The rain stopped around 5:00 in the morning which made me happy. I was not looking forward to having breakfast in the rain. Once the rain stopped I could hear all sorts of new noises. One was a weird whistling sound. It was really eerie and part of me imagined that it was aliens coming to get us. But the other part of me figured it was bugs or something.
About an hour before everyone woke up for the day I heard Derrick mumble in his sleep, "fun day." I figured that was a pretty good sign that this vacation was going pretty well so far. I forgot to mention that Derrick was super excited about this vacation. He didn't understand all the details, but he'd been asking to "go see waterfall" the day before we left. So when we finally did go see the waterfall on the first day of our vacation he was pretty happy. Since we had plans to see lots of waterfalls on this trip I knew he'd have a great time.
Derrick woke up for real around 6:30. There were trains down in the valley and as soon as he heard one of the horns blow he sat straight up in bed and yelled, "traaain!" After that everyone was up for the day.
We got out of the tent and found that we were surrounded by fog. Brandon started lighting a fire.
The fog gradually thinned out as the sun rose. Brandon and I worked on figuring out breakfast. We'd brought a lot of cereal for the kids, but our milk was still frozen solid. So instead, Brandon heated up water for hot chocolate and we had that along with more hard boiled eggs, string cheese, and grapes. The kids probably also had a lot of crackers.
Derrick was in love with the fire and would always try to blow on it if it started to go out. At one point he said, "Mom, I want to blow on fire." which is probably the longest, grammatically correct thing he's ever said. He also would say, "Good job with the hot." Which sounded exactly like he was saying "Jabba the Hut."
Charlotte had brought her teddy bear that she'd named Honey. In another life, Honey belonged to Brandon and was dressed as a knight. But now she's a girl and wears a dress.
A picture of the fire because Derrick would ask me to "picture of fire."
We had our breakfast and then changed into our clothes for the day. We were going to be taking a cave tour. I didn't want us to stink like campfire smoke so I made sure we changed our clothes after we were done with the fire for the morning. Then we got in the car and started driving to Chattanooga, Tennessee which was only about 50 miles to the north of us. We could have driven on the Lookout Mountain parkway, but we took the interstate up there because it was faster.
The kids got a little antsy toward the end so we fed them Twizzlers to keep them happy.
When we arrived in Chattanooga we followed the signs to Ruby Falls cave which is located on the northern slope of Lookout Mountain. I'd been under the impression that the entrance was near the top of the mountain, but really it was only about a third of the way up the mountain.
We went inside the entrance building and bought our tickets. The kids were hungry so we let them snack on some chips and granola bars while we waited for our tour.
Soon the next tour was announced and we excitedly got in line. Almost before I could think about it we were on an elevator descending down into the mountain. The elevator had a glass door and we could see the solid rock passing by.
The elevator opened and we found ourselves inside the cave. Everyone was really excited. I'd been worried that Derrick might freak out on us, but he was pretty happy to be "in the tunnel."
Our tour guide had us watch a quick video about the cave and the tour we were about to take. I found it very interesting. Here's the gist of it. Lookout Mountain has always had a cave that people explored for centuries. But it was closed to the general public when the Tennessee Valley Railroad had to build tracks near the opening. Leo Lambert knew of the cave and wanted to open it to the general public. In 1928 he started drilling an elevator shaft with the plan to reach the cave that way.
As the elevator shaft was being drilled an opening was discovered at 260 feet down. This was still over 150 feet above where they expected the Lookout Mountain Cave to be. Mr Lambert and a few people went down to investigate and found a small opening 18 inches high and 5 feet wide.
They crawled through that opening for over 7 hours and traveled 750 feet before they came to an area where they could stand up.
Then they continued exploring the cave and discovered interesting features including a waterfall that Mr Lambert named for his wife, Ruby. They returned to the elevator shaft 17 hours after they first left.
The shaft was eventually drilled down to the original Lookout Mountain cave. Both the Lookout Mountain Cave and Ruby Falls routes were excavated to make them more accessible. But Ruby Falls ended up being the more popular tour and after 1935 they stopped offering tours of the Lookout Mountain Cave.
After listening to that interesting story I was even more excited to see the cave. Our guide took us though the cave and we were able to touch some features as we traveled.
