Pardon Me Boys..........

Won't You Choo-Choo Me Home?

8-15-11:  Headed to Chattanooga today on I-40. Went through a bit of Pisgah NF.  Great drive with a lot of "Falling Rocks" signs.  We could see why.  Many of the rocky mountainsides had strong fencing over them, huge bolts for fencing, and still many rocks on the shoulders of the roads. We made mention of the fact that we never see rocks fall, only rocks that have fallen.  That's a good thing. Got to the Cherokee NF at the TN line.  Al Gore Interstate System?  Went through the Martha Sundquist State Forest.  Crossed the French Broad River -- and, again, it truly is broad!.  Our RV Park is actually in Rossville, GA (home of 2nd place winner, Laura A, on the 10th season of American Idol).  The RV park is very near the Chickamauga Battlefield. So they have the park divided up by north and south.  The north seems to be seasonal campers, while the south is full of temps like us.  We are on Braxton Bragg Rd.

8-17-11:  Saw some of the leftover spring tornado damage around Ringold, GA today.  Pretty severe.

8-18-11:  Went to see The Help.  Excellent movie. Ron Howard's (Opie) daughter did a great job as Hilly.  Today was our sweet little Asher's 3rd birthday. We called him this morning and sang Happy Birthday to him, and he sang it right back to us!  Cracked us up. I think he may have wanted to show us how it was supposed to sound.

Rocky Boy

8-21-11:  Got pretty concerned about Rocky today.  His back legs have lost strength for quite awhile.  But today it appeared his front legs may be giving out, too.  We decided it may be about time to make a decision.

8-22-11:  Took Rocky to a vet here this morning.  Really expected him to not come home with us. We talked it over and prepared ourselves that they may just put him down.  But the vet wants us to try (again) to wean him off the steroids.  She said he won't be 100%, but really thinks he'll be better.  Worth a try for sure!  We felt so much better when we brought him home.  I think he really liked the news, too!!  Just walked with a little more pep afterwards.  Even hobbled up a step when we got back to the camper.  (We've been having to carry him up and down the steps).  My baby.

8-23-11:  When we got up David started petting Rocky and asked him how he's doing this morning.  Rocky answered (through me), "I'm just glad to be here, Daddy."

Is that a house built on a crevice??

Nope - It's the Incline Railway

David and I headed over to Lookout Mountain to ride the Incline Railway up the mtn. It is the steepest train in the country, about a mile long, with a 72.7% grade.  As we got close to the station, I pointed to a house on top of a mountain and told David that it sure seemed odd that someone would build a house on such a huge crevice!  As we got closer, David said, "That's the Incline track!".  The house was actually the upper station.

Heading up the hill

Passing the other car at the halfway point

Inclining a bit more

Incline Railway Car

Wow!!  The view was out of this world!  We sat at the very front on the way up.  Which meant we sat at the "bottom" of the train and faced the view behind the train.

Going back down

We soon saw why they needed windows on top of the car

Could look out across the city and the countryside and then -- when we got close to the top, the whole angle changed!  The view down in the valley could suddenly be seen out the TOP of our train!  Just amazing!

The Tennessee River from Lookout Mountain

Chattanooga Battlefield

New York Monument 

a quarry near Chattanooga from Lookout Mtn

Tug on the Tennessee

David on Och's Trail

Och's Trail

Cool Tree on Lookout Mtn

this looks awkward -- trying not to fall before the timer went off. lol

Moccasin Bend on the TN River

At the top we walked around the little town of Lookout Mtn and to Point Park.  It's a Nat'l Historic Site of the Chattanooga Battle, or Battle Above the Clouds.  The Confederates held it for some time, but the Union finally took it so that they could take Chattanooga. Some wonderful views of the Tennessee River, Moccasin Bend, Missionary Ridge, bluffs, 2 nuclear reactors, tugs and barges, and a quarry.  The New York Civil War Monument atop Lookout Mountain is the only known C.W. monument commemorating both the Union and the Confederates.
Got home and started watching Hurricane Irene updates, and learned that a 5.8 earthquake hit in Richmond, Virginia and was felt in D.C., Ohio, PA, NYC, Chicago, Detroit, Virginia, to name a few. Lots of shaking bldgs, breaking glass, a couple of nuclear reactors shut down, and Amtrak shut down in the NE but, hopefully, no injuries.

Enchanted Garden at Rock City

Enchanted Garden

8-24-11:  Visited Rock City this morning.  The drive up to Rock City is very scenic.  Luckily we picked a day that wasn't too crowded.  The entrance took us through the Enchanted Garden.  Really unique.  The property used to be someone's private property and they decided to build a garden and open it as a park.  Huge boulders with a rock walking path through them.

Fat Man's Squeeze:  I'm going in!

Can somebody scoot one of the boulders back a bit?

Becky on Swinging Bridge

David on Swinging Bridge

Walked through the Needle, Fat Man's Squeeze, Swinging Bridge, among other awesome spots.

View of 7 states from Observation Point

Here they are

 Got to the Observation Point/Lover's Leap and could supposedly see 7 states.  It was a clear day so we prob could see them.

Falls at Observation Point/Lover's Leap 

Sky Bridge at Lover's Leap

Observation Point/Lover's Leap

 Wonderful waterfall at the top as well.

My Big, Strong Man!  The 1000 Ton Rock

Fairyland Cave

Then after passing under the 1000 Ton Rock, we went into the Fairyland Cave.  Pretty neat -- lots of fairy tale characters hidden in the cracks and crevices throughout, lit up by blacklights. Good day!

