Getting into the Christmas Spirit at the Tennessee

One of my favorite things to see on entering downtown Knoxville is the big sign on the Tennessee Theatre. There are probably more direct ways to get to the parking garage near where my brother lives, but I always come right down Gay Street so I can see it - large letters stretched vertically down the length of the structure T-E-N-N-E-S-S-E-E.  I've arrived.

I got to see the interior of this grand old theatre on one of my first visits to Tennessee, when a friend took me to a Tommy Emmanuel concert. She had told me that it was a beautiful place, carefully restored to it's original grandeur. But still, I'm pretty sure I did the jaw drop thing when I walked into that lobby. It's spectacular. And a little unexpected to find right there in Knoxville. Although I'm learning not to be surprised by what I find around here.

The theatre was originally constructed in 1928 as a movie palace. It thrived for years. It hosted world premieres with stars in attendance. Glenn Miller and his Orchestra played there. According to the timeline on the theatre's website, things got a little rough in the 70's. The theatre closed and re-opened, closed and re-opened again. The interior was renovated for the Knoxville Word's Fair. Then things started to get better. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The local ballet, opera, and symphony orchestra started to perform there. Regal Cinemas (headquartered in Knoxville) donated new projectors and sound system. The Mighty Wurlitzer organ was restored. And finally in 2003 the theatre closed it's doors for renovations, re-opening in January of 2005 as the beautiful, first-rate performance venue it is today.

This last Monday I drove to town to see a Christmas concert at the Tennessee. About an hour before the concert, I saw that there were folks lined up around the block waiting for the doors to open. Apparently, this concert has become quite an annual tradition. The announcer later told us that it's one of their best attended events. We hung back a bit and let the early-arrivers get settled in. Then we found ourselves some good seats in the balcony. We passed on the boxed lunches available in the lobby, opting to go out to one of the restaurants on Market Square after the show. The Tennessee always smells of fresh-popped popcorn, though, and I was wishing I'd stopped to get a box on the way in.

The Christmas concert is part of the Mighty Musical Mondays series. Free concerts are held at noon on the first Monday of each month. The concerts are "Mighty" because they feature music played on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ. There's always another musical group there too, but the organ is kind of the star. This is one of those big monsters of a pipe organ. It rises up from below the stage and fills the place with floor-rumbling sound. Hearing Christmas music on this thing is a real treat.

The organists (there are two, they each played half the concert) pretty much play non-stop, one piece after another, but at one point there was a pause and the mention of having your cars keys ready. Everyone seemed to know what this meant, so I'm guessing it's a regular part of the show. It turns out that a hall full of people jangling their car keys makes a respectable sleigh bells effect for the chorus of Jingle Bells. Fun.

The non-organ part of the afternoon's entertainment was provided by the Central High School Choir and they were really very good. They performed a mix of traditional and modern pieces, some choreographed. They even pulled off a high-kicking Rockettes-style number for the finale.

Oh, and there was Barney Fife. I'm not sure why, but there was a fellow dressed up like Barney from the old Andy Griffith Show helping MC the event. Greg tells me that Barney is a regular part of the Mighty Musical Monday shows. He did do a good impersonation and he got laughs.

As we made our way down the grand staircase after the concert, looking at the full lobby below where the exiting audience offered thanks and congratulations to the young performers who awaited them in the lobby, it was easy to imagine that this scene wasn't all that different from the way things were when the theatre opened some 80 years ago. Neat.

All-in-all it was a very nice way to spend a December afternoon.

The organ pipes are behind those curtains

Concert Hall Ceiling

The Tennessee's Website

The View

The View

Last Saturday was an unseasonably warm day, so my brother and I decided to head out to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to see Clingmans Dome. At 6,643 feet, Clingmans Dome is the highest point in the park and the third highest mountain east of the Mississippi. There's an observation tower up there and its a popular place with visitors.

I picked up Greg in Knoxville and we headed for the park by way of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. The scenery on the way through Pigeon Forge is, well ... interesting. I'll post about that some other day. And traffic crawls through Gatlinburg. We saw a sign for a bypass as we entered town, but not knowing where it came out on the other end, we didn't take it. But, hey, Gatlinburg is tiny and it didn't take long to get through to the park entrance, even with the traffic jam. The leisurely pace allowed me to look around a little and see what there was to see, so I didn't really mind. We did, however, decide we might want to plan future adventures for week days to avoid some of the crowds.

