Four-Eight-Four [dot org]

I really need to do a better job of keeping up with things here. Once again, it’s been months since I’ve posted anything.

So, what’s happening? Well, we’re preparing to move to Chattanooga, TN. At this very moment, Rachel is looking at houses. OK, I don’t mean she’s looking at houses at 2:00 a.m., but she is in Chattanooga for the purpose of finding candidate houses.

We’re hoping to find something older, on a reasonable sized lot that I can garden (my new hobby), possibly in need of some repairs, so we can get the house for a bit cheaper, and do some work on it ourselves. Time will tell if we’ll find anything that fits that right now … and if not, I guess we’ll rent for a few months to a year there, until we do find what we’re looking for.

In relatively unrelated news, my father-in-law has acquired a 1993 BMW M5. It’s a lovely metallic burgundy, is equipped with an appropriate transmission, and is in immaculate shape. I’ve driven it a few times now, and it’s quite a bit of fun. Unfortunately, the trips I took consisted of taking it a short distance down I-40, and up to Montreat … so I haven’t had as much fun as one could, say, taking NC 9 down to Bat Cave. Ooooh … that would be so much fun.

I’m going to miss NC 9 when I’m gone.

Generally, we take NC 9 to Hendersonville to church. So, I get the pleasure of driving it on a semi-regular basis. Just south of town, you get some very nice tight curves and switchbacks as you climb a mountain and cross the continental divide … and then you have some more of the same going back down. Once you are off the mountain, there are little spurts of curves intermixed with longer straight stretches. The scenery is lovely … in fact, I’d say that NC 9 ranks only slightly below US 74 through the Nantahala Gorge on the "Jeremy’s Favorite Mountain Roads" list.

While I’m on the topic of things I’ll miss … I-40 going to Asheville is quite nice as well. Guess I’ll get to experience it going to see my parents in Raleigh, though. But, I will miss this area in general. I’m also going to miss the little hardware store in town, My Father’s Pizza (the best pizza in miles), the Dripolater (our local coffee shop), and my neighbor Kate and her chocolate lab Bella.

There’s a lot to miss. I’ve grown very attached to this area in the year and a half I’ve lived here. I’m quite certain that’s partially because this general area (southwestern North Carolina/northeastern Tennessee) was my ‘dream’ location since my youth.

But Chattanooga will be good as well. For one thing, there’s an active Linux/Tech/Programming/Whatever community there. The Tennessee River is phenomenal. The mountains there are nice too (but a little to un-jumbled for my tastes, in some cases). I’m a big fan of the bridges. And, in the pizza and coffee shop department, they have Lupy’s and Stone Cup. In short, despite being disappointed that I’m leaving the Asheville area, I’m excited about moving to Chattanooga as well.

Oh, and I can’t forget that it will be nice to be closer than 40 minutes from church. We don’t have a Missouri Synod Lutheran church any closer to that. Our choices are Asheville, Marion (east of here on I-40), and Hendersonville (south on NC 9 to Bat Cave, then west on US 64). In Chattanooga, we have four to choose from, so we should be pretty close. Of course, we’ll probably attend the one that Rachel’s dad serves, but still …

I did tell my pastor earlier this week that Missouri needed to start a Black Mountain Lutheran Mission. Perhaps one day …