New Echota Historic Site & Museum; Calhoun, GA

A memorial to, and attempted recreation of, the former capitol of the Cherokee nation (before it was uprooted and moved west during by President Andrew Jackson‘s trail of tears — one of the more disturbing events in US history).

I have very mixed feelings about places like this. On one hand, its good to see the dirty linen being laid out in the open, an attempt at some sort of ‘mea culpa‘ by the people of Georgia (yes our forefathers were dirt bags) … on the other hand, it’s a state park, and this benefits the state of Georgia and helps bring tourist dollars to the area. Because, let’s be real, the state of Georgia, and the ‘founders’ of the town of Calhoun, GA are the same people who eradicated the town in the fist place (of course with the help of Jackson, everyone’s favorite president–NOT!) and while I’m glad they built/are building this place, and I doubt it’s much of a money maker… I question the motives that created it as much as I appreciate the results.What I would have liked to see but didn’t (which does not mean it isn’t happening, just that it wasn’t front and center in the museum) evidence that tribal elders are somehow involved in this site, etc.

However, that said…

The New Echota site and museum is open Thurs-Sat, the web site says it’s open on Wednesdays, but the one time I went there on that day it was closed. The visitor’s center includes a small museum, and a 17 minute movie (also visible here) but most of it is outdoors, where they have tried to recreate some of what was there, and you are left to walk it alone at your own pace (as such, it’s better for a nice weather excursion). It’s a Georgia State park and marks some of the land that was supposedly the location of the national Capitol of the Cherokee nation before they were forcibly removed during the Trail of Tears. Counter to the Hollywood stereotype, they lived in western type wood homes, grew crops, had their own written language developed by Sequoyah, their own newspaper which had a world wide distribution (according to the docent), and literacy within the nation actually was higher than among the surrounding white communities (but at the time that wasn’t all that hard to achieve). During my second visit there (when it was open) It was Spring Break for a lot of the schools around the country, so there were a lot of kids and parents even though it was mid week.

Essentially its part of the land that they historically know the town was built on, and they’ve managed to rebuild a few of the building, etc., except for the home of the local missionary, which I believe may still be the original although massively refurbished. According to the docent the most accurate re-building is the printing house, because the soldiers who destroyed it had thrown all the metal print blocks out the windows before burning the place, and when archeologists did a dig they found them marking an almost perfect square on the ground. In addition the state’s historian had found that the missionary had sent in highly detailed requests for what had been needed to build the place, so that there are records of how many nails, sheets of wood, dimensions, etc.

One of the really cool things about the place is there’s a website they’ve created with a narrated walking tour for almost every building on the site that you can load to your smartphone/tablet at the ‘entrance building’, and then pull up each description when you reach that particular building.

Rock City & Lookout Mountain; (GA & TN)

Rock city is WELL worth the price! Massive amounts of natural beauty and things for the kids. Arguably comparable to Paris Disneyland in terms of entertainment dollars. No, seriously!

While it lacks rides of any sort, for the very young and those of us who hate G-force attractions intended to make you puke, I would argue that while it’s about 1/4 as big, Rock City’s 700 acres is competitive with Paris Disneyland (~$83/day) in terms of whimsy and natural beauty, for 1/4 the price (~$20/day) — although I would suggest attending it during one of it’s special event nights and in good weather.

At the top of Lookout Mountain is Rock City, which I had the impression would be yet another over advertised but underwhelming tourist trap — sort of like Old town in Orlando is — so I was deeply hesitant to buy a ticket. Adds for it are everywhere in the region — no really, EVERYWHERE — billboards and pamphlets, none of which ultimately do the place any sort of justice (they really do need better marketing). Now keep in mind I’m something of an amusement park connoisseur. I’ve been to all the Disney Parks world wide, even did Tokyo three times — and am waiting with baited breath for Shanghai to open — and just recently spent about 5 months in Orlando of doing little else other than going to Disney World and Universal (let’s hear it for season passes).