Adult tickets were $20 and the kids were each $12 (except for Veronica who was free). Add that up and this was one of the most expensive things we've ever done as a family. One thing I'd worried about was that we'd pay all the money for the tour and then the kids would whine the whole time. But thankfully they did just fine and really seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Our route was about half a mile long. We actually ended up 10 feet higher than we were when we started at the bottom of the elevator shaft, but because the mountain itself was higher here we were 1120 feet underground.
Then it was time to approach the waterfall. This is what I'd been waiting for for months. Last year, on our way from Utah to North Caroline I'd seen a picture of Ruby Falls on a brochure at a rest stop. Every since I saw that picture I knew I HAD to see this waterfall in person.
Our tour guide told us that it would be dark when we first went into the waterfall chamber. She said that after about a minute the lights would come on and we would see the waterfall. This was so everyone could see it for the first time together.
We were in the front of the group and so we walked into the chamber first. Charlotte and Lydia held my hands as we walked into the stone room. I could hear the water running over the falls and splashing down. There was low music playing. I felt almost like I was approaching a holy place. And I was full of anticipation.
Then the lights came on, and the music triumphantly proclaimed that THIS what what we'd been waiting for. Suddenly all 145 feet of cascading water was visible.
I took a video so I could remember how that falling water looked.
It was amazing. Here was this waterfall that had been flowing for thousands, if not millions of years, without anyone ever seeing it. And then somebody found it because they wanted to go exploring. And now here I was, little insignificant me, and I could see this beautiful creation. It was one of the most profound moments of my life.
Veronica on the other hand was not very happy about the whole thing. She was scared of the dark and then she was scared of the music. She kept telling me it was scary. She'd been fine during the cave tour, but she wasn't a fan of the waterfall.
Charlotte and Lydia loved it though. They were jumping up and down with excitement. At one point Lydia ran over to the tour guide and told her something along the lines of, "Thank you so much for bringing us here. I love this waterfall."
Here's what the water looked like at the top of the falls.
We made sure to get a family picture in front of the water fall. In case you were wondering - this was totally worth the money. I love how Charlotte's bear, Honey, made it all the way to the waterfall. Charlotte had been telling me that Honey would be so surprised by the waterfall. I guess she was.
All too soon the tour guide told us that we had about one minute left before the lights would dim again. I wished that we could stay longer. Soon the lights dimmed and the music ended. The waterfall kept flowing, just as it has for eons. It's kind of comforting to think about how it's still flowing right now.
Veronica was still scared so she wanted me to carry her out of the cave. The things we passed on our walk back seemed slightly boring compared to the waterfall we'd just seen. But it was cool to get another perspective on the passageway.
Brandon took this picture of Veronica and I touching the "candle" formation.
We made it back to the elevator shaft and took that up to the surface again. We were let out onto the viewing platform of the lodge building. We walked up some stairs and were able to get a good view of the Tennessee River Valley.
I'd never seen Chattanooga before and I through it was very pretty.
The kids thought it was fun to look out at the view.
There was a play ground up there and the kids played there for a little bit. Brandon ran back to the car and grabbed bags of mini cookies for everyone. Eventually we made our way back to the car. First we stopped to pose for this picture. Veronica refused to sit with us, but she jumped off of some stairs and into the picture at the last minute.
Ruby Falls was really all I'd had planned for the day. We decided to go explore Chattanooga a little bit. We ended up driving on a bridge across the river and noticed another bridge that people were walking on. If you are familiar with this blog at all you know what happened next. We just can't resist bridges.
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| (That's Lookout Mountain right above Veronica's head.) |
I would guess the bridge was about half a mile long. It was really cool to walk across and all the kids enjoyed seeing the water.
We crossed into the more downtown area of Chattanooga. There was small bridge and led to an art museum so we walked over there. This bridge had see-through sections that were so scary to walk across. Brandon had to walk across the metal part because the see through parts made him nervous. Veronica walked out on the glass and then said, "oh no!" So I moved her into the solid looking middle part.
We could have spent hours exploring Chatanooga. The weather was perfect and the city had a really cool vibe to it. But unfortunately our parking spot was only free for one hour. Also I didn't think the kids had much energy left in them. I was already pretty worried about how we were going to get back across the big bridge.
So we turned around and went back across the bridge.
Just as I suspected the kids started giving out on us as we crossed the bridge. Here I am carrying Derrick while trying to led Veronica along. One of the twins is on the other side of me whining about how her leg hurt. This is my life.
Somehow we made it back to the car without any casualties. The kids were happy to get back in the car and sit in their seats. My map of the city showed a small tunnel not to far away so we went off to drive through that. This kids thought it was cool.
