Chattanooga

We left around 7 am on Saturday morning and headed up to Chattanooga, TN. Mitchell was happy as long as he could watch his Blue’s Clues DVD. Thankfully it’s only a 2-hour trip from Atlanta.

When I booked our hotel room, I purchased a package that included tickets to the Lookout Mountain attractions. Lookout Mountain is comprised of Rock City, Ruby Falls and the Incline Railway. We went straight to the hotel to pick up our tickets. The only problem was the tickets were in a safe that the current shift didn’t have access to. So we waited and waited for them to figure out what to do. They gave us a letter to use to “buy” the tickets. We went to the Incline Railway first because we knew it would get crowded later in the day. But they could not honor our letter. So we drove up the mountain to Rock City where we were able to “buy” our attraction tickets. We decided that it made sense to go ahead and go through Rock City while we were there.

Strollers were not allowed, so Mitchell had to walk the entire way (4100 feet of walking trails) and he did really good considering how short his legs are! We squeezed through rock formations like The Grand Corridor, Needle’s Eye and Fat Man’s Squeeze. We went across the swing along bridge and saw Lover’s Leap. There is a spot where you can see seven states (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia), but it was too foggy and we couldn’t see anything when we were there.

We kept trying to stop along the way to take family pictures and pictures of Mitchell, but he was being completely uncooperative. I think he just wanted to be on the move the entire time and he didn't have to time to worry about pictures!

We went through Fairyland Caverns where you peek through windows to see different fairy tales illustrated. We saw Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood just to name a few. We also went through Mother Goose Village, which was very neat. But it was so dark in the cavern that I couldn’t get any good pictures. Lots of nursery rhymes were written out and illustrated.

On the way back down the mountain, Mitchell fell asleep. I wasn’t surprised considering how much walking and running he had done. We went through a drive thru and grabbed some lunch and then headed to downtown Chattanooga. We drove by the aquarium and children’s museum and then we found a playground by the river that looked like fun. Mitchell woke up and we decided to head back to the Incline Railway.

When we got there, there was a 2-hour wait to go up the mountain! And we knew that wait would be torture with a 2 ½-year old! So we went to the mall (largest mall in TN) and walked around there for a while and then decided to head to the hotel to check in. Our room wasn’t ready yet. So we decided to head downtown to the playground we had spotted earlier in the day. Mitchell played for a little while, but was more interested in running by the Tennessee River. So we headed off along the river and found a public wading pool. So Dave and Mitchell got in the water and I headed back to the car to get a change of clothes for Mitchell. They played for a while and when Mitchell got out of the water, he slipped and fell on his backside. Since he had on a regular diaper that was now full of water, it broke his fall. But not before it exploded everywhere. The inside of the diaper looked like crushed ice as it exploded.

We got back in the car and headed to the mall area to eat at a great rib restaurant called Sticky Fingers. We finally checked into our hotel around 6pm and thought we could relax. But Mitchell was so wound up by this new experience…he hadn’t been in a hotel room since he was 13 months old. And I’m sure he doesn’t even remember that.

The Incline Railway opened at 8:30am, so we decided to head there first thing Sunday morning when it wasn’t crowded. The “incline” is a 1-mile trek up the side of Lookout Mountain. At the steepest point, there is a 72.8% incline. And you can feel it when you’re in the car! The cars themselves were built with an 18% incline. There are 2 cars and they work like a pulley system…one goes up the mountain and the other comes down. Mitchell really enjoyed the ride up and down the mountain. He wasn’t that interested in the observation platform other than wanting to run up and down the stairs. So we didn’t stay at the top of the mountain for very long.

We decided to pass on Ruby Falls this trip. We know that we will be heading back to Chattanooga soon because we all had such a great time. Mitchell was still talking about the "train" this morning. I had some brochures and he picked one up this morning and took it to school with him.