Tag Archives: Chattanooga Tennessee

No Rain on This Parade

Posted by dkrashb on

Who doesn’t love a parade?  With the possible exception of the screaming fire engine sirens (which we hear more than enough of at our place and don’t need to go out to hear), it’s pretty tough to have a bad parade.  All you need are some animals, a band or two, and smiling kids and you’re set.

Today, the first festival of the Christmas season in Chattanooga took place.  It’s called Mainx24 because it’s focused on trying to make Chattanooga a 24-hour city.

I don’t really see that happening this decade, but it’s nice that it happens once a year.  Plus, it’s a celebration of the city’s South side, which is a neighborhood in transition.

Having witnessed the transition of some of the neighborhoods in Columbus that were perceived as the “worst” into hot spots of historical preservation, celebration of the arts, and community gathering, I have a special fondness for transition.

A few decades ago, my mother ran a preschool in one such neighborhood before its transition began.  On days when I didn’t have school but she did, I would go with her and “help.”

The neighborhood seemed slightly terrifying to me at that time.  It was full of old, victorian homes with boarded up windows that threatened to throw pieces of themselves at me if I ventured too close.  Not that I wandered far–there were always people wandering the streets that, in my innocence, seemed threatening.  In retrospect, I would guess they were harmless homeless people, but I had never actually seen homeless people before then.  Sometimes they stumbled around, obviously drunk.  I had also never seen drunk people, so I had no idea why they behaved oddly.

Decrepit historical houses were purchased by the city and sold for $1 to buyers who could demonstrate their ability to restore them.  It was an amazingly successful project.  That same neighborhood is now known as Victorian Village and is one of the more expensive parts of Columbus to live in.

The restoration of this area became contagious.  Soon, the near-by neighborhood now known as the Short North started changing.  The buildings facing High St were gradually restored and turned into trendy art galleries, restaurants, music venues, and shops.  New buildings in historical styles started to appear with high-end apartments and condos.

The two areas met in the middle, although there is still a mix of the unrestored (and affordable) with the beautifully appointed, fully restored historical mansions.

Chattanooga’s South Side doesn’t seem to have too many mansions.  It was mostly an industrial area before its transition began.  But from the size of the crowd drawn to today’s festival, it’s definitely a place people want to be.

I think adopting New Orleans-parade tradition in tossing candy (and even the occasional beads) to children was a brilliant way to guarantee all the kids will be clamoring to come back again next year.

True Colors

Posted by dkrashb on

As Tisen and I stroll along Stringer’s ridge, my feet drag through a thick layer of leaves.  As they crunch and swirl in front of my feet, I remember what fall meant to me as a child.

Halloween was, of course, central to the fall experience.  Dressing up in some costume that never quite looked as glorious as I expected it to (except the year my mother cut and sewed her wedding dress into a Cinderella gown for my costume), parading through the yards of our neighbors to go door-to-door for halloween candy.

Even though it was a special occasion, we were only allowed to walk through the yards where adjacent neighbors had their porch lights on and were giving out candy.  Some yards, we got to crunch our way through un-raked leaves while other yards were sparsely dotted only with leaves that had fallen in the past hour.

Stringer’s ridge has no gardener to obsessively clear the leaves away.  They fall and create a weaving of color over the broken and dilapidated asphalt that marks the ridge’s recent history.  As we leave the nearby urban residential area and enter into the preserve, the leaves become denser and the views become more colorful.

Tisen has taken his time getting here.  Me with my camera stopping to shoot frequently had nothing to do with how long our walk has taken, I’m sure.  Tisen needed to sniff and mark every mailbox on the way through the neighborhood.  I tried to coax him on his way, but he insisted in at least making an attempt to leave his mark, even if it was only a gesture by the time we got to about the 10th mailbox.

As we crunch our way through the leaves now, I don’t hurry him, but I do occasionally try to get him to sniff a yard or two in one direction or another so I can shoot while he sniffs.  I wonder how many photographers struggle to get the angle they want because they are walking a 70 pound dog who doesn’t always cooperate?  Sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m the one on the leash.

Given the slowness of our progress and my need to be somewhere in the near future, we take the shortest route to the overlook.  It’s not an overlook in the sense that anyone built a structure or anything.  But, they did clear a few small trees so the view of downtown was unobstructed.

I love this view.  You can see the best part of the riverfront as you look across a sea of colorful trees.  It’s hard to believe there are so many trees between me and home as I look down the ridge and across the neighborhood Tisen and I have just walked through.

I say a silent thank you to the good people of Chattanooga who had the foresight to make this a preserve and then we turn to walk home.

