Finishing His Birthday Week...

Claude turned 69 years old this last week. He enters his last year in his 60's. We felt this was a big enough reason to stretch out his birthday celebration an entire week. He loved it.

We started with using his birthday coupons for Dairy Queen and BD Mongolian Grill on Sunday. This was followed by Dilly Bars one day, Girl Scout Cookies another day, the new Kathy Mattea CD and on Thursday, his real birthday, a new Air Fryer. The weekend would be filled with a trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

We left early Friday morning and experienced fog off and on till we got to Tennessee.

I was able to get some major crocheting done as Claude navigated I-75 and fog.

We had a 2pm reservation on the Southern Belle Riverboat for a lunch cruise on the Tennessee River. It was a very relaxing cruise. We were entertained by three very good musicians and the music was easy to listen to. Lunch was a buffet with dessert. After lunch we walked around the riverboat and then settled back on the main deck. Everyone played Bingo. It was just included in the trip. I actually won a round and received a bright tie-dyed t-shirt which will go to the Mini's. We were back at the dock at 5pm.

I found a BBQ place that was a local restaurant. The plan was to go to that for dinner. However, my reaction to the meds at surgery is still not under control and I was not in a good place after we checked into the hotel. Claude walked across the street to McDonald's and got him some dinner and me a big Mello Yello. He brought in my sweater to help with my chills. We hunkered down for the evening so I could recoup for day two.

Saturday I had purchased tickets for three attractions. The first was at 9am at Ruby Falls Cave. We ate a lite breakfast at the hotel and made our way to Ruby Falls.

Ruby Falls was discovered by Leo Lambert in 1928, the year Papa was born. He crawled for 7 hours between rocks surfaces till he found a place he could stand up. I just could not do that. Imagine, if he hadn't found a place to stand up to turn around, he would have had to crawl backwards for 7 hours to get out!! Make's my head spin. At the end of the cave is an amazing 145 foot waterfall. Leo would name this Ruby Falls after his wife. A tunnel was drilled through Lookout Mountain and an elevator was put in this hole that is about the height of the Empire State Building. Rock was removed so that passageways were opened for tourists. All that rock was repurposed to build the castle-like structure that is the Visitor's Center. Today, a tourist takes the elevator down, has a guided tour through the tunnels to Ruby Falls and then walks back to the elevator for the ride out of the caves. The walk is easy. We totally enjoyed this attraction.

One of the first things I noticed in the cave was this absolutely ridiculous sign.

Now I had my cell phone at the ready to take pictures to send to the kids. But I just take the pictures, I don't count on someone providing WiFi in the cave so I can do that while I'm supposed to be looking at these amazing formations. There were a couple of others of these signs as we walked through the cave.

This is the narrowness of where Leo crawled for 7 hours before he could stand. The open space to the right has been made for tourists to walk through the cave.

This is where Leo could finally stand up. I am so grateful he found this for us to see but I truly could not have done all that crawling in a closed space for hours. Man O' Man!!

As you walk through the cave, there are sometimes little streams of water running along. Since there is really only one way through the cave to the falls, when another tour group has finished viewing the falls and start their walk back to the elevator, you will need to pass each other. At those time the group walking to the falls moves to the side of the cave to let the 'survivors' pass. At one of those pauses, I looked into the water in the little stream at the side. It was full of coins. The entire length that was visible to us was full of coins.

Another things our guide pointed out to us were these broken stalactites. When the workers were creating a path for tourist to walk through, they would break off a stalactite to try and sell up top. This was during a very depressed time in the economy of the country and money needed to be made. Unfortunately, anytime to break one of these formations, they stop forming. If left they will become phenomenal things but that take many, many years.

Here are a few of the formations that Leo, his wife Ruby and his friends found and named along the cave to the falls. We were only allowed to touch one of the formations. Claude is touching it in the second picture. Touching them stops their growth process and can damage what is there. The names of these formations in the order shown are Elephant's Foot, Cactus and Candle, Crystal Chandelier and Totem Pole, Reflecting Pool, Fish, Dragon's Foot, Bacon, Potato Chip, Tobacco Leaves and Steak and Potatoes.

The goal of this tour was Ruby Falls. Here are pictures of the falls. They have colored lights on it so the pictures are different colors as they change the lights.

After our Ruby Falls Cave tour, we climbed the tower of the Visitor's Center to get a nice view of Chattanooga and the Tennessee River.

Now we were off to our second attraction of the day, Rock City Gardens. This is actually in Georgia.

