Events – Page 2 – Seeing the Scenic City

The HoHo Expo

Derek and I were settling in for what was to be a long, boring Saturday. We had nothing planned. Derek was binge watching a show, and I was browsing the internet.

I came across an advertisement for the HoHo Expo, a holiday gift shopping event, held today and tomorrow at the Chattanooga Convention Center. There was free admission and free parking. We figured we might as well go since it wouldn’t cost us anything but our time.

The HoHo Expo is hosted by the newspaper, the Chattanooga Times Free Press. They had a booth in the middle of the expo where they were giving out cookies and apple cider.

There were about 150 vendors selling all kinds of items. There were lots of things that I would have liked to buy, but I didn’t necessarily need any of it. I want to save money so I’m trying my best to be good! However, we did buy a loaf of maple pecan bread from the Dutch Maid Bakery and Cafe, from Tracy City, TN.

Santa was also there to take family photos, and there were also Disney princesses too! At one point my three favorites, Moana, Rapunzel and Ariel were all posing for photos together. I would have gotten in line for a photo, but I think that it may have been frowned upon. This isn’t Disney World!

We enjoyed the opportunity to get out and walk around and see the different items. Now that we know that this is an annual event, I will probably plan to do some Christmas shopping there next year.

Friday nights at the Mountain Opry

We have found a gem of an event; an authentic Tennessee experience – the Mountain Opry.

The Mountain Opry takes place each Friday night at the Walden Ridge Civic Center on Signal Mountain. Musicians have been gathering here each week since 1979, and it has been written about in the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Music starts at 8 p.m. and doesn’t end until 11 p.m., which is way past my bedtime, but we did stay until 9:30, so we saw two full sets.

The two groups we saw were the Scenic City Ramblers and Barefoot Nellie and Co.

The music was a mix of gospel, bluegrass and country. Some numbers were just music with no lyrics, too. Most of the songs were unfamiliar to me, so it was nice to hear something new. I was excited to hear Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors though! The next morning I looked up some of the songs we heard and listened to them on YouTube. I am sure if we keep going to this event, my country music catalog will grow!

The event is low key, and makes for an inexpensive night out. It’s in an old auditorium room. Lots of groups were there and everyone was saying hi to friends and chit chatting. We were the youngest there by at least 30 to 40 years though! There is no admission, but they pass around a paper bag for donations. There is also a concession stand with popcorn and soda.

It was a great evening and I can’t wait until we go back again!

Mountain Opry14 — Barefoot Nellie and Co.

Mountain Opry15 — The building where the Mountain Opry is held.

Performing Coat of Many Colors – click to play video.

Performing Little Georgia Rose – click to play video.

Head of the Hooch

Derek and I surprisingly found ourselves to be a part of a large watch party this afternoon of the Head of the Hooch Regatta.

The Head of the Hooch is a two-day rowing regatta held the first weekend in November in Chattanooga. It was originally called the Head of the Chattahoochee, due to its location in Georgia on the Chattahoochee river. The event became so popular that it outgrew its spot, moving to Chattanooga in 2005.

I knew that the regatta was held today, but I had not looked into it enough, so I did not realize it was an all-day, two-day event. I thought it was only a morning race. I had said to Derek, “Maybe we could go watch it another year, it’s too cold to be there right now.” (We just had a strong cold front go through and its been in the 30s in the morning.)

In the early afternoon I suggested we go to Bluff View to get drinks from Rembrandt’s Coffee House, and then walk across the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge. We first walked to the Bluff View overlook, and we just so happened to watch the start of a women’s 8 person team race.

We started to walk across the bridge and watched some more races there, along with hundreds of other onlookers.

It was neat to stumble upon something extra like that during our afternoon outing.

Head of the Hooch19 — The crowd up on the bridge watching the rowers.

Ketner’s Mill Country Fair

When I first moved to Chattanooga in September, Facebook started suggesting a lot of events for me to go to. Ketner’s Mill Country Fair was one of them, and I tucked the idea away in the back of my mind.

Ketner’s Mill is located in Whitwell, TN, about a half hour away from us, actually in the central time zone. It’s interesting and odd to be so close to the edge of a time zone barrier!

The Ketner family started working at the mill since 1842, according to www.ketnersmill.org. The mill ceased operations, but family members gathered together in the 1970s to restore the mill and house. It’s private property, but each year it’s opened to the public for the fair. The mill is not in production now, aside from that weekend. Visitors can buy cornmeal and watch it be made.

The fair featured a lot of vendors, wagon rides (we were lucky to get a whole wagon to ourselves) entertainment, blacksmith demonstrations and sorghum molasses demonstrations.

We learned that each of the vendors were all handpicked by the organizers of the fair. The items that each vendor had to sell were all nicely crafted. I stocked up on some homemade soaps, and we bought a small loaf of pumpkin bread to share at home. I only wish I had more money to purchase more items.

