Globe-trotting Adventures and Mouth-watering Eats: A Misadventure in Tennessee

I'm not very good at this blogging thing -- mainly because I've nothing exciting to blog about, and partly because I'm lazy. OK, mostly because I'm lazy. But what I'm about to write next is definitely blog-worthy so read on ...

I'm supposed to be in Hartford, TN up in the Great Smoky Mountains leading people down the rivers as a raft guide right now, but ...

Our crappy shack

The Pigeon River we rafted - and the view from the walk to the shower-house.

I lasted three nights (I flew in the Saturday before training) and one training day (8 AM - 7 PM) before I skipped town. The rafting company was soooo very unprofessional, as in there was a lot of drinking (moonshine aplenty), smoking (trainers smoking while teaching you how to raft guide? No thanks), incessant swearing, and sexual innuendos. One manly, female trainer who thought she was so cool smoked and spat out words like shit and F*** in every other sentence. And the male trainer I got stuck with kept telling my fellow trainees and me to "play with it; just keep playing with it" as if the paddle were a penis. When one of the girls on my raft was doing a great job paddling, the trainer exclaimed, "Oh yeah, she really likes to play with it, doesn't she!" Seriously?

The living conditions were subpar. We slept in unfurnished and unfinished wooden shacks that left you with splinters on a daily basis, and had to walk 100 miles away to get to the bathrooms. What happens when I need to go in the middle of the night? It was pitch black once the sun went down - I had a strong flashlight, but it was creepy out there - who knows who's lurking in the dark. Also, the majority of the guys there were sleazebags all wanting to get laid. Another male trainer called these guys "predators." Oh, that's comforting. The girls I met were nice, but I felt very uncomfortable and very much out of place.

OMG. I'm supposed to sleep on THIS?! No mattress or padding?? All I had brought with me was a sleeping bag.

The long, dreadful walk to the shower-house, and this was not even half-way there. Try walking this at 2 AM when you have to go pee.

And where was the kitchen I was told by the owner that would be there? They said it wasn't ready but not a single day did I see anyone working on anything on-site. I had brought my own pot and pan, cooking utensils and plates, and there's no kitchen nor a common area to cook much less heat up a TV dinner in a microwave. So, how does one eat? Make friends with the people next door to you that have their own microwave and mini fridge. But having to constantly ask someone to use their microwave becomes cumbersome. I simply had NOTHING to eat that didn't require heating, however. The nearest store was a Wal-Mart, and it was NOT within walking distance (nor were any hiking trails). We were out in the middle of nowhere. Good thing my roommate had a car. Oh, and the free wi-fi? Completely NON-EXISTENT in your room, something the owner omitted to detail. Wi-fi was only available in the sitting area outside the main office, and where was the main office? Also 100 miles away! So if you had the idea of catching up on e-mails late at night after a long day's work, forget it! And the wi-fi they did have was fickle and S-L-O-W. There were also no power outlets in the sitting area. It was suggested that we sit on a ledge on the side of the main office building to plug in our computers. So you have all these people sitting on the side checking their e-mails and surfing the web. Welcome to computer central. Umm ... ?!?!

Then I had a confrontation with my trainer who left me to struggle with the raft all on my own when he helped and encouraged everyone else. In his thick Southern accent he said, "Darling, this isn't for you" and literally kicked me out of training in front of everyone. Good thing it happened at the end of the day, but still, totally unacceptable. I shot a comment back at him trying to defend myself, but it was no use. I left feeling as though I had just been eliminated from a reality TV show. Perhaps his ego was hurt, but why did he pick on me in front of my peers. My friends say it's because I was the only Asian there. Racial discrimination never crossed my mind at the time, but sadly there are bigoted people out there and it could have played a role. I spoke with the owner of the company (the man who hired me), and he was disappointed with how things transpired, but didn't seem to take much of anything seriously. There was no way I was going to represent such an unprofessional company. Fortunately, another girl named Amelia I befriended, absolutely hated the place and we agreed to leave "camp" together.

At the end of the day, the lack of professionalism and substandard living conditions aside, I still would not have stayed. The prep-work that goes into getting the day started -- From the pumping of the rafts, lifting the rafts, loading & unloading them onto the bus -- it is all very physically demanding, not to mention HEAVY. And I'm pretty diminutive. I don't know what I was thinking going into this. I enjoy rafting, and thought it would be a great experience to guide and learn to read the river, but having to do all that and run down the rivers 3-4X a day (even in cold, rainy weather) isn't something I want to do. I guess I just had to be there to physically go through it all to find out. And of course, it didn't help to run into such dirty-mouthed, cigarette-smoke-smelling, uneducated, and unprofessional people.

So Amelia and I headed west to Nashville. My original plan was to have her drop me off in Knoxville (I flew in to Knoxville) on her way to Nashville, but she talked me into going with her to the capital. I figured, when in the near future will I be in TN next? My point exactly. So why not see, hear and taste Music City? I changed my plane ticket home and flew out of Nashville two days later.

Downtown Nashville skyline

Boots anyone? It's a good deal!


Thought this concrete map of TN was super cool!

We had some yummy BBQ and surprisingly, great sushi there. She took me to hear live country music (not my favorite, but I relented - when in Rome, right?) at a popular local bar, then to her favorite dessert shop, Hot & Cold, near Vanderbilt University, where we ran into a strange Vanderbilt professor who took an interest in me. He was quite the chatterbox, let me tell you! And she showed me a local spot high up on a hill with an amazing view of downtown Nashville's skyline. It reminded me of Mt.Soledad in La Jolla, though not quite as breath-taking. We visited a local farmer's market, a boot shop, and a historical park to wrap up my visit. We had a great time. Will I return to Hartford? Umm ... no. Will I go back to Nashville? Not in the near future. Will I ever go back to Tennessee? I don't know. Will I raft again? Yes, but not as a guide. What I do know is that my sour lemons in the beginning turned into sweet lemonade in the end, a misadventure turned opportunity. When things go south, head west!