Enjoy your weekend. I will spend mine on the river. The Tennessee, not the Cumberland.

Oak Ridge is liberal and so non-judgemental that their highly rated high school has no Valedictorians,etc. The older part of town was one of the places where Milky Spore was tested, and to this day, there are no Japanese Beetles there. The west side of Knoxville is more liberal, lots of restaurants (sadly most are chains), and largely newcomers. Huge numbers of half backs (people who retired to Florida, couldn't stand the heat and moved half way back north). Judgemental is not something that fits this part of the world. Mostly folks don't care to know your business. I met a couple, several years ago , who introduced themselves as the Lesbians who lived on the hill, and who were sure I must have heard about them. No, I hadn't heard anything about them and they were surprised that I didn't know who they were. I really don't think anybody cared. But, I've met folks who know my house and my roses, and don't know me. Someone from an adjacent county whose niece had driven him to see our house and how we were remodeling and rebuilding it because he had mentioned seeing the house so many days on his way to the ferry at the bottom of our hill. Another person, when I was launching DH and friends to kayak down the river, stopped to make sure my car was ok, and when I told him where I lived, "Oh, yeah, the old white house that's now yellow and being fixed up right nice." You will find educated, both with and without book learning. Common sense is harder to predict. There are still neighborhoods where doors aren't locked at night. Neighborliness is expected in some neighborhoods, and not in others. (Remember, I lived in New Orleans, and my T-shirt tackiness threshold is both higher and lower than most folks'.)(Lower in what I find irritating, higher in tolerance of some of the off color messages.) My red chinas look especially good today and the noisettes aren't slowing down. Take a look at the local rag, Metropulse, it's now on line and there was a real break out of voting patterns in one of the recent ones.

I have no experience shipping plants but would be willing to give it a try! Shoot me an email and we'll work out the details.

We're just outside of Huntsville. If you're on I-65 traveling south to north, the Space & Rocket Center is just off I-565 coming into Huntsville. Interesting space and aviation museum with lots of static displays outside & inside. If you have time to spend a day, go to downtown Huntsville and visit the old Harrison Brothers hardware store on the square. Part museum, hardware-type items & sundries for sale, and part local art on display for sale. Just fun to visit and browse. And several good restaurants around the square I can recommend. Two hours away from Huntsville is Nashville. Franklin is a little community just south and if you want to spend a little time strolling in a small town, stop there. Downtown Nashville's don't miss tourist stops are Tootsie's Orchid Lounge near Printer's Alley, the Ryman Auditorium (the original Grand Ole Opry), to name a few. If you are going thru Chattanooga there is the TN Aquarium and several other spots to recommend. Almost forgot. About 30 minutes north of Nashville just across the state line in KY is the Corvette museum. I'd highly recommend stopping and going thru the museum. We had passed by this several times and finally stopped. It will take a couple of hours at least to go through the museum, however, you can take a tour of the production facility which takes longer. There is also a 50's style diner (burgers, milkshakes, etc) in the lobby). Fun, and great cars on display. Another 30 minutes north of this is Mammoth Cave. Another thing we did on our last trip. We stayed overnight and went on a couple of the tours. Amazing.