Cement Pond

8-25-11:  After a good workout at Curves, I just hung out at the cement pond at the rv park this afternoon.  Had it to myself again. Think I'm figuring out why.

Fuller Gun Collection

Spencer Rifle

a couple of the 200+ guns in the Fuller Collection

Chickamauga Cannon

Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center

8-26-11:  We went to the Chickamauga Battlefield this morning from 9:00-1:00. Wonderful! The museum had the impressive Fuller Gun Collection.

Chickamauga Monument

TX Monument

This is how they mark the spot a commander fell

Chickamauga Monument

Georgia Monument - the tallest in the battlefield

Chickamauga Monument

Wilder Tower

Chickamauga Monument

We did an auto tour through the battleground and saw that most states had monuments there.  VA is working on getting theirs.  AR doesn't have one, even though we did have troops there. Very well-kept battlefield.

Brotherton Cabin

Snodgrass Home

Snodgrass Hill

Lots of interesting info! The Brotherton Family and some other farm families were forced to stay hidden in a ditch during the battle while their farm and home was turned into a hospital.  Snodgrass Hill is where the peak of the battle took place.

 I learned that Confederate General Helm was killed there.  He was a West Point grad who was offered a leadership role in the Union, but he turned his brother-in-law, Abe Lincoln, down and fought for the CSA.  Many famous folks of the era died there, including a guy name Coolidge who discovered Saturn's rings. Chickamauga was one of the bloodiest Civil War battles with around 36,000 casualties (killed, wounded, missing).  The South won the Battle of Chickamauga – if there is such a thing as a win in the CW.

The Chick and Chatt Battlefields have been among my fave things here!

Ruby Falls in TN

8-29-11:  Went to Ruby Falls Cave today on the TN side of Lookout Mountain. (which is the end of the Appalachians).  I'm not too crazy about caves. (but THANK GOODNESS they did not turn off the lights once we were down in there)  It was worth one trip.  Not something I'd be dying to repeat.  But fairly interesting.  We descended about 260 feet on the elevator. By the time we reached the Falls, we were over 1000 feet underground -- without descending!

"I'm So Scared" (Blair Witch Project)

Ruby Falls are the tallest underground commercial falls in the US, falling around 145 ft.  We learned that this particular cave was created by a fault, whereas most are created by water. It stays a steady 60ish degrees throughout the year in there. Leo and Ruby Lambert discovered the cave and falls in 1928.  They had very narrow tunnels to crawl through.  Leo and some guys went in one day and were in there 17 hours. The next day he took his wife, Ruby, and named the Falls after her.  When I saw what she had to crawl through for half a mile or so on her tummy, I thought "well he dang sure shoulda named them after her!"

My Caveman

The Falls begin with an underground stream and eventually empty into the TN River.  There have been times when the area had a lot of rain and the inside of the cave has too much water to enter.  And other times when conditions outside were so dry that the Falls are a trickle -- but they've never completely dried up.

Oh yeah -- Stalagtites grow from the ceiling down.  Stalagmites grow from the ground up.  Guess what the pic below is:

StalagLITE

When we came out of the cave, we got a great view of Chattanooga from the lookout tower above the cave.

Pardon Me Boys....

9-1-11:  Went downtown to see the actual Chattanooga Choo-Choo today.  Yes, there really is such a thing.  

Is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?

Pretty cute engine! 

Track Twenty-Nine

 We learned that it was the the first passenger train from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, thus earning the name Chattanooga Choo-Choo.  We have high hopes that now that we've seen the Choo-Choo, that we can get that song OUT OF OUR HEADS!!  

Boy, You Can Gimme a Shine!

We have been singing it in various forms every day since arriving here. Drove around downtown along the TN River and decided after Labor Day, we'll come back and walk around a bit here.

Braxton Bragg Hike

Uh-oh -- gotta climb over this tree on the trail

9-2-11:  Took the Braxton Bragg 5 mile hike through the Chickamauga Battlefield today. It was a fairly easy hike, but felt great!  It's awesome that there are pieces of history - monuments and signage - out in the woods that we cannot see from taking an auto tour.  

Bragg HQ Site

General Bragg's HQ site was our final destination before looping back to our starting point.

Young Buck

Fawn - I love how they pose for pix!

Yep - still here

We shared the trails with about 6 whitetails.  They seemed to be traveling in pairs today.  The first pair was a young buck and a friend. The other pairs were moms and fawns.

David thought I was puckering up -- just taking a swig of water!

Most of our hike was pleasant temp-wise.  But before we got back it was around 90.  Don't know which of us was stinkier.

A little warm

 hmmm -- I'll say David!

The site where Helm was killed

One of the last monuments that we saw was the site where Helm was killed. Interesting hike and really good day!

chillin

Oh, and on a sidenote - Rocky has had 2 really good days and nights!  I think he just may pull through!

9-3-11:  Oh boy!  College football begins!  Woooo - Pig Sooooieee!
Still have a week and a half in the Chattanooga area.  Tropical Storm Lee is supposed to bring us a lot of rain and storms this week (so sorry to use the "r" word, my Texas peeps), but we hope to get some more hiking in before we leave the area.  Not totally sure where we're heading from here, but plan to be at Petit Jean before the end of the month!

Stay in touch with us.  Love hearing from you all on email, FB, and -- even the old-fashioned phone!

Much love,


Leo and Ruby