could not skip a dip in the indoor hotel pool. While never more than four feet deep, the pool ended in a waterfall cascading down one wall that dead-ended into the pool. We swam a bit, decompressing in the mild waters and doing our best to ignore the shrieking children surrounding us. For all the tourists swarming the Gig City, it could feel quiet and insular. In these shallow waters, as Sunday night drew to a close, there was a sense of peace amid busy, challenging days.