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Nostalgia

Posted by dkrashb on

One of the hazards of having a 2TB hard drive is the immediate accessibility of old photos.  There is something about fall that causes me to review.  With 9 years of photos on my hard drive, this can be quite a journey.

Along with review comes a sense of nostalgia.  As much as I appreciate my new life in Chattanooga, there are things I miss about my old life in Columbus, Ohio.

I try not to think about how much I miss my friends.  Although I have made a dozen or so friends in Chattanooga now and I would miss them, too, I don’t find that friends are replaceable or interchangeable.  Each is a unique relationship and each relationship is something I value.

I don’t need old photos to remind me how much I miss my friends.  What the photos do remind me of is there are other aspects of my old life that I miss as well.  Being within an easy 1/2 day’s drive of family is a big one.  Going from a 3 hour drive to a 7 and 10 hour drive is a big difference in how frequently we see family.

But there are small things I miss as well.  For example, I miss my gallery wall from our former living room.  Given that we somehow lost the prints on that wall in one of the two moves after selling the house, I miss the art as much as the wall to display it on.  It was one of those little pleasures I enjoyed everyday.

I also miss playing in the snow.  Although, I guess I would have missed that had we still been in Columbus this past winter given it was unusually warm.

Perhaps a bigger gap for me is the feeling of being part of the community.  Although I’ve found volunteer gigs I enjoy here in Chattanooga, it’s a little less immediate than being part of a neighborhood group that invests time and energy in improving the street we live on.

Along with changes that came from changing states, I also miss some of the things we left behind when we sold our house.  Like the raccoons on our deck that would eat peanuts left out for the birds.  Or being able to look out the windows and be eye-to-eye with birds ranging from Red-shouldered Hawks to Scarlet Tanagers to even occasional warblers.

I guess I am really missing living in a wooded ravine that not only brought the birds up close to our windows, but also allowed for a woodland garden, intense fall colors along our street, and a hummingbird nest above the deck in the summer time.

But even as I miss these things, I am also relieved.  After all, as much as I enjoyed life in the ravine and life in the house and community there, giving up those things has created an uncertain future that brings with it a sense of endless possibility.

Bike and Then Bird

Posted by dkrashb on

I have been riding the Tennessee Riverwalk twice a week for a few months now.  It’s one of those places that makes me happy.  It’s just a beautiful way to wake up.  Riding along the river on the mostly quiet trail, exchanging smiles with the dozen or so pedestrians who also haunt the riverwalk just after dawn–there just isn’t a better way to start the day.

I have also been leading bird walks a couple times a month.  And, I went on a biking tour of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park last year, which was organized by Outdoor Chattanooga.

Thus, it was only natural that, as I rode past great birding spots along the riverwalk, I would think “I should organize a bike and bird!”

Allow me to clarify for safety reasons:  I am not advocating birding while riding a bike.  That would be dangerous.  However, a bird walk is a usually a slow meander through a relatively small area with a good bird population and does not afford the opportunity to cover much distance without driving.  It seems counter-intuitive to me that we would increase the amount we drive in order to pursue an activity motivated by the desire to learn about and appreciate creatures quite dependent on an unpolluted environment.

To give credit where credit is due, a friend of mine back in Columbus, OH previously organized “eco bird walks” where all participants agreed to walk, bike, or take public transportation to the starting point and they walked from there.

So, I my idea was not exactly unique.  Regardless, I get a special pleasure out of combining activities.  I formed a plan:  Outdoor Chattanooga organizes bike tours all the time.  Why not ask them to do a bike and bird?  They have a fleet of bicycles so even people without bikes could join.  I would invite the Chattanooga chapter of TOS and the Audubon Society and we could have a lovely morning of riding and birding.  Or, to be more accurate, riding, stopping, and then birding.

And so it was.  It took a few emails and phone calls, but that was it.  Outdoor Chattanooga did the rest–and what a great group of people they are!

Finally, the Saturday selected was upon us.  I’m not sure which of the folks at Outdoor Chattanooga was in charge of arranging the weather, but they did a fabulous job.  I suppose if it would have been a little less breezy, we might have had an easier time spotting small birds among the trees, but the clear blue sky with little humidity and the cool breeze kept me smiling the entire ride.

We saw quite a few good birds, although not quite the bonanza I was hoping for.  As I told our guide from Outdoor Chattanooga, it was such a beautiful day that I would have enjoyed it even if we hadn’t seen a single bird.