Then we went back to Lookout Mountain to drive up to the top of the mountain and see what we could see. I knew that there was a place called Rock City somewhere up there. The website for Lookout Mountain had made it seem like Ruby Falls and Rock City were right next to each other, but really they were about 4 miles apart. Rock City was located at the top of the mountain on the Eastern face. It boasted spectacular views, a waterfall, and tons of nature. Unfortunately it also cost another $20 for adults and $12 for children. Even with a few dollars off with a combo Rockcity/Ruby Falls ticket I just couldn't justify spending that much money.
I was hoping that there was somewhere else on top of the mountain where we could see the view without spending an arm and a leg. We did find one place. Point Park is a National Park that is dedicated to the Civil War History of the area. It cost $5 for adults and was free for children under 15. We could have got in for free with our National Park Pass. But by the time we found this area Derrick and Veronica were fast asleep.
Instead Brandon just pulled over and I jumped out to take a picture from the side of the road. So here you have the view from the very top of Lookout Mountain.
Lookout Mountain was actually kind of weird for me. I was expecting a completely rustic wilderness area. And instead the whole top of the mountain above Chatanooga was a fancy neighborhood. There were mansions everywhere. We drove through at least 10 miles of neighborhood on top of the mountain before it turned into a more back woods country area. And then I didn't even realize we were still on the mountain. The mountain kind of wedge shaped. It's fairly narrow where it starts in Chattanooga, but it spreads out as you cross into Georgia and Alabama.
So as we drove back into Alabama along the Lookout Mountain Parkway, I thought we'd some how gotten off the mountain. Instead we were driving along the top of it, but we weren't near the edge so I didn't know. It wasn't until we decided to head west toward the town of Trenton, Georgia that we started descending down the sides of the mountain and I realized we'd been on top of it the whole time.
As we came into Trenton the kids all woke up. We all needed to go to the bathroom so we were on the lookout for a gas station or a park. We were lucky and found a park. After a quick trip to the bathroom all the kids ran over to the playground and got their wiggles out.
There were some train tracks nearby and Derrick hadn't forgotten those train horns from early in the morning. So I took him and Veronica over to the tracks so we could look at them. He and Veronica had fun throwing rocks into a puddle of water.
We were getting ready to go back to the play ground when we heard a train whistle. Derrick was so excited to watch the train go past us. Back at the end of the Ruby Falls tour he'd picked up a brochure with a picture of a train on it. He'd been showing it to me all day and talking about trains, so he was happy to see one for real.
After the train went by we started walking toward the play ground. This took a while because Derrick and Veronica had a lot of fun picking up dandelions and blowing their seeds everywhere. I love how they are entertained by such simple things.
It was getting late and so we needed to get going back to our campsite. We drove through the valley for a while and back into Alabama. Then we followed a road back onto Lookout Mountain and back to DeSoto State Park.
It was so nice to come back to our campsite and find that everything was dry.
It was almost like we were seeing it for the first time.
We lit a fire and pulled out our mostly thawed out tin foil dinners and got those cooking. The kids and I went on a little walk around our campground. We found place with a sort of good view to the west.
Charlotte kept giving me the thumbs up sign every time she posed.
There was a structure with this replica of a well.
Here are the kids posing as the sun set.
We went back to the campfire and roasted marshmallows. As it got darker I could hear that weird whisling again. It scared the girls. Brandon said it was probably frogs from the pond that was only 30 or so feet from our tent.
I thought that Veronica would want to stay up for a while, but she was asking to go to bed pretty quickly. Though she had a harder time settling down with all that marshmallow sugar running through her. Charlotte and Lydia came to bed after a little while. And once again Derrick stayed up and looked at the fire while Brandon got everything cleaned up. Eventually he wanted to go to bed and I got him all situated.
After he was in bed I went back out by the fire and talked with Brandon for a little while. He'd saved a bag of Oreo cookies for me and I enjoyed those. Then we came back to the tent and made sure the kids were all snug in their beds.
Brandon and I blew up our air mattress again and settled down to read Calamity again. Then we tuned off the lights and fell asleep.
At one point in the night Veronica woke up and flipped over in the process she uncovered the blankets from herself and Lydia. So I got up and covered them up again. That was about the only interruption the whole night. I was happy to not hear any rain on our tent this time. So far our vacation was going just about perfectly.
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