Month: January 2025

Bob and I drove the 3.5 hours from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Cincinnati, Ohio, on Tuesday for our last night before our next housesit. We weren’t sure how the roads would be after the snowstorm had gone through northern Tennessee and Ohio, but it was mostly interstate, so we didn’t really run into lesser plowed roads until we exited for a stop and then once we got to Cincinnati.

We had hoped to see a bit of downtown Cincinnati during our short stay, but lots of closings and many unplowed sidewalks made it a bit more challenging. Late afternoon on Tuesday, we did get out for a short walk and saw a Cincinnati culinary institution as well as some cool murals.

Our top priority in visiting Cincinnati, however, was to visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, which we did on Wednesday morning. It’s an impressive museum that not only tells the story of the Underground Railroad (the secret movement of enslaved people in the US from slave holding states to free states and/or Canada and Mexico) but also sets the context with information on the development of slavery, the Civil War, as well as the continuation of modern day slavery.

One exhibit showed the different percentages in slave populations in selected US states in 1770, so pre-American Revolution, but at least 100 years after the colonies in the US started. I chose to look at the last two states in which we have done housesits — Delaware and Georgia.

This slave pen was owned by John Anderson and operated on his farm. In the early 1830s, he would scour the roads of rural Kentucky to find young Blacks for the slave market at Natchez, Mississippi.

Bob’s winter coat died (zipper became nonfunctional) shortly before we left Atlanta, and his raincoat has been shedding its internal lining for quite awhile. We thought we might stop for a shop on our way into Knoxville yesterday, but we decided a Monday might be a quieter day for the stores.

Anyhoo, today saw us hitting the stores, with Bob getting 2 new coats at great prices. It’s rare to get Bob out to shop, so I’m super glad he had an easy time of it.

After we returned to our room, we quickly headed to the Tennessee Theater just around the corner on Gay Street that we had seen from the outside yesterday.

We looked up the theater last night because we saw that it was showing the musical, “Shucked,” which we had just heard about for the first time during our tour of the Fox Theater in Atlanta. It peaked our interest since it’s about corn, which is what Bob’s home state of Iowa is mostly known for.

Unfortunately, last night was the last showing of Shucked, but we noticed that today at noon the theater’s organist would be doing a free noon performance on the theater’s Wurlitzer organ. We decided that sounded interesting and would also be a great way to see the theater and the organ. We loved both and were entertained with a mix of holiday songs and show tunes.

Some quick facts about the Tennessee Theater. Built in 1928, the Tennessee Theater is the official state theater of Tennessee. Like the Fox Theatre that we toured in Atlanta, it was originally built to be a movie house. It currently has a capacity of 1,645 (versus 4,665 for the Fox, not that it’s a competition.). They were both built the same year and both have impressive organs 😜😂.

Bob and I left our lovely Atlanta housesit home and fun cat, Jax, early Saturday afternoon to go — uptown.

I have mentioned Bob’s Marriott Titanium status. Well, he/we had accumulated enough points through our meanderings to earn a free night at a very nice Marriott Hotel. So, we decided to use this at the St. Regis Hotel in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, where rooms were going (the night of our stay) for over $800/night. I don’t know why anyone would pay that, but it was fun to feel rich and special for an afternoon and evening. We were offered (and accepted) a glass of champagne and macarons upon check in. We also chose to get a free breakfast ($80 credit) the next day versus more hotel points.

Now, it’s the calm before the winter storm…. We drove three hours to downtown Knoxville, Tennessee and will be here until Tuesday morning. Tonight, rain or snow is to start, so we’re not sure what the next couple of days will bring weather wise. We did a little walk about after our arrival this afternoon to the Marriott Residence Inn.

This is a blog post from Bob. Yesterday, I attended the Peach Bowl, an annual college football game, this year featuring one of my two favorite college teams, the Texas Longhorns, playing the Arizona State Sun Devils. Though the Horns won, it wasn’t a convincing win.

The game was played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta, a beautiful 71,000 seat stadium that opened in 2017 and is the home of the Atlanta Falcons. Below are pics from the day.