It's about a 20 mile drive from Gatlinburg to Clingmans Dome. The road zigs and zags and gets more ziggy and zaggy as you make your way up the mountain. The speed limit is low and nobody's in much of a hurry, so there's ample opportunity to enjoy the setting. We noticed at the higher elevations that the roadside was lined with what appeared to be rhododendron bushes. I'd like go back in the spring and see those in bloom.  One of the things I like about driving around in the mountains is the sudden and dramatic changes in scenery. One minute you're in the shade of a forest, surrounded by trees, then you round the other side of a hill and there's a river reflecting sun off it's rocky surface. My favorites, though, are the spots where everything opens up to views of the surrounding mountains. I'm still new enough around here to unashamedly point and say, "Wow! Look at that!"

the Bear

As we were driving along we came on a spot where a whole bunch of cars had pulled off along the road and people were out looking off into a little ravine. They saw something. I was hesitant to stop, but Greg was sure it must be a bear, and since we'd already been on one unsuccessful outing in search of bears, we really had to see. I joined the cluster of vehicles that had pulled off the edge of the pavement and we got out to look. Sure enough, there was a big black bear down there. He was just kind of hanging out next to a fallen tree. He'd look up at the people who were looking at him for a bit, then rest his head back down on the log. He (or she) looked tired. I wondered if hibernation-sleepiness was setting in. We watched for a while, took some photos, and continued on our way, happy with our first bear sighting.

Surprisingly enough, at some point along our drive we started to see snow. A storm had brought a pretty heavy snowfall to the mountains the week before, but it had warmed up so I wasn't really expecting there to be any left. The roads were clear but there was still quite a bit of the white stuff on the ground. I'd love to see the park in the snow some day, but I'm not likely to brave those roads in bad weather. There were lots of spots with steep drop-offs, prompting some "wow," comments from Greg. I kept my eyes on the road and tried not to think about it.

Up and further-up we climbed and then, sort of before I expected it, we arrived at the Clingman's Dome parking lot. There's a pretty big parking area. It was about half full on this November afternoon. I wonder what it's like during the peak of the tourist season.

I think the most beautiful view at Clingmans Dome is right there from the parking area. That's where I took the photo that's at the top of this post. The view is great up at the observation tower and you can see in all directions from up there, but what you see from the parking lot is that classic Blue Ridge Mountains view of a seemingly unending sea of mountain ridges, unfolding one after another off into the horizon. And the mountains actually do look blue. And smokey. It's beautiful. I said, "wow" a lot.

The trail to the observation tower

There are a lot of skeletal looking dead trees up there. Some sort of little bug that kills the native Fraser firs has invaded the area. There are plenty of young fir trees growing up around the dead ones, so the effect is sort of a green forest with porcupine quills of dead white trees sticking up through it. The dead trees, in their ghostly whiteness, add an interesting element to the scenery.

We found some benches at an overlook near the little park store and had our lunch before hiking up to the tower. There's nowhere to buy food in the park, so I was glad we had thought to pick up lunch as we passed through Pigeon Forge. The park could make a small fortune selling box lunches to visitors. The store there did have bottled water, and stuffed bears and other souvenirs. We picked up a couple trail maps for future adventure planning.

The Observation Tower

The trail up to the observation tower is only about a half mile long, but it's pretty steep. I'd like to say I breezed up it with no trouble, but the truth is I was huffing and puffing a little. It made me wish I was in better shape. But it was doable and there are benches along the way where you can stop and take a break. At the top, there's the observation tower and a connection with the Appalachian Trail. Hiking the Appalachian Trail is one of those things that I don't think I would ever personally do but that I love the idea of. It was neat to be near it.

The observation tower is kind of modern looking, in a 60's sort of way. The observation platform itself is round, with a round roof on top, and there's a concrete ramp that spirals you up there. Once at the top, you can see a long ways off into the distance. There are some signs posted around to give you an idea of what direction you're looking and what you're looking at. The day we were there, parts of the ramp were still covered with snow and ice, making it pretty darned slippery. I'm happy to say I managed my way up and down without once falling on my bum. It was well worth the hike to be able to spend a few minutes on top of our little part of the world.

The drive back down the mountain felt like it took much less time than the drive up - it always seems to work like that - and all the views along the way, although still pretty, seemed a little less wow-worthy after having been to the top of Clingmans Dome.

Settling In

The neighborhood

I moved to the hills of east Tennessee from coastal Virginia in July of 2011 - almost a year and a half ago. That seems like a long time, and the move wasn't all that far geographically, but I still have a bit of settling in to do. While much here is more or less like it was  there, a new place always requires a certain amount of learning, I think. But I like to experience new things. That's half the fun of going somewhere new - the newness of it. So maybe I don't really want to be all that settled in just yet. The truth is, I hope to never run short of things to discover about this place. So far, the little plot of hillside around my home has provided enough to keep me observing and adjusting. And I'm still noticing new stuff every day. The trees are a little different from what I'm used to. The birds don't sound quite the same. And there are wild things in the woods that I haven't seen before (both critter-wise and plant-wise). Oh, and there's the steepness of it all. As a girl who grew up in the very flattest parts of the flat part of Virginia, the hilliness of the hills takes some getting used to.

As I wander up and down those hills, I plan on sharing my adventures here. Some may be true adventures of the get-out-there-and-explore-stuff variety, while many will probably be quieter outings that don't stray too far afield. All will be my effort to slow down, look around and learn about this new place I call home.