Sunset Rock

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Lookout Mountain is both a backdrop and a center piece for Chattanooga.  It’s full of tourist destinations and local favorites; quiet neighborhoods and busy streets; civil war history and quiet countryside.  It offers fantastic views and shaded woods.  It all just depends on where on Lookout Mountain you go.

This past weekend, when we were trying to decide where we wanted to hike, my husband’s criteria was that he wanted to spend less than an hour driving round-trip and he didn’t want to hike more than 5 miles.  My criteria was that I wanted there to be a view and I wanted the trail to be doable in my fivefingers shoes.  Lookout Mountain was our perfect compromise.

We’ve gone up to Point Park on Lookout Mountain many times.  We’ve walked the paved trail down to the overlook at the point.  And, off in the distance, we noticed people sitting on Sunset Rock.  Today was our day to sit on Sunset Rock.

We decided to start at Craven’s House.  There are several trails from Craven’s House that can get you to Sunset Rock.  We chose the longest route.  Even so, it was not much more than 2 miles to Sunset Rock.

We took a trail called Rifle Pits Trail.  I’m sure there is an explanation for why it’s called “Rifle Pits,” but all I could think about was rifles spewing out shells and leaving behind the casings like I might spit out the pits from Kalamata olives.  We did not see a single shell casing, however.

This trail was partially an old road, which made for easy walking.  However, when we got to the Gum Spring Trail juncture, we turned and started climbing a lot of steps.  While it wasn’t so difficult as to be daunting, we were a little worried about Tisen.  These were mostly large stones positioned to form stairs, not actual stairs.  But every time I stopped to check on Tisen, he would run into the backs of my legs, he was so tight on my heels.

I made it up the steep section in 1 piece–it’s a miracle I didn’t trip over Tisen and fall off the cliff.  And the view from Sunset Rock was spectacular.  Unfortunately, it was, as usual, the wrong time of day to be shooting, but I did what I could.

Speaking of shooting, does anyone know how to train a dog not to walk into the frame when you stop to take a picture?  I had to trash about 50 images because of a Holstein-like blur running through them.  While we’re talking about unexpected visitors in the camera frame, let’s talk about my husband.  I think we’ve reached a point in our photographer/non-photographer relationship where he’s tired of assisting.  I didn’t bring my tripod or any extra lenses (for once), which meant he didn’t feel obligated to carry anything for me.  But, he still felt obligated to walk through my frame.  What do you suppose that means?

In Lieu of Backpacking

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We are trying to get a hike in at least once a weekend.  Since it’s a big reason we chose to move to Chattanooga, we figured we ought to take advantage.  However, the hot and humid August weather has made hiking slightly less enticing.

I did a little research to pick a place to hike that wasn’t too far away.  I learned about South Cumberland State Park and the Savage Gulf State Natural Area, located inside the park.

There was a 17 mile hike that sounded intriguing, but 17 miles for us means spending the night.  Since I had a lot going on this past week, we didn’t have time to prepare for backpacking.  Plus, we weren’t quite sure where Tisen would sleep given that our 2 person tent is really only big enough for a person and a half.

So, we opted to do two short day hikes instead.

We headed out Saturday morning loaded down like we were spending the night after all (the joys of too much photography equipment).

When we arrived at the Stone Door ranger station, we saw a sign that said Laurel Falls was only 250ish yards from the parking lot.  So, of course, we had to walk there first.  What they didn’t mention was that it was 250 yards down a bunch of stairs and 250 yards back up those stairs.  But, still, who wouldn’t go 250 yards to see a waterfall?

I’m not sure how excited Tisen was about the waterfall after the stairs, but he made it and I was happy I had my tripod so I could shoot with long exposures, creating smooth water.

We headed back up the steps and on towards Stone Door from there.

The walk to Stone Door started on a paved path.  Paved as in asphalt.  We noticed blazes on the trees marking the trail and Pat commented that he was glad they’d marked the trail because otherwise we might have gotten lost.  It did seem a bit odd to hang metal trail blazes on the trees along a trail that was paved, but I guess they haven’t lost anyone yet.

The first overlook was the end of the asphalt, thankfully.  Although, we passed a woman coming back the other way with only one leg.  I don’t know if she was able to walk on the unpaved portion of the trail or not, but it did make me appreciate the asphalt.

From the overlook, we not only got a nice panoramic view of the mountains, but we spotted a rocky outcropping in the general direction we were headed.  We suspected it was our destination.

Tisen was not any more excited by me setting up my tripod at the overlook than when I pulled it out at Laurel Falls, but he waited fairly patiently once Pat took him off the asphalt and into the shade.