As such, I entered the park pretty sure I would hate Rock City, but I was wrong. Initially when I headed over there (after having spent the early part of the day at Craven’s House, a Civil War historical site half way up the mountain), I did so just to see what this Rock City thing was — from the adds I honestly wasn’t sure, other than it had a spot where you were supposed to be able to see seven states, while from Point Park, the National Park section of the mountain, you could only see Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama).

When I got there, I initially wasn’t going to go in, but I talked to a few tourist that were just leaving, and they all said it was very pretty and they felt they’d gotten their money’s worth. As I approached the ticket booth, to see what it cost, I saw signs advertising a special event that would begin at 6:00pm for the kids called fairy tale nights (apparently a chance for kids to talk to their favorite fairy tale characters), for a few dollars more than the normal ticket. As it was already approaching 4pm, I bought a ticket to that and drove back down to the base of the mountain to grab a bite at the 1885 Grill, a restaurant that I liked so much I’d been working my way through the menu (haven’t had a bad meal yet).

My initial experience of the park was NOT good (they really need to talk to Disney about crowd management), in that rather than allowing us in all-at-once, they forced us to stand in a very long line while they slowly, and I mean painfully slowly, allowed family’s and or or individuals such as myself into the park …. one at a very long intervalled time. Each of us was forced to have an extended discussion with a guard sitting at the top of the “castle wall” and not allowed to enter until the family that had gone in before us finished talking to the first character by the gate, which I think was Cinderella and Prince Charming who were RIGHT at the other side of the gate. Suffice it to say people were NOT happy about this.

Ultimately, however, by the time I’d walked through the whole place I was a big fan of Rock City. Just like the Mr. Disney’s vision for his parks, which resulted from his having to take his nieces to amusement parks where he ended up sitting on benches being bored out of his mind while they went on rides, this attraction is sort of two parks distinct merged: one that meets the desires of the kids and the other is intended for the adults. At the disney parks the former is achieved with rides, candy and the ability to meet and talk to their favorite fairytale and cartoon friends, while the latter is addressed via beautiful gardens, architecture, and good food. Rock City achieves this same sort of dichotomy, and I’m posting two collections of photos to give you a sense of that difference.

In the first, kids get to do things like shrink down in size and talk to fairies that live in oversized gardens, see hawks up close, rock climb, do crafts like decorating their own crowns, meet characters like Hansel and Gretel, and look in on glow in the dark dioramas that display their favorite fairy tales.

At the same time, while the kids are being thus entertained, adults get to be overwhelmed with natural beauty (and not so natural — the waterfall is man made) and impressive vistas. In addition, about halfway through the park, when you get to the lookout side, there’s a nice restaurant where you can just sit and sip come coffee and enjoy the views (that supposedly has pretty good food), and just chill. Since I was there for an after-hours event most of the food services had already closed — again they need to talk to Disney about (a well run park should never miss an opportunity to milk more money out of folks inside the park).

Also, I have to add that I got QUITE the work out walking around in there because of a myriad of up and down stairways, un-level walk ways, etc. A staffer told me that there’s even a local woman has a season pass and walks through the every day as exercise, and with a one year pass only costing $55, I can see how folks who live nearby might do that.

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Lookout Mountain: the neighborhood

I have to say that the thought of being able to, in my retirement, walk through that park as my ‘daily exercise’ makes the idea of buying a place near there appealing (and I have a good friend who only lives about 30 minutes away). On the downside, however, should I collapse on one of those walks no one might notice me for a good long time because of how the park is constructed, and how lightly it is staffed; and, to get from there to the nearest hospital would require being medevaced. No really, this is how my mind works.

