Road Trip 2005 - Day 3

Wow, is it only Day 3?

7:30am - Rise & shine for T-bug....I'm off to the office to buy our tickets for the big 3 - Lookout Mountain Incline Railway, Rock City & Ruby Falls.

7:35am - Granny notices a water leak under the sink....all of our towels are wet. Good thing I packed bins of extra towels in the basement! PawPaw is sure he fixed it by tightening the connections. "Must've come loose from all that bouncin' around on the road yesterday". Hmmmm.

10:00am - We're finally driving off on our day's adventure. I must say, I highly recommend all of these attractions. They don't have the man-made feel of amusement parks, etc., they are highly focused on nature, and not stuff you see everyday! Having said that, Ruby Falls did it's best to make the tour as hoaky as possible, complete with pumped in music, timed lighting, etc. (although it turned out to be my favorite site!) Not to mention, the tour guide went so fast if you stopped to take a picture (I maxed out my storage card today) you got left in the dust. Big J kept saying "the pack is leaving us!". When we did get to the waterfall at the end of the caverns, however, it was amazing. 145 drop into this 5 foot deep pool. Big J's reaction....."When can we come back & fish in there, Daddy?"

lunch - We take a break and drive into town, not knowing what we'll find. Luckily the road we're on leads us right to Downtown Chattanooga, where we stop at Sticky Fingers. Being the proud Texan I am, I immediately informed our waiter that since I was from Texas (home of superior barbeque) their ribs would have to be mighty impressive. Well, they were!! I had the sampler rib platter which included ribs in your choice of 4 preparations (they offer 6). I chose Memphis Wet (BBQ sauce), Carolina Sweet (honey BBQ), Whiskey and Dry. I love them all but the dry. I have to say the Memphis Wet was my favorite and they were some of the best ribs I've ever had. If you're in Tennessee, you've gotta check them out! We were all fat & happy so we returned to Lookout Mountain for the rest of the day.

We finished up the day at Point Park, home of the Battle Above the Clouds from the Civil War, when the Union soldiers defeated the Confederates and took over their stronghold on the mountain. It was quite an impressive battle ground park, and we all enjoyed it. Big J just liked the cannons. After all the battle talk, he informed us that he wanted to go "do a battle...right now!" Do they have a Jr. membership in the NRA I wonder? Anyway, PawPaw wanted to sit and look out over the Tennessee River, so we left him there while we roamed around. No big surprise, when we returned he had made a new friend and was talking his ears off. I'm glad he enjoyed the battleground because both Rock City and Ruby Falls were not wheelchair accessible and he just couldn't handle the walking required. He napped in the minivan, of course.

We returned to the RV to find the water leak had continued all day. Big L and PawPaw determined that the pressure from the campground hose was causing the leak, so we unhooked and now we're fine. We just have to keep the motorhome's tank full so we have water. Can somebody say Marriott??

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we hit the road again. Hopefully the next site will have wifi as good as this one.....and I'll update you again then. I'm going to add to these posts with some pictures, but it's already midnight and we're getting up at the crack of dawn so I've gotta hit the hay.