To preface the post, I’m struggling a bit with inserting photos into WordPress. For some reason, most (but not all) of the time, they are imported/inserted in an ascending sequence order vice the descending sequence order. For last time’s post, I went and manually typed in the correct order in the WordPress Code editor, but to be honest it’s absurd that this is necessary. I’ve had a plea for help on this topic on the WP forum site for some 5 months and only yesterday did someone respond. I was reminded that this was “Free” software, but the poster asked for installation details and such. Hopefully that means an easy solution is at hand.
I’ve tried some of the gallery plugins available, and it seems the only reason the free one’s exist is to convince you to buy their “Pro” version. As this is a hobby, I’m not inclined to pony up for a subscription add-in to make galleries. The beauty (?) of this subscription based situation is as soon as you stop paying them, the galleries you created fall off the face of the earth. Good for them, but definitely not good for me.
Anyway, we were definitely in tourist mode at this juncture and decided to go all in with a trip to “Rock City”. If you have lived literally ANYWHERE in the southeastern United States, you have seen the “See Rock City” signs virtually everywhere:
So, we succumbed to the temptation and booked a ticket for a tour. Melanie wasn’t feeling especially well, so she decided to sit in the restaurant while I walked around.
We headed out, deciding to grab breakfast en route. Our first choice, Adelle’s Creperie, had customers literally spilling out the doors, so we decided to keep looking. Down the street a bit was Niedlov’s Bakery which wasn’t quite so crowded. We parked across the street, ordered our food and sat at an outside table as it was a nice morning.
The breakfast served was delightful and we thoroughly enjoyed it. A plus was there were a few other tables with people sitting and we struck conversations with them. We remarked on what we were finding in Chattanooga and how special it was, and the ladies next to us said that this sense of community was a fundamental part of Chattanooga. People looked after each other, and cared for each other, and just lived in wonderful harmony. How amazing.
After breakfast, we headed back up the mountain to Rock City. After entering the facility, Melanie found herself a nice place to sit, and I began the tour.
I took a LOT of photos. So as not to overwhelm the casual viewer, I’m going to put just a few here, and then provide a link the “whole shebang”. These were taken with the X-T2 with either the XF18-55 or the XF10-24 UWA.
I’ve made the vertical images smaller to allow one screen viewing. If you want to peruse the entire album in full resolution, click: See Rock City
After leaving Rock City, we headed north toward Red Bank to see what was there. After a nice sandwich at Mimi’s Deli, we drove around Red Bank. It was much the same as the other parts of Chattanooga, with perhaps a few more houses in need of love, but like the rest of the area, the community spirit was there to be seen with a number of house being cleaned up.
In the midst of all this, Melanie got word that her cousin Emily, and her husband Chris, were on their way through the area headed toward Pennsylvania to pick up a camper for their truck. So, we coordinated a rendezvous for dinner at Hillbilly Willy’s BBQ. On our way there, we got the car washed at the Storm Wash and met Chris and Emily for a nice evening.
We returned to the Chattanoogan fairly early as we needed to pack up and such, as the plan was to depart tomorrow morning and head home.
The next morning, after another nice breakfast at Niedlov’s, we headed out with Melanie taking the first driving stint. We stopped for lunch at the Riverfront Restaurant, in Chilhowie, VA. After stopping at Freddy’s Frozen and Steakburgers for dinner, we were back home around 7. So, excluding meals, it’s a 9 hour drive.
Honestly, if it weren’t for that 9 hour drive, we would be all over Chattanooga. It felt very comfortable and welcoming.
That’s all of this sordid tale, next time I’ll talk about a stop I made at the D-Day Memorial on the way back from Greensboro.