I’m currently homeless and part of what I’m doing during this road trip is trying to decide where to re-locate to (my hometown of Chicago has a high cost of living). The dream, had always been to retire to Disney World, and go there daily for my walks. This is far less crazy than it sounds. Firstly, Florida is retirement central with a slew of doctors who specialize in geriatric medicine, and, secondly, Disney is chock full of staff trained to keep guests in view at all time (other than in toilets) and to respond instantaneously in the case of medical issues — that and they assign a specially trained cast member to hold your hand the whole time you are in the hospital, send you flowers, and be in constant touch till you’re checked out (its how Disney guilts people into not suing them/ the per hour cost of that cast member is much cheaper than paying a lawyer). Only — you can’t walk from your house to any Disney park, but you can live almost across the street from this one.

That and, overall, the neighborhood is very familiar for me; maybe six years ago I used to live in the hills of the San Francisco South Bay area, and the neighborhood at the top of Lookout mountain reminded me a lot of that. Both are high up on mountains, have very ritzy homes that range from upper middle class to obscenely wealthy (in SF I was renting a room from an elderly woman whose neighbors included rock stars, high-tech millionaires, and folks like Ram Dass). I don’t think this neighborhood is quite that upscale, but it had the same feel — and according to various folks I spoke to it has some of the best public schools in the area (a self-selecting mechanism for who your neighbors will be). Now granted, there wasn’t a decent grocery store up there — just a small market for overpriced necessities, but there is a Starbucks — although how much I’ll enjoy that at 70 is doubtful.

Also, while driving around that neighborhood I came across a local woman walking with her young son, and had an interesting conversation. She was originally from Vancouver, and her boyfriend used to live in Evanston, IL — where I used to live — and his family has a house in the village where I grew-up. She extolled to me the virtues of living on Lookout Mountain, saying that not only were the schools wonderful, but that it’s so safe that shehe allows her son to walk unattended and wasn’t even sure where the keys to her house were — he looked to be about 7. Homes here very from multi million dollar homes that have amazing views to more landlocked homes that range from 250K to $300,000, and the distance from here down to Chattanooga proper, with all it’s stores and restaurants, is about 2.5 miles. She also said that while the folks who live there are not particularly political she was pretty sure every one of them was voting for Trump

Craven’s House – National Park (GA & TN)

Beautiful historic spot that has the advantage of being free, while Point Park, at the top of the mountain requires that you pay a small fee (or have a National Park pass, which you should). This really is a beautiful and peaceful place, so I get why Craven built a house here. Now, however, it is part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park that includes Point Park, and is located about 3/4’s up the side of Lookout Mountain (Point Park is at the top). Some fierce battles that ultimately destroyed the house (the signage includes photos taken after the battle of it blown to pieces) occurred here as the Union and Confederate soldiers fought for control of the strategically important mountain. Little placards are scattered all over the sight describing details of the battles, who did what and at what point in the battle, etc., and various states have set up monuments to their boys who died here. The original owner, one of the wealthiest men in Chattanooga later rebuilt it, and now the property is part of the park. It can be found down a turn off on the road between Ruby Falls and Point Park, and if you take the cable car instead of driving, you’ll miss it completely.

Point Park National Park: Lookout Mountain (GA & TN)

Worth it just for the amazing view of the Chattanooga basin below; and if you’re a historical buff, as I am, I would suggest that you first watch the ‘Battles of Chattanooga‘ show (about 30 minutes long) in the building across the street so that when you do look over the basin you can easily reimagine the battle in your head.

This precipice is part of The Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, which memorializes the major Civil war battle that happened here. For a bunch of tactical reasons control of Chattanooga was pivotal to winning the Civil war, and stand off between confederate and Union troops went on for months.

Standing on it, it’s military importance is kind of obvious but still, for those who aren’t up to date with the Civil war history, I would strongly suggest paying a few dollars more to see the show in the building across the street — they also have food and a load of stuff for sale that your kids will pester you to get for them.