In 1823 two missionaries, Daniel S. Butrick and William Chamberlain, arrived in the area to minister to the Indians. On August 28, 1823, Reverend Butrick made an entry in his diary describing "a citadel of rocks," atop the mountain, noting the immense size of the boulders and stating that they were arranged in such a way "as to afford streets and lanes." By the time the Civil War reached Lookout Mountain, more and more people had discovered what was already being called "the Rock City."

Garnet Carter was born in Sweetwater, Tennessee in 1883. When he was 11 his family moved near Chattanooga on Lookout Mountain. His wife, Frieda, had a long time interest in European folklore. They established a community atop Lookout Mountain named Fairyland. Their 700 acre holdings on Lookout Mountain also included the Rock City area. Frieda took a string and marked a trail that wound around the giant rock formations and ending at Lover's Leap. She collected wildflowers and plants and transplanted them along the trail. She included her collection of German statues of gnomes and fairytale character. Garnet realize his wife had something that lots of people might be willing to pay to see. The rest is history.

This is our walk through this amazing rock formation garden.

The Needle's Eye

Where's Claudo?

Swing-a-Long Bridge

A View of Seven States

Claude in Fat Man's Squeeze

Lover's Leap. The story is an Indian maiden and an Indian young man loved each other. Their families were at war with each other. The young man was thrown from this bluff on Lookout Mountain. The young maiden jumped after the man she loved. Hence, Lover's Leap.

Claude & Sandi with Lover's Leap in the background and High Falls behind Claude on the right.

A natural stone face in the mountain.

Claude holding up a 1000 ton rock that is really balanced on two other smaller rocks. He is so strong!!

After this walk, which was mostly under trees and shady, I was worn out. We found a little restaurant at the entry and had something to eat and drink. This was a very nice attraction.

Our final attraction was the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway.

The first Incline Railway was built in 1885 as an alternate route up Lookout Mountain. The only other route was a toll road, Whiteside Turnpike, owned by Harriet Whiteside. With increasing toll charges the Incline Railway offered another option to get to the top of Lookout Mountain.

The second Incline Railway was opened in 1895 and was built by John Crass and the Incline Mountain Railway Company. It has a 72.7% grade to get people up Lookout Mountain. Originally the cars were operated by coal-burning steam engines. In 1911 this was upgraded to two 100 horse power motors. Eventually the second Incline Railway purchased and demolished the first Incline Railway. The version we rode was the second version. It has one track up part of the trip and splits into two tracks on the top portion. This allows two cars to work getting the massive amounts of people wanting to take the trip up and back. We were told that the railway has carried school children and even a mother getting to the hospital to have her baby. It has even been used to haul cargo. 
These are my pictures. We started at the bottom and rode to the top and then rode back to the bottom to get our car. The wait in each line was an hour!!! 

These are my pictures.

These two pictures I took from their website. The cars pass each other where the two tracks merge or split, depending on which way you are going. At the top of that picture you can see the station at the top of Lookout Mountain. You can also see that the steepest grade is going up after the split. The second picture is the station at the top of Lookout Mountain. In the bottom of the building are the huge gears that move the cars.

Saturday evening we went back to the hotel and rested for a bit. We were able to catch most of the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference. After it was finished we went to Hillbilly Willie's BBQ for dinner. It was excellent. Then we made it back to the hotel room in time to watch the Women's session of General Conference in our hotel room.

Sunday morning we slept in before our journey home. I suggested to Claude on Saturday that we might want to see about a route through Gatlinburg to eat our main meal at Bubba Gump's. One has to really want to eat there to do this. It is a couple of hours out of the way at best and one must navigate that road that runs through Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. We did so we did that drive. It was worth the effort. 

Claude posed in front but his feet are tooo big to fit in the pretend shoes of Forrest. We ate in a dining room that we have never eaten in before and the view was amazing of all those crazy people walking the streets of Gatlinburg. We consumed copious amounts of shrimp in various forms. We opted out on dessert for obvious reasons. While we were eating they started a bubble machine in front of Bubba Gump's. Claude named it 'Bubble Gump's'. How fitting.

On the way home I set my phone up to stream the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference and we enjoyed that on the way home. When we got home, we unpacked and then plopped our happy selves down in front of the television to watch the Saturday morning session, the part of the Saturday afternoon we missed and the Sunday morning session of General Conference. It was a wonderful conference and we had an amazing weekend. Love learning a bit more about our country and seeing it. Claude however was sad to see Sunday end because that meant the end of his birthday week.