If there was one thing that would have made the day nicer, it would have been cooler temperatures and less humidity.

Off the Wagon

Posted by dkrashb on

After a long hiatus from shooting the Chattanooga riverfront, I had another relapse.  We’ve gone through this together before.  Usually, it’s amazing clouds that pull me off the wagon and cause a relapse.  This time, it was the chance at a new angle.

As you may have seen in earlier posts, we were dog sitting Twiggy for several weeks.  That included access to Twiggy’s clubhouse which has an amazing view.  So, when the sky started doing interesting things, how could I resist?

I went out on the 7th floor balcony and was immediately reminded I’m afraid of heights.  I can shoot from our 4th floor balcony without so much as a quiver, but our balcony is even with the building.  The clubhouse balcony, in contrast, was not only 3 stories higher, but it also jutted out from the building.  Why do I find overhangs so much scarier?  It makes no sense.  I compensated by staying back from the rail.

This made taking advantage of the level built into my camera to keep my shots straight more challenging.  I love that feature–especially when shooting a scene with as many hills and angles as the riverfront.  Imagine a tripod with a camera setup so the camera lens is hanging over the edge of the railing.  Then imagine the photographer trying to stay 3 feet back from the tripod at all times.  I was never so grateful for my freakishly long arms.

Each time I struggled, got frustrated, and took a step forward, I would suddenly see the ground out of the corner of my eye and get dizzy.  I still managed to get the camera positioned before the sun set.

I was tempted to try the in-camera HDR capabilities for the first time.  There were two things that stopped me.  First, I didn’t have the manual with me.  Second, I really would have had to get close to the camera to try to figure it out from the menus.  I decided today wasn’t the day.

Instead, I took a series of 5 exposures so I could play with my HDR post-processing software again.  Something I haven’t done in a long time.  I don’t know if my eye is changing or if I’m getting better at using the software, but I am starting to like the HDR processed images more.  Not ready to say I want to use HDR post-processing all the time, but it is nice to be able to see both the sky and the ground closer to how I saw them in reality.

That said, I really like the first two shots in the gallery, which are not HDR processed.  They were taken when it was still pretty light out and the camera did pretty well with the dynamic range all on its own.  Also, I do not like the HDR processed shots from later in the series–something funky happens with the oranges.  But some of the HDR processed shots in between are interesting to me.

Riverbending

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When we made the decision to move to Chattanooga, we knew about Head of the Hootch (a huge rowing event here in the fall) and we thought that was THE big event in Chattanooga.  However, it turns out Riverbend is THE big event here.

Just by chance, we completely missed Riverbend last year.  Our visit to pick a place to live was in March.  Our visit to make it official was in July.  Riverbend happens in June.

Riverbend, is a 9-day music festival that, this year, features 6 stages and something around 100 bands.  Supposedly, 600,000 people will descend upon Chattanooga (population 300,000) for this event.

The first sign that Riverbend was coming was the arrival of a stage via barge.  It was floated up the Tennessee River and parked for a couple of weeks in front of the Aquarium.  Eventually it was raised onto a huge dock (we always wondered why that dock was so big) where it had quietly remained for at least a week before the opening of the festival.

During that final week, tents started appearing followed by rides.  Soon, the riverfront looked like an abandoned carnival.  Billboards all over town advertised “get your pin at such and such place.”  Pins were $32 for entry all 9 days.  Of course, “entry” doesn’t include the lawn in front of the main stage (another $10), a program (yet $35 more), or seats anywhere.

Had we know pins at the gate would be $45, we would have bought our pins early.  We, of course, didn’t discover this until after the discounted pins were no longer available.

Finally, opening night came.  It was Friday night, June 8th.  We expected to hear the bands playing from our place, but they were drowned out by traffic noise on this side of the river.

Instead, the start of the festival was announced to us by a ridiculous amount of noise on the roof over our heads.  Some of our neighbors had apparently invited a large group of friends over to hang out on the roof deck; we’re pretty sure they spent the night.

I went up to the roof top to check out who was up there and to see what kind of shots I could get from the roof.  I left my 100-400mm lens at home since I figured I was going to need my faster 70-200mm lens in the twilight over the extra length.

Alas, the scene was far enough away that I couldn’t get very interesting shots of any details.  Plus, I couldn’t see the river from our roof, which was full of boats listening to the music.

I turned to the sunset briefly (reminding myself that I have too many shots of the sunset and it wasn’t that interesting) and then returned to shoot the skyline wide.  Sine the sky was completely uninteresting that direction, I cropped those shots to panoramic proportions.  I probably should have just put my camera away instead.