You’d think the National Park’s Visitor Center would include something like that as part of the price (like they do in the visitor center adjoining the Chickamauga battlefield), but they don’t… so you’re going to have to shill out a few more bucks, but honestly… I think it’s worth it. This trip was actually my 2nd viewing; the first time I saw it was during a road trip with a friend from Chicago to Orlando, about 10 years ago, and as we are both ‘readers’ we felt it was one of the highlights of the trip (stunningly so). How often can you say you saw a tourist attraction and had it stick in your mind?

That said, if you DO go to the National Park’s tourist center as well, rather than just buying the ticket for this park I suggest paying $80 for the one year pass. Firstly, it’s good for four people and will get you into every National Park nation wide, and secondly, the republicans have been doing everything they can to defund and dismantle the national park system, so we have got to do our bit to help keep it alive for future generations. Since I was alone, I comped 4 people standing in line entry into the park.

View of Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama — and me!

Booth Western Art Museum; Cartersville, GA

A Smithsonian Affiliate museum: while a lot of the art work here is ‘so-so,’ there are quite a few impressive pieces (often borrowed), especially among some of the modern art works.

I’ve spent a fairly decent amount of time in the Southwest, in large part living on the Navajo Reservation, so I’m pretty familiar with this sort of work, and have seen better collections out there; that said, considering this is in the southeast I’m guessing its probably the best publicly viewable collection of Southwestern narrative art in this part of the country. It’s also a Smithsonian Affiliate which means they get to borrow things from that collection that the Smithsonian would otherwise keep in storage, like this incredibly racist piece which seems to have come from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

What I particularly enjoyed, were some of the modern art works.

And this is a process I do not believe I have ever seen before, cast paper

The museums also contains some examples of paintings produced to be used for things such as book covers for western-genre literature, film posters, and magazine covers, etc. I found this particularly interesting as the wife of an old high-school friend of mine is an artist who specializes in the western genre and has had her work used for magazine covers, etc… so I checked to see if they had any of her work, but they did not.

What initially brought me the museum however was an Ansel Adams exhibition (I was a photography major as an undergrad). It was an OK exhibition, it had a few of his photos and a collection of works by other who either influenced him, or were influenced by him. Of the latter, the most surprising ones were these:

And then this was one of the ones I might like in my own home

Appalachian Grill; Cartersville, GA

This was a very tasty and VERY cute looking restaurant — like Disney Wilderness Lodge cute; traditional Appalachian music was on the radio (brother where art thou type stuff) and they specialize in a gourmet twist on traditional Appalachian food. I had the pecan chicken from their Appalachian specials list. It was AMAZING … the kind of thing that would make judges on cooking shows very happy — simple ingredients cooked creatively and with style.

Pecan Chicken: pecan sage crust, lightly fried; served over mashed chipotle spiced sweet-potato with a bing cherry sauce

I was staying in Dalton, about an hour north of here and had come to Cartersville to see an Ansel Adams exhibit at the Booth Western Art Museum (it’s an extension of the Smithsonian Collection). The grill is located just around the corner from the museum and under the overpass — an odd location for a chef driven eateries, but from my perspective it was a great thing because it was raining cats and dogs the day I went and I was able to park my car in a space under the overpass and walk to the restaurant without needing an umbrella.

This place is close enough to Interstate 75 to be worth a pit stop if you’re looking for something FAR SUPERIOR to any of the national chain fare most travelers suffer.

Maple Street Biscuit Company (brunch); Chattanooga, TN

Traditional (horribly unhealthy, but oh so) tasty southern breakfast

This would be one of the myriad of places that does breakfast and lunch, not lunch and dinner — in other words, places I rarely manage to get to because of my tendency to not wake up till noon. However, since I had to be at the car repair at 1 PM I JUST managed to get here before closing. It’s one of the top ranked places in Chattanooga according to Yelp so I had wanted to try it. I was impressed that you can get iced coffee with maple syrup as a drink, and I ordered their “suggested” dish, the ‘5 and dime’. It was a biscuit, fried chicken, bacon, cheddar cheese, an over easy egg and sausage gravy — can’t you just feel your arteries hardening? The piped music was fiddle and banjo — I actually went home and searched for Appalachian music in iTunes afterwards (I now have a decent collection and am many dollars poorer).

