First Four Hours In Chattanooga

The last 48 hours have been a bit of a blur. With the International Coral Reef Symposium winding down on Friday, last minute meetings and fond farewells to friends and colleagues, a 4AM shuttle to the airport on Saturday, a hop up to Atlanta then a skip to Chattanooga for the Society for Conservation Biology conference, some hotel mayhem in finding me a room, a failed attempt at a wake-up call this morning, a scramble to get to the convention center to set-up for my workshop, and then two-hours of presenting, I'm feeling some reality vertigo. Especially since my brain is still on coral-time and I want to process last week.

Anyway, things went well for my workshop (lots of interested participants) and I'm now back at the hotel for some down time.

Some initial thoughts about Chattanooga? It's hot. And humid. But to say that it's humid is missing how soppingly wet the air feels here. Combine that with the thunderstorms last night and this morning, and you get a crushingly heavy humidity that steams-up my glasses going into and out of the hotel and makes me feel like my clothes are lined with rubber.

Did you know that Chattanooga is the birthplace of the bottling industry? True that. It's where Coca Cola bottling first created the iconic image of the product. From here, the bottling technology spread to other products and applications around the world.

I'm also loving the quaint Tennessee dialect. People really do say, "I swear, y'all." No really. And somehow, they can make words like "hey," "that," and "yeah" come out of their mouths with two syllables. Sometimes three.

While Chattanoogans seem like perfectly nice folk so far, there's no question I'm in the bible belt. Easily one-quarter of my flight from Atlanta was on their way to Chattanooga for a bible ministry study. The fellow sitting next to me on the plane was chatting to someone on the phone about that evenings meeting at the church. And based on the drive to my hotel from the airport, you can't swing a cat without hitting a baptist or Lutheran church. When I explained to the local cab driver that our conference officially started tomorrow, he said (shocked), "On a Sunday?"

Needless to say, sticky humidity and god tend to put me in a bit of a mood. Luckily, the Tennessee Aquarium, just a few sweaty blocks from my hotel, saved the day. First of all, it was heavily air conditioned. Secondly, it was well-designed and entertaining. I enjoyed walking through the freshwater river sections with some of the local families, just soaking in the conversations.

It's always interesting to find a local community that's close to their resource. I heard a young boy call out to his father to look at an exhibit, "Dad, look! Mocc's!" Referring to the display of venomous Water moccasin's. I listened as two young boys identified species of river trout in one display of moving water. And I wondered if any of the kids back in San Francisco would know a brook trout if it slapped them in the face. Of course opportunity to interact with the environment is part of the familiarity here. But still, it was just what I needed to hear.

After cooling-down at the aquarium, I was ready to head back to the hotel for a nap. But on my walk back, I found myself pulled, like an iron filing to a magnet, by the aroma of barbecue hanging thick in the Chattanooga air. The source was a barbecue joint called Sticky Fingers. A southern franchise, but still good. Their specialty was dry-rub pork ribs. I settled into a booth and quickly ordered-up a plate that included a 1/2 rack of Memphis-style ribs, pulled pork, baked beans, slaw, and all washed down with a icy glass of southern sweet tea.

At that perfect moment, I allowed for the slight possibility of a divine being.