The fair grounds were beautiful as well. It was a cloudy day, and the clouds were low in the mountains. The mill was the focal point, and the Sequatchie River flowed behind it.

The drive to the fair was great as well, driving through some small towns and the Prentice Cooper State Forest. We pulled over many times to take photos of the scenery.

Ketner Mill craft fair0 — Low clouds in the mountains on our way to the fair.

Ketner Mill craft fair69 — Prentice Cooper State Forest.

Ketner Mill craft fair72 — Had to pull over for some small pops of color!

Ketner Mill craft fair9 — Ketner’s Mill and the Sequatchie River.

Ketner Mill craft fair47 — The view behind the mill.

Ketner Mill craft fair63 — Wagon ride with horses Mike and Ike.

Ketner Mill craft fair38 — Inside the Mill.

Ketner Mill craft fair25 — Blacksmith demonstrations.

Ketner Mill craft fair30 — Sorghum molasses demonstration.

Ketner Mill craft fair33 — A close up of the sugar cane being turned into juice.

Blowing Springs Farm

Yesterday we went to Blowing Springs Farm, a farm that is open Fridays and weekends starting in late September through the month of October.

The farm is located just over the border of Georgia, which added another element of excitement for me. Now I can say that I’ve been to a new state. Everyone does it differently, but I do not count driving through!

The farm is mainly for families with young kids, but that has never stopped us before! However, we did see some groups with just older people too.

The main focus (and also the gift shop) of the farm is the See Rock City red barn, painted to look like a bird house. All though we have not seen any yet, there are advertisement barns all over the southeast on the sides of highways that have “See Rock City” painted on them. This particular barn is the only one you can actually see at Rock City, an attraction on top of Lookout Mountain. It will be fun to go to Rock City, hopefully sometime soon, and be able to look down and see the red barn below.

Admission is $10 per person and it includes four activity tokens. Each activity is one token. You can buy extra tokens if you want to. We picked out three activities (the ones that are more for us old folks.)

We did the corn maze, the hay ride and the critter coral.

The corn maze was bigger than I expected. At first I was disappointed because the corn stalks at the front were small and we towered over them, but once you got in the middle and towards the back, we were quite lost! They did a good job of making a lot of dead ends and turn arounds.

The critter corral had all kinds of smaller animals to pet. There were alpacas, miniature horses, donkeys, rabbits, pigs and cows. The cows had a lot of fluffy hair; they were my favorite.

The hay ride was small and short, but still nice. It entered through a back portion of the corn maze.

We also bought a pumpkin to take home at the pumpkin market. This cost extra so it did not use up tokens. I will use my leftover tokens for scrapbooking.

Some of the kid activities included a cow train, a corn sling shot, rubber duck races, and go cart races.

We had a great morning and I recommend it for anyone who’s looking to have a good fall themed outing.

Blowing Springs Farm_35 — See Rock City!

Blowing Springs Farm_53 — Inside the corn maze.

Blowing Springs Farm_19 — A higher up view of the corn maze and barn from a little wooden bridge.

Blowing Springs Farm_28 — These fluffy cows were my favorite!

Blowing Springs Farm_63 — Entering the corn maze on the hayride.

Blowing Springs Farm_36 — A little section to buy pumpkins.

Blowing Springs Farm_05 — A playground for the kids, with the cow train passing through in the front.

Hamilton County Fair

Last weekend was the Hamilton County Fair, located at Dallas Island at Chester Frost Park.

The County Fair was the first event I found when looking up events, right after we announced our move to Chattanooga. There is no county fair in Harris County, which is where Houston is located, (there are some further away in neighboring counties though) so I was excited to be able to go to this event.

It was a good sized event. It was much bigger than what we were used to back when we lived in rural Pennsylvania, though I will say that there were more vendors and entertainment compared to the amount of animals.

We enjoyed walking around and seeing the animals, the prize winning items, and the vendors. My favorite part of the day was watching the pig races. I grew up seeing pig races at the New Jersey State Fair, and I also saw them at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, but Derek had never seen them before.

We also found a new restaurant to check out in the future too. We were figuring out what to eat for lunch, and we noticed the Home Folks food truck. They were selling pulled pork sandwiches, and they were delicious! Derek also got the peach cobbler. It was hands down some of the best food we have ever gotten at an event like that. We looked at the Home Folks Restaurant online when we got home. They are located in Soddy-Daisy, and the menu looks great. It is nice to find new things to do by attending other events.

I would also like to go back to Chester Frost Park as well. The Park starts out on the mainland and then extends out into two islands in the Chickamauga Lake. Because it was on an island, we parked at the mall and took a shuttle over. It seems like a nice park, with walking trails, a beach and a campground too. We checked out some of the camping sites. Maybe that is something we could do in the future too.