If you will recall, Justin and I drove up to Chattanooga on Saturday October 12 to explore the city and take part in the River Rocks festivities. I decided to document the trip in pictures and words after being challenged by October Daily. If you'd like to go back and check out what we did our first day in Chattanooga, you can check out my first "A Day In My Life" post here.
8:30AM
As much as I would have liked to have shot the sunrise, after having gone to bed at 2AM the night before, I knew that a sunrise shoot just wasn't in the cards for the days activities. Luckily, we woke up fairly early and thus were able to get started on the day earlier than I had originally anticipated.
9AM
One of my absolute favorite things about staying in nice hotels is the hot buffet style breakfast they serve. Without even having to leave the building or destroy the kitchenette, Justin and I were able to have a satisfactory breakfast that filled us up until it was time for dinner.
The Staybridge Suites buffet included hot biscuits with gravy, sausage, scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, fresh fruit, yogurt, make-it-yourself waffles, 3 cold cereal choices, and a large variety of breakfast drinks.
Justin and I, as is typical for us, split two plates worth of goodies. We shared a waffle with whipped cream and strawberries on top, some scrambled eggs, a few turkey sausage links, a biscuit with gravy, some grapes, and Justin also ate some cottage cheese. We also had orange juice, fat free milk, coffee, and hot chocolate.
10AM
At some point on Saturday, as I was out shooting feeling confident that I had plenty of memory cards and 3 camera batteries available for my use, Justin remarked that instead of bringing all 3 of my batteries up to Chattanooga he had put one in the charger and left both the spare battery and charger at home. Obviously since my goal in returning to Chattanooga was to shoot as much as I could, even with my newfound knowledge I kept shooting just as frequently as before hoping my batteries would last as long as I did.
I bet you can guess what happened…
They didn't.
My first battery died around 5PM or so on Saturday and it was merely a waiting game to find out how long the second one would last. (It died around 1PM.)
So one of the first goals of the day, after seeing my battery get down to half, was to make a Target run for a camera battery charger. We wanted to make sure that we would have time to plug the battery and charger into the hotel outlet prior to Sunday's planned outings. The earlier we could find a charger, the better. Luckily/surprisingly, we found one! Yay!! Even better, it was a car charger! :) Clearly it was meant to be!
11AM
In preparation for check out, Justin and I made sure to clear our hotel room out of all of our stuff. We took showers, changed, ate an orange, fought the cleaning lady for our room, and finally checked out around noon.
1PM
The whole reason for our initial visit to Chattanooga a few weeks back was to visit Cloudland Canyon State Park, so obviously we had to go!
I have to say that the park was absolutely stunning. The view was spectacular. No regrets in going whatsoever…except…
Can you see those?…
Those are stairs. A half mile of stairs on Hemlock Trail, to be precise, leading down to the bottom of the canyon where a waterfall awaited us – 1900 feet down. It was a LONG way.
As if the stairs weren't bad enough by themselves, I had fallen the day before when shooting out near the river in Chattanooga. The ground looked solid, but when I went to step, my right leg fell into a hole. I thought I was fine, but the large number of stairs on this outing proved me wrong. Going down wasn't too terrible, but, for me, coming up was excruciating. On the way down, the leg I had fallen on the day before got shaky. When we got down to the bottom of the canyon, I rested for approximately 30 minutes (or at least it felt like it!) and I massaged the leg trying to get it to quit shaking for the trip back up. Nothing worked. On the way back up, nearly every step made my leg feel like it would give way. I held onto the stair railing for dear life knowing that if I fell and got hurt worse getting help and getting to the top of the canyon would be nearly impossible. It definitely took me much longer to climb up the steps than it did to go down them.
Once I reached solid flat ground, you have absolutely no idea how thrilled I was. Of course then it was like nothing had ever happened, and I was off taking pictures again. Poor Justin. I almost feel invincible when I'm taking pictures, and he just has to put up with it. :)
5PM
At this point Justin and I had not eaten in almost eight hours, so we were just a bit hungry. The closest restaurant Justin could find on his phone was Tremont Tavern. We ended up going there for dinner. It was a cute, small, local pub with fresh food and good service.
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Justin and I ordered a burger with everything including cheddar cheese and a side of fries. The burger came out to us split on two separate plates (aww!). It was definitely good; one of the best burgers I've had in a long time. While the scenery wasn't ideal (think: pub), I definitely would recommend it for the food. :)
Then it was time to head home…
OR NOT!
6:20PM
Following our delicious dinner at Tremont's where we said very little and played on our phones rather than talk to each other because we were so tired, Justin and I went on a scenic view of Missionary Ridge. I was in search of a beautiful spot to take sunset pictures, and Google claimed this was it. Unfortunately with the national parks closed, the drive ended up just being a scenic view of Chattanooga, but ohmygoodness was it an amazing view! I don't have any pictures, but it was definitely worth the drive! Wow! :)
6:40PM
After driving through Missionary Ridge and discovering all of the national parks closed (GRR!), Justin and I decided to drive up Lookout Mountain in the hopes of spotting a perfect sunset view. We found ourselves up at another national park near Craven's House, which was also closed. :( Luckily, the view wasn't! It was far from perfect, especially since the view did not include the sun directly overhead, but looking out onto the city of Chattanooga was truly amazing. Justin and I stayed put until well after the sun had gone down.
8PM
Right before going home, I begged Justin to take me to Rembrandt's for one last vanilla steamer. :) Justin got a cup of hot tea and we were off to Atlanta!
10:30PM
We didn't arrive in Atlanta until 10:30PM that night, but we were soooo happy when we did! After such a busy weekend, we were ready to sleep in our own bed and perhaps recover just a bit from all of the walking, climbing, and falling (just me) that had occurred.
While we had a lot of fun on this trip, I think it may take a while before I can convince Justin to go on another weekend trip again. :-/ I think I wore him out with all of the places I wanted to go, things I wanted to see, and pictures I wanted to take. I don't regret it though!
I hope my post(s) helped give you ideas of things to see and do in Chattanooga if you ever go. And if you've been to Chattanooga before, do you have any recommendations for things I may have missed? I'm always looking for new things to see and do, and I'd happily drive the 2 hours again just to find a new place to photograph or do something new and exciting! :)