The people at the next table (who all have thick southern drawls), who I overheard saying “well we found it, I hope it lives up to the hype” while walking into the place, were — after tucking in — all saying it did (live up to the hype) and are eating with gusto. Based on their conversations I assumed they were from Nashville, and after talking about working in their churches they all said grace before eating (yes, I’m in the bible belt — but I kind of took that as proof of their expertise in the fare). It was an interesting southern moment, as just then a homeless woman was walking by and stopped so as not to interrupt them, and then said “hallelujah” when they were done.

Chief Vann House; Dalton, GA

Highly educational restored home that will blow away historically inaccurate, Hollywood based, preconceived notions of who Native Americans were in the early 1800’s.

If you are in the area and have little hard knowledge regarding the original inhabitants of what is now the United States of America, than I strongly suggest a visit to this historic house if only because it may help to destroy some of your misconceptions regarding who the Cherokee were at the time of the trail of tears (1838-1839).

Most Westerners (and in this I include Americans and Europeans), based on what they have learned from Hollywood films, etc., seem to believe that all Native Americans were backward, or refusing to integrate into western society and that was the reason they were moved westward to what was called the “Indian Territories”, but this is woefully incorrect. In actuality, the reason the native inhabitants were removed had more to do the the recent discover of gold in their lands in 1829. The historic location I visited today is the restored home of Chief Van, a Native American so rich that he owned at least 100 slaves, a bunch of paddle wheel river boats, many trading posts, etc.

He was one of the influential Native Americans of the time who were using the American Judicial system to fight for the rights of his people, and with varying degrees of success in that regard (think of this as the first time that America Judiciary and the southern states came into direct conflict with each other — a pattern later repeated with civil rights, abortion, and then gay rates, et al). In spite of all of his wealth, and power, he made the major tactical error of hiring a white overseer when it was illegal for an Indian to do so (the states had been passing laws restricting the rights of native Americans that were not all that dissimilar to the segregation laws after the civil law, or to what Hilter later did to the Jews in Germany) thereby giving the federal government cause to kick him out along with the rest of the Cherokee during the trail of tears (only he took all of his furniture, slaves, etc. with him and continued to be very rich).

The house is SO fancy that it had a floating staircase and a fancy interior paint job with pigments most people of the day could never have afforded, and president Monroe had spent the night there when visiting the area.

After I leaving the house I drove past the first swamp I saw in Georgia. According to the docent at the Vann house, Spring Place which is the town where the house is located is the poorest part of the state, I guess this was the proof.

Roland Hayes Museum; Calhoun, GA

Local boy does good “museum” dedicated to a now mostly forgotten African American vocalist. Honestly, you’ll learn more about the man via Google than from this place. NOT worth the trip.

This place to be blunt about it pissed me off. I had seen pamphlets for it around town which looked professional and inviting, so even though I had initially gone to Calhoun with the intent of seeing New Echota only to find it closed (they’re only open Wed-Sat), I tried this place instead because of the misleading brochures. I found it to be a pathetically weak excuse for a museum.

Firstly, there is NO signage in front of the building telling you the Roland Hayes museum is in there (or if there is I couldn’t find it), rather you see a prominent sign for the Harris Arts Center in front of an historic looking hotel, located on the towns main street next door to the county government building, that seems to be recently, and (more importantly) expensively renovated. In retrospect, this fact betrayed what I believe to be the museums true purpose … which was NOT to honor Roland Hayes. After much confusion, and second guessing myself as to was I in the right place, I went in.

