Mike and Nancy McRae's

Sunday, July 17 - The next stop on our travel log was Manchester, Tennessee, to visit Joe's cousin, Mike and Nancy McRae, whom we double-dated with before we all got married a hundred years ago.  They have lived here for 23 years, but this was our first trip through here since before we moved to Arizona 26 years ago.  As we left Chattanooga, we crossed the beautiful Tennessee River, where we saw a barge passing by.

We could see houses on the mountaintop but we don't know if this is the famous "Lookout Mountain" here.

We crossed back into Georgia for a few miles on this interstate, then came back into Tennessee.

We also changed time zones here.  We only had to drive 87 miles today, and we arrived about noon Central Time. Mike met us at the gas station when we exited I-24 and led us to his house, where we again have free parking for a couple nights.  Their daughter, Lisa, and her 2 kids were here visiting so we got to see the whole family.  We made a shopping trip to Walmart and the fruit market, then had dinner and played cards -- something we also did a lot of in our younger days.  Mike retired a few months ago from truck-driving (car hauler) but Nancy still delivers the mail.  Mike just lost his father (Joe's uncle) a couple of weeks ago, so it was good to get to visit with them and reminisce about old times.