Pardon me boy..... is that the Grady's on the Choo-Choo?

 

OK, we didn’t go on the Chattanooga Choo-Choo….. but what other catchy thing could I write for Chattanooga?
We also did not go to the National Towing Museum either, but who can blame us?

Larry & I have been to lots of places throughout this great country. Our favorite city is San Francisco, but our second favorite city is now Chattanooga. OK, it’s really 3rd. Philly is still, and will always be number 1!
What a beautiful, fun, and family-friendly city! We stayed in Chattanooga for 5 nights and we were very sad to leave it.

While there we went to the amazing “Rock City”. It was a beautiful park where you walk through caves, over natural bridges and a slightly scary suspended rope bridge, through really tight rock squeezes (one is called “Fat Man’s Squeeze”), and then, finally, overlook a waterfall and an amazing view at Lover’s Leap. From the lookout at the top you can look into seven states from that one single spot. We all loved it. The neighborhood outside of the park, on Lookout Mountain, is called Fairyland Town. The streets have names like Cinderella Lane, Peter Pan Road, Riding Hood Way.

In that same area, after Rock City, we drove up to Point Park, a part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park. It was the sight of a portion of the Battle Above the Clouds and several other important Civil War battles. The view is beautiful and you really get a great picture of the Tennessee River and downtown Chattanooga. Of course you’re standing next to cannons that were firing down into that city and the surrounding battlefields, it’s a beautiful but somewhat somber place. We also took some very sweet pictures in the park and the boys taught Sissy the fine are of ant stomping, like the good big brothers that they are.

I was also able to take the kids to the Creative Discovery Museum. We were there for hours! I love kid museums, and this was a great one. There was a music room with tons of instruments to try, a room to dig up dinosaur bones and a room with different types of art (stamping, drawing, painting, still-frame movie making).

The one day we spent walking through the city. There are miles of parks along the river and the world’s longest pedestrian bridge. I also found a snake wandering across the path. I was declared a hero by the boys for finding it. I think they were actually more impressed that I didn’t’ freak out! There was a fountain park that the kids splashed around in for an hour.


I think Selah loved it there more than the boys. This is somewhere that we would certainly love to come again! We didn’t go to their beautiful aquarium because we are planning on going to the one in Atlanta.

We were in town for the annual HUGE yard sale that goes for FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES! You can look up the route and people have sales along the way. Sometimes groups of people will meet in a field to set up their tables and sometimes you are driving up to someone’s farm. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we drove into Georgia and then into Alabama looking. We only got a few books, and a few games but it was such a great drive! The sale route even goes up into Kentucky. If we weren’t in an RV, I could have bought so much more!

Thank you for the continued prayers and the emails. We are thrilled and blessed to take this trip. We found a Calvary Chapel last Sunday and it was wonderful to fellowship in a place that felt so comfortable and a bit like home. After service every Sunday they stay at church to eat lunch together. So Josh and Caleb ran around in the playground with their new friends while Larry & I ate lunch with the pastor and his wife. Isn’t God great? When you meet another Christian, you instantly have something in common with them and there is an instant connection. Being in the “Bible belt”, there have been a lot of other believers around us. We are truly loving this experience.

Tomorrow we are headed for the Atlanta area. The deeper into the south we get, the thicker the accents. The thicker the accents, the more the boys love to imitate it. And I mean ALL 3 boys!