Downtown Knoxville

This morning as I was taking Earhart for his morning walk, we got to meet the BIG dog who lives at our host's home. He's really friendly, but his size usually scares people. I wasn't too afraid because I had Earhart to protect me.


As we walked around the yard, we realized we hadn't been up in the treehouse yet, so we climbed up and had a look around. We could see really far from there. But not as far as where we would go later in the afternoon!

The Sunsphere!
It started to rain, but we went to visit the Sunsphere anyway. It wasn't good for pictures, so here's a great picture from the Wiki entry where you can read more about this 266 foot tall tower that was built for the 1982 World's Fair that was held in Knoxville. The glass sphere is 74 feet in diameter! And yes, you can go up in it (and we did) and have a wonderful view of the city and the Tennessee River. The glass sphere part has real gold flecks embedded in the glass to give it that permanent golden glow from the outside. The inside has five levels (once you get up to the sphere part!) but you're only allowed on level 3 right now. The other levels are being re-constructed (1982 WAS a long time ago, you know) and a restaurant inside the sphere is supposed to re-open this month. For more technical information you can visit Sunsphere.info.



This is me from the inside looking out. It's kind of hard to see very far in the picture because the camera couldn't see well through the gold tinted glass, but we could. We would have been able to see further if it hadn't been raining. It still was a great view and a little bit scary.


Earhart thought he was on top of the world!


Later we went to the library. Earhart and Toast had to wait outside, because dogs aren't allowed in the library. They look so sad out there, don't they?


I chose a book about Josefina. I just love reading about all my sisters!


Our last stop with to recycle the plastics and a few glass bottles. It was still raining, but I tried to help and stay dry at the same time.