Exploring Chattanooga, Tennessee and surrounding areas
I’ve been living my best life this past month, as someone who loves to photograph fall foliage.
A couple of weekends ago we went to a stretch of brightly colored trees that are along side of a nearby elementary school, and had some fun taking portrait shots of each other.
Then last weekend we found some trees in Coolidge park. I had to get on Derek’s shoulders in order to get the angle I wanted, with the leaves in the foreground and the Walnut Street Bridge in the background. He’s a good sport!
I have written two freelance articles for The Pulse, Chattanooga’s weekly paper, which focuses on feature type articles like events and local artists.
My first article, which was published last Thursday, was about Chattanooga’s community gardens. The piece is titled, “Get Your Hands Dirty.” This article was pitched to the editor before I even moved out here.
The second article is about The Bonnie Potter, an artist who specializes in textured pottery. It is titled, “Clay and lace.” It was just published today.
It’s great to have freelance work to fall back on while I have been job searching. I was able to freelance when we first moved to Houston as well.
These articles made me feel good about myself, and gave me a little bit of daily purpose. It is very hard to not have a job for a few weeks. Things get boring quickly!
You can read both articles here:
Shakleford Ridge Park is a park located in Signal Mountain. We hiked here last weekend. This was actually our second attempt to go here. Our first time wasn’t meant to be because there was a running race happening at the time, so the trails were closed down.
I am glad that we waited to go though, because there was a lot of color in the woods. We walked through a lot of beautiful scenes. Fall foliage always puts me in a good mood, after not experiencing it in Houston for three years.
It’s a woodsy park, with a couple of different trails. The main trail is the blue loop, which is a 2.7 mile round trip. It’s not too difficult of a trail, but there are some steep uphill parts.
There are some streams that run through the park, so there are quite a few bridge crossings.
We admittedly did not finish the whole 2.7 miles, but we did get close; we did over 2 miles. We came across the edge of the parking lot and we were both tired and hungry at that point, so we just cut across to our car. If we do this again I might consider packing a lunch and resting half way.
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.
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.
One of the attractions on top of Lookout Mountain is Point Park. It is part of the Chattanooga and Chickamauga National Military Park.
The Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought November 24, 1863. It became known as the Battle Above the Clouds. It was a part of a larger few months long campaign to take over Chattanooga.
It was important that Union forces take control of Chattanooga because Chattanooga was the gateway to the deep south, and many railroads converged there.
History aside, Point Park has some beautiful observation points that overlook the mountains and downtown Chattanooga. There are some hiking trails on Lookout Mountain, but the paths that we saw seemed more difficult than we were willing to take on.
A few weeks ago, Derek and I found a place to eat lunch in the St. Elmo neighborhood of Chattanooga. We ate outside on the patio, and we happened to be across the street from the Incline Railway station, which goes up Lookout Mountain.
I was aware of the Incline Railway, but I had honestly not given it much thought. Seeing the funicular railway for ourselves though had us curious enough to look it up on our phones while eating.
Through our research, I found out that once at the top of Lookout Mountain, Point Park, a part of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, was only a three block walk away. Being interested in Civil War history, Point Park was near the top of my Chattanooga to-do list.
We thought that instead of just driving up the mountain, it would be more fun to combine the two activities.
We were both surprised to find that the Incline Railway has been operating since 1895! It is also the steepest grade for a funicular railway in the United States, at 72.7 percent. The track goes up the mountain for approximately one mile.
I was not nervous, nor did I think to be nervous, until we got almost to the top, and it was very apparent just how steep we were. I felt like I was going to fall forward and keep falling down! Going up, the car faces backwards, which did not help that feeling! But we made it safe and sound. The whole way up took maybe 10-15 minutes.
Up at the top, there is an observation platform, a gift shop, and a small spot to get food such as pizza, ice cream and pretzels.
The view at the top was impressive. We were able to locate downtown Chattanooga and the Walnut Street Bridge, the highway that we take north to get home, and Signal Mountain. The mountain views all around were incredible too – rows and rows of blue ridges.
I am glad that we ended up doing this because it was a different type of activity that neither of us have done before. It was more fun than just driving up and doing Point Park on its own. Stay tuned for a Point Park post!
McCoy Farm is in the town of Signal Mountain. It’s a historic house and grounds that dates to before the Civil War. The woman who lived in the home last, passed on down through the generations of her family, bequeathed the house to the town in her will.
Now, the town holds public events there, such as 4th of July picnics. They also hold private events. The day that we were there, they were setting up for a wedding.
On weekends the public is allowed on the grounds. I am sure this rule is amended if there are scheduled private events, such as when we were there, so we did not check out the house and buildings. There is also a blacksmith building and a barn.
There is a one mile walking trail that makes a wide loop around the grounds, which is open to the public every day. Last weekend we walked the trail.
It is a woodsy trail, and I enjoyed seeing some of the trees changing colors. There is also a swinging bridge to cross. It is a simple trail, but it truly felt like we were in the wilderness, and not just a few miles from downtown.
The Walnut Street Bridge is a pedestrian bridge that spans the Tennessee River in Chattanooga.
It starts on one side at Coolidge Park, and ends on the other side near the Bluff View District and Aquarium.
Walking the bridge was one of the local activities I had wanted to do the most, but we waited a while until it got cooler out.
The bridge was completed in 1891 and it is one of the world’s longest pedestrian bridges. It initially was open to vehicle traffic, but then was discontinued in use in the 1970s. It was restored and reopened in 1993.
There is some dark history surrounding the bridge too. In the 1890s, two black men were lynched on the bridge.
When we were on the bridge on a Friday morning, there were lots of people out and about. There were families, couples, tourists and