visit lookout mountain, ruby falls. well one out of three, i spent last weekend in Chattanooga tennessee, to do a steam train photo charter on the tennessee valley railroad, a double header steam outing, but since as we all know i just cannot fly somewhere without a little extra tourism, i flew from newark to chattanooga on saturday night 3/10/18, arriving at 10:30 pm, 15 minutes early, only to discover the budget rental counter was closed, they were all closed, at 10:00 pm, seems expedia will let you book a flight into a city with a bundled car from a closed counter. luckily my hotel was only a short cab ride away, so i came back sunday am and picked up my car. i then went to rock city in late morning, and promptly sat in the parking lot drinking coffee (there is a starbucks right across from the parking lot) trying to decide if the gray overcast was worth the price of admission, finally decided since it was not raining, why not. so here follows gary's southern adventure of 2018 rock city was actually gardens created by a german housewife immigrant married to a wealthy merchant, and they lived at the top of the cliffs, as we will see later and so yes, there are gnomes all over the place, particularly in the section called fairy city
so rock city is a decent workout, you do a lot of up and down rock paths, through some tight squeezes yeah i fit, but not by much, turned sideways, wonder if guests ever get stuck??
so they are hard workers, gnome sayin?? a little more history, not all the rich are selfish , too many are these days, but some create beauty, such as rock city, butchart gardens, biltmore, etc. the famous postcard, my grandparents had the bumper sticker, see rock city, visit lookout mountain and ruby falls on their ford fairlane in the 60"s this was interesting as it moved around under foot so that i could walk up to there, and see this, i had been hearing pipe music since i entered the gates, but wasn't sure for awhile if it was live or not, it was live, the chattanooga pipes and drums, playing on lovers point, and of course all trips should have some sort of moment, some surreal type thing, and mine came when they shifted from a familiar scottish war tune to playing rocky top, you have not truly experienced the south until you have heard an osborne brothers tune played by a bagpipe band
remember i mentioned this was also the carter home, well here's the plaque and the home, which still has carter family living there today, so no entry past this point and not quite sure why we had to have a mime, but we did, and i threw a buck in the case since i did take a photo and they have a sluiceway and in warmer weather you can prospect for geodes and into the pavilion, where i had a really good and filling shepherd's pie lunch, and listened for awhile to this irish band, the molly maguires, pretty good, and when they broke the mandolin player came over and was all excited to look at my sony a9 body as he shoots for the local paper back outside, and not sure what these represent, but here they are and a cool old 50's fire truck and the exit is of course through the gift shop, disney has taught the world well
so that concludes our visit to rock city, a worth it 2 1/2 hours, and we move on to our next stop, now remember how i said one time that trips should be viewed as A list, B list and C list items, and sometimes a C list makes it onto the trip and turns out to be worthy of a better rating, well the next stop follows that, the international towing and recovery museum, some of the coolest tow trucks i have ever seen. it starts off outside with the fallen tow memorial, recently seen on a highway to hell episode, my wife is a fan. and the tow hero, risking all to save someone and the names of the fallen in the entrance, first up a little lawnmower engined truck kids can climb all over so let's get on inside and see the trucks and yeah, a cadillac wrecker, why not and moving forward a few years and the walls are lined with these cases with hundreds of cool scale tow truck models and the next few photos are all about a ww2 military wrecker that was part of the red ball express, the army supply chain, trucks 24/7 from the normandy beachhead, chasing troops across france especially since the port of cherbourg took much longer to capture than originally estimated, and was wrecked substantially by retreating german troops. historical fact added, much of the supply train was run by black troops, the us military was segregated under until 1947, mostly white officers, the senior noncoms, as usual the backbone of any unit, the staff, first and sergeants major were black. command sergeant major at that time was the highest pay rating a black soldier could hope for.
from the big to the really little and this one is special to me, there was one in a backyard within 5 miles of my home for the last 30 years, the cranky old owner would not sell it to any collectors, he would not even let people on his property that asked to take photos of it, finally he passed and his family sold to a collector, but the bull nose trucks were common around here when i was young
and you had to know towmater would make an appearance and one last tow machine, someone actually made a packard limousine into a tow truck well that concludes sundays adventure, once i cull them, process and upload i will be back to this thread with some steam train photos