Signalled

Posted by dkrashb on

Late Sunday afternoon, I got the urge to hike.  Pat, however, did not.  He was in the middle of a project.  I started to settle back into the couch, but then thought, “I didn’t move to Chattanooga so I could sit on the couch.”

With a little surfing, I discovered there was a section of the Cumberland Trail on Signal mountain and it sounded awesome.

Based on the map scale and the “pinky measurement” technique I’ve developed (patent pending), I guestimated it was between 2 and 2.5 miles one way.

As we started down the trail, we passed a sign that said Edward’s Point Overlook was 2.9 miles away (there goes my patent!).  I resigned myself to the reality that we were not going to make it to Edward’s Point today.

We made our way down some treacherous steps and then some even more treacherous steps.  After about 20 minutes of walking, we made it to another overlook.  Black Vultures soared on a thermal, rising up over the mountain and disappearing on the other side.  I tried to get a shot, but they disappeared before I could even get my lens cap off.  I shot a boat down on the river below instead.

We kept on going, which might have been a mistake.  I had trouble getting Tisen to drink water.  He wouldn’t drink out of my hand and he shied away from a water stream.  I paused to find a depression in a rock he could drink from.

As we continued, we heard a waterfall.  I thought maybe water would be nearby, but each stream was just a damp mark on the side of the mountain.

I watched Tisen plow through poison ivy.  As much as I knew I should avoid touching him, I couldn’t help myself.  I suspect even my camera is now covered in poison ivy oil.

We’d made it about 200 yards past a frightening bridge when our time ran out.  With no photo ops since noticing a cluster of mushrooms high above us,  I was cursing every ounce I was carrying.

When we stopped again at the rock with the depression for more water, Tisen laid flat out on his side, head down, sides heaving.  I wasn’t sure he was going to get up again.  But, when I stood up, he popped up like he’d just been teasing me and even led the way up the steepest parts of the trail.  I was really impressed when he hopped up those scary steps full of energy.

We stopped at the overlook in the park one last time to shoot the Eastern sky.  The light was better, although the sun was still too high for shooting towards the West.

Hot, tired, and hungry, we headed back down the mountain to return home.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t relax right away–both Tisen and I required poison ivy detoxification.  Tisen does not much like baths, but he seemed to feel pretty good afterwards.  Or maybe it was after dinner?

Waiting for a Bird Like You

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Tisen and I take a loop around Renaissance park looking for something interesting to shoot.  Well, to be fair, Tisen is more about looking for vertical objects to mark while I am looking for something to shoot.

Today, I’m out for birds.  I cock my head to one side as we walk, listening to the songs and identifying the ones I recognize as I decide whether they’re worth trying to wait for them to appear.

The thing is, song birds are really tough to get a decent shot of.  Especially when the longest I can go with autofocus is 400mm.  Since I don’t see well enough to focus manually unless the subject is sitting still, I figure I need the autofocus.

This means that unless a song bird flies down and perches on a branch about 10 feet away, I’m not going to get a very usable image.

So, I forego waiting to see if I can find the song sparrows, the carolina wrens, or even the yellow-rumped warbler I hear singing.  However, when we cross the bridge over the wetland. I notice a white-throated sparrow down in the creek below.  White-throated sparrows are winter birds in this part of the country, but they seem to be hanging out late here in Chattanooga–I still hear them every morning.

This white-throated sparrow isn’t singing, though.  He’s taking a bath.  I’m amazed as he completely submerges himself in the creek.  Then he fluffs out his feathers like he’s sitting in some kind of pool float.

Next, on the hillside above the wetland, a killdeer wanders back and forth above us.  Having staked out the blue bird house a few yards behind the killdeer, I ignore it, waiting for the blue bird to return.  The killdeer charges me like we’re playing chicken.

I manage to get a few shots of the killdeer without missing the return of the blue bird.  And when the blue bird flies off to the other side of the wetland, it lands in a tree right next to a red-winged black bird.  They are so close together, it’s hard to believe they manage to ignore one another, but they do.

As I sit focusing on the song birds, a large, mostly white bird flies through my peripheral vision.  I pull away from the camera just in time to see it fly out of sight.  It’s shaped something like a mourning dove, but it’s too big.  I find myself wondering if it’s a bird of prey, but it’s probably a giant pigeon.  When I go back to shooting the song birds, it flies by again and I miss getting a good look for a second time.

Tisen is getting impatient.  It has been an hour and a half since we started shooting, so I supposed I can’t blame him.  I skip waiting for the return of the mysterious bird, pack up, and head on home.

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