Tennessee Time

Tullahoma is the my destination, a smallish burg of around 18,000, about 65 miles south of Nashville, which route is complete with a couple of turns midways along the way onto different US routes (I-24 to US 231 to US 41A). Along the way you pass by farms, sizeable towns/small cities, trackless woods, and (by my count) eight Waffle Houses.

And a ninth down the road is where I’m having breakfast tomorrow morning.

(Indeed, you pass by two Waffle Houses on the short bit between the airport and the Interstate. They are ubiquitous throughout Shadow here.)

So, anyway, thank heavens for NeverLost.

Tullahoma is right next to the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) at Arnold AFB, “the World’s Premier Flight Simulation Facility,” This is not a coincidence.

Other, more random thoughts:

• Port Pork (and pigs and ham and bacon) are major themes in advertising here.
• There are a lot of churches. A lot of churches. Many, many, many of which are Baptist, and most of the others of which are independent or smaller dominations (such as the “Church of God of Prophecy“).
• No fences — except to keep in livestock. Most yards are swathes of lawn that you can only tell have turned into another person’s property when the other person’s house shows up.
• Plenty of billboards for “ROCK CITY! See Seven States!” — which actually appears to be in Georgia.

The Jameson Inn in Tullahoma is nice and quiet and clean. It’s also decidely lacking in broadband, as well as movies. Though it does have 78 cable stations. I went and had dinner with the other members of the team (at the fabulous Ruby Tuesday), and was dismayed to see that the other recommended/standard hotel for the company, the Hampton Inn, has a big marquee noting “Free Wi-Fi Internet Broadband.” I was mildly gratified to hear that it wasn’t working …

Though, damn, 16.8k is slooooooowwwwww …

And speaking of “Tennessee Time,” Tullahoma is on Central Time, as opposed to Oak Ridge, our other big Tennessee office, which is on Eastern Time. How annoying.