Give yourself a gift that keeps on giving all year long
As a new year approaches, New Year’s Resolutions approach even faster. Drinking more water and reading more are repeat list makers, but one that always gets crossed off yet I keep putting back on is “Be More Of A Tourist”.
No matter how long I’ve lived in a place, I take pride in wearing a camera around my neck, asking folks what their favorite place is and stopping to take in the sights.
If Baltimore and West Virginia had a baby, it would be Chattanooga. Full of culture and nightlife as well as history and mountains, this area has big city characteristics with small town charm. If you are or know someone who is feeling that the city has become stale, even with the thousands of new breweries and abundance of local art, then the Journey Jar may be a much needed interactive travel guide.
All Who Wander Are Not Lost
Once I got beyond the front porch of my own cookie-cutter suburbia upbringing, I was enthralled with learning how not every fourth house was the same design. I was flabbergasted to discover that not all towns had their neighborhoods broken into sections like my hometown.
For instance, I grew up in the “M” section and the streets were named like Maureen Lane and Millstream Drive. Across the way was the “S” section with Superior Lane and Stonybrook Drive. There was nothing alphabetical, or logical, how things operated however it all made sense when i was a kid.
Growing up in Maryland just between Baltimore and D.C. for 21 years, I was constantly mistaken for an out-of-towner. I would prepare for adventure by packing the car, making itineraries to then only venture to places just thirty minutes from my house, like the Inner Harbor and Dupont Circle. When I would stop to ask someone to take my picture, they would usually inquire on where I was visiting from and were taken aback when I responded with, “Here.”
After navigating through the nation’s capital and nearby neighborhoods, fumbling my ways through puberty and beltways, I found myself drawn to the mountains of wild and wonderful West Virginia for college.
I needed more trees than people. I graduated with a journalism degree and was fortunate enough to snag a job writing for a travel magazine where I was encouraged and paid to partake in all the Appalachian awesomeness—class six white water rafting, four wheeling on the Hatfield-McCoy trails and enjoying more trees than people.
However, after several years of documenting my treks, my mom found herself with an empty nest located just miles from the beach and I soon found myself on the cushy coastline. Although I do not have a passport stamped full, I do feel well versed in that I have toured a variety of topography but I was more than ecstatic to find myself back in the mountains.
The Journey Jar
When an ex and I couldn’t decide where to eat, we would each put three restaurant names in a hat and whichever we drew is where we would go. It’s fair, fun and a quick way to come to a decision. I don’t know where I came up with the idea to expand it to include excursions but when we moved to Chattanooga in 2014, I made a Journey Jar to assist us in not missing out on all the Scenic City had to show.
With there being 52 weekends in a year, the jar would contain 52 ideas but really who has off weekends anymore so it just represents 52 days off and it divides evenly.
Split that in half and each person gets to write 26 things they would like to do. If your significant other doesn’t want to play along, that’s fine as it is just more hair-brained schemes for you to ponder. As my husband calls me his cruise director, he was intrigued but only generated out about ten as he knew I would choose some audacious activities.
He came up with ones like “Motorcycle ride to Oak Ridge”, “Reflection Riding” and “An Afternoon in the Library.” Some examples I came up with were “Anything Tennessee: Moonpies, Choo Choo and whiskey”, and “A Day In Dayton.” Don’t feel like you are locked in to do whatever you pull out of that jar because when we got “Raft the Ocoee” in December, I reassure you I put that sucker back in for a warmer day.
That said, don’t make a habit of being picky or choosy and throwing them back just because you don’t feel like it. We took a chilly motorcycle ride up to Cloudland Canyon because it was probably the last day you could tolerate the cold on a bike, and the jar dictated it. It was beautiful watching hang gliders fly amongst the foliage. Even with blue lips and frozen phalanges.
Bloom Where You Are Planted
This reflection piece comes appropriately at the end of the year as you are looking back while simultaneously preparing for next year. However, many of us look back shaking our heads at how the time flew and we didn’t get done nearly as much as we wanted. Oh well. Suck it up. Shake it off, along with all this freaking rain, as rain checks are acceptable especially to yourself. Craft your Journey Jar over the winter and cash it in next year. Find yourself and what you love to do then, challenge the parameters in which you do both.
Some may refer to this outlook as blinding optimism but I do constantly try to see the positive in any situation, especially in where you live. I have “Bloom where you’re planted” tattooed on my writer’s wrist to remind me that you do have to make the best of it and, sometimes, that requires searching out the best. The best donut. The best roadside waterfall. The best day. Although time, more so than money, does not allow me to be as daring as I’d like, I am constantly seeking moments to sightsee even if it’s just taking the long way home.
Having lived in Chattanooga almost four years, the first legendary place I visited was McKay’s and it was a game changer in my world of discovery. Full of resources, even in the free bin, I found gems like Off The Beaten Path Tennessee: A Guide To Unique Places and Chattanooga Walking Tour & Historic Guide. These books were older editions and not as up-to-date but hello, they were free and still very useful. I read up on the stories of Oakridge and discovered the Crystal Caves of Raccoon Mountain.
I understand if you have lived here for twenty years and you have been there, done that. But have you been to the Honest Pint for Drag Queen Bingo or Chattanooga Workspace’s First Friday? Have you ridden every hand-carved character on the Coolidge Park Carousel? There’s 52 of them, just saying.
Don’t be the pessimist with a Journey Jar half full and proclaiming how there is nothing to do in this town that you haven’t done before. Host a new tradition New Year’s party and get your friends to contribute to your Journey Jar so you can see the sights through their eyes. Who knows, they may sneak in “Come To Our House to play dominoes & eat Lupi’s.”
Another globe-trotting trick is to ask your server where they would go to eat. Servers are highly critical of excellent service, ambiance and food. As a server for almost twenty years, one classic Chattanooga staple I would recommend is Champy’s.
The servers are upbeat, the decor is priceless, the forties of course and, don’t shoot me, but I like their fish better than their chicken. A friend almost whispered it to me when we went once like it was the best kept secret. Unsure of swimming against the current, I ordered the two-piece dark meat plate then sampled her fish. I was hook, line and sinker ever since. I still haven’t had their tamales so there’s another trip planned.
Note that since we started our farm two years ago, there has been little to no leisure time, so our jar has laid latent until this inspiring article. Here are some of the things that are awaiting departure from my dusty jar:
- Aquarium: walk, bike or bus to some adventure downtown
- Main Street Meandering: Hart Gallery, Blue Orleans, etc.
- A Picnic at Harrison Bay State Park
- The Incline
- Alpine Slide
Thank you for revitalizing my rambling in the verbal and voyage sense. As I have yet to find my way to Fall Creek Falls or eaten at Bea’s, both are going to be on my 2019 to-do list. I’ll be sure to drink lots of water and take a good book.
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.” — Thoreau
Dreaming of wanting to be a writer since she could remember, Jessie Gantt-Temple moved here three years ago from the Carolinas with her husband, and has found roots on her farm in Soddy Daisy.