Chattanooga, Tennessee

Thursday 7/24/08

We were on the road by 8am heading for Chattanooga, Tennessee. We had about a six hour trip ahead of us. We stopped in a little town for gas. Ed was inside and Lynn was on her way in when a little old man about 90 years old asked her if she knew how to work the gas pump. She tried to explain as best she could but he didn’t seem to be getting it. He seemed to want her to do it. Then she asked him, have you paid yet? You have to go in to pay first. She was hoping he would get help inside. Lynn told Ed about her conversation with the man and when we went out we could tell he was still having trouble so Ed went over to help him. He had an old pickup truck and a gas can and he wanted $5 in the gas can and $10 in the truck. He said he lived on a farm about 15 miles away and he never came out to get gas, it was delivered to the farm. He also said that he had an old diesel tractor that needed gasoline to start up and then it would switch over to diesel. Ed wished we could have talked to him longer but he had to go and we had to go. We had to really concentrate on what he was saying because it was really hard to understand his deep Southern accent.
We chose Chattanooga for our stopping point so we could visit the Chickamauga Battlefield. We arrived at the campsite around 3:30 and went off to see the battlefield. Because of the location of the battlefield we were really staying in Ringgold, GA. At the battlefield we found it was a tour of a series of historical tablets and exhibits. We could either walk or drive from one to the other. We saw many bikers getting ready to go on a ride and found out it was possible to ride bikes along the road to see the exhibits. We went back to camp and got our bikes, picked up sandwiches and returned to ride the trail. The tour stops at 8 points of interest so we would stop at each one reading the markers. Once we got off the main road it was a very nice trail for bike riding. There were many bikers, walkers and runners using the trail. It was an eye-opener to see the many thousands of soldiers from the North and South that were involved in the battle. At the exhibits, there were statistics on how many were killed, wounded or missing. We could see why it was such a tough place for a battle with all the surrounding wooded areas. It would be very hard to keep track of the troops.
Ed likes to drive through little towns so we were able to drive through some of the surrounding neighborhoods. We drove through the little town of Fort Oglethorpe. There was a mixture of old historic homes and some “newer” homes.