Essentially, I found a mid sized room set off to the side of the front door, inside of which was mostly just some randomly placed pictures and documents on the walls of the room. The place was so haphazardly ‘hung’ that it took me a full 20 minutes to even figure out who the guy was (as a former art major and history major I was getting really pissed off, a five year old could have done a better job of organizing the place so that it told a story). Considering he was a recording artist whose work was now in the public domaine you would think they would at least have someplace where you could listen to his music — you can on their web site — but NO. And when I say the ‘documentation’ was hung haphazardly, I mean it… they ACTUALLY buried the lead, to use a journalism term; at the far end of the room, and around a corner into a hallway that leads off to some meeting rooms (which don’t feel like they’re part of the museum, so that you get the sense you should not go there) I found a framed newspaper article about the man saying he was the top selling African American vocalist of his day — THAT should have been front and center, as it answers the all important question of, “as a total stranger whose never heard of the guy, why should I care?”

Afterwards, while searching the internet I found recordings of his in the public domain, were they available to hear at the museum? NO… I found a documentary shot in 1990, had they made a deal with the filmmaker to show it at the museum, of course not. I did however spot these things available for purchase on a display in the far corner of the museum store behind the other goods they were working hard to sell, which was mostly what I think may have been art made by locals… or it could have been from China, I didn’t look too closely.

To be perfectly honest, the more I looked at this excuse of a “museum” and compared it to the rest of the very large space in which it was placed — that was being actively used by a bunch of local (dressed to the hilt and bouffant haired) society women’ (not one of which was a person of color) on that Tuesday afternoon, I developed a theory as to why it was there at all. I think the town leaders wanted to convert an old hotel in the center of town into a ladies art center and, looking around for external grants, realized their town had a famous POC and they could get government and other funding for the building’s renovation if they simply devoted one room of that building to him — I’m sure their grant proposal said something to the effect that the rest was intended to honor him by promoting the arts (and I’m sure they throw in just enough yearly events ‘in his memory’ to ensure that funding is not revoked). Did I mention there isn’t even an easily visible sign on the exterior of the building saying the museum is in there? I honestly think more money was spent advertising the space via pamphlets than on actually creating something for people to see once they got there… because, and of course this is all my personal opinion, their real purpose was to renovate the building for the elites of the town and to draw in some tourism dollars to the city — hoping that the ‘hooked fish’ who have driven all this way, after having spent 10 minutes (maximum) walking around the room and finding little to see, will then explore the town a little and hopefully spend some money in the local economy.

Thoughts & Musings

So day before yesterday I stopped in a MASSIVE antiques store in Helen, GA (it took up all 3 floors of a huge home, described as Antebellum, and a modern extension — off to the right). What made this stop interesting, beyond the sheer size of their collection, was that at the front counter they had a large number of DVD copies of Disney’s Song of the South.

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When I said to the owner, a woman, that I didn’t think they HAD released it to DVD because of how controvertial it is, she told me that they imported them from the UK (where I guess they are released). Then I mentioned how Martin Luther King himself had asked Walt Disney (himself) NOT to make the film, and if he did to PLEASE NOT show “happy singing slaves” and how Disney had ignored him on all counts, but the movie had failed at the box office because by it’s release in 1946 it was already out of step with the times …

Then, an older guy, who had overheard my comments and who stated that he was a retired cop, started talking about how they’d changed the name of the road his police station in Texas was on to Martin Luther King Drive, and how offended the cops were that they’d done it… He went on to say that the racism (push back) had just escalated from there… it was a very “interesting” conversation that would never have happened in the North.

Now in retrospect I’m thinking on it and in fact the store had IMPORTED them, and it wasn’t just one copy, it was a lot of copies… i.e., Disney might not want to release them in the the U.S., but this store owner clearly believed that there was enough demand to support the extra cost.

Oh, and before I spotted the DvD I was bemused by a relatively large collection of Sambo dolls and figurines for sale — which is something else one sometimes sees sold in other countries but rarely in the US of A.

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