A little drive into Knoxville today just to mess around and enjoy the weather. First stop was at the Knoxville National Cemetery, we try to visit every National Cemetery if we happen to be in the area. Took a picture of a Medal Of Honor recipient for Cathy's genealogy blog, I looked up this guy and he was one of the more common Civil War recipients.
From here we drove next door to the Old Gray Cemetery, this the oldest cemetery in Knoxville and has a ton of Governors and Senators buried here. This is one of my favorite type stones, a mystery where you have to go home and figure out what it means, thanks to GOOGLE it now only takes a few minutes and you know the fantastic and interesting story behind the Immortal 600, give it a try.
During our wandering we discovered that we were close to the Ijam Nature Center so we made a stop there, it was getting a little chilly so we didn't do any of the trail and just went in the nature center instead. They have a few displays but not a ton, a few different type turtles, the picture is of a soft shell turtle that normal hides under the sand with just his hear exposed.
A slice of a 353 year old White Pine,that means it started growing in 1595,28 years before the Pilgrims arrived here. It was cut in 1948 when it was damaged by a storm, it was the largest in the nation at the time.
We also read about the Passenger Pigeon which now extinct, they were called Passenger Pigeons because they travel in mass around the country. Audubon recorded instances of observing flights of more then 2,000,000,000 pigeons in one flock, they were so many that they could eclipse the noonday sun for hours at a time and were capable of reach speeds of 60 to 70 mph.
The great state of Michigan, our home state, helped make them extinct, Petoskey Michigan in 1878 with over 2000 workers killing and shipping, one firm boast that they sent five rail cars a day for over 30 days to market in New York, in two years over 12 Billion birds were killed for market. After this killing spree only a few scattered flocks remained. The last Passenger Pigeon, Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo, September 1, 1914. In just a few decade the most numerous bird on earth was gone.
A short walk back to the parking lot produced these pictures.
On the way home we spotted a Qboda Mexican Grill, we've never been to one but I remembered that one of the travel blogs I read said that they loved them so we decided to give it a try. Wow, Cathy got the Grilled Quesadilla and I got the Three Cheese Nachos, both were great and really filling, next time we might just split a dish. Just barely made it home in time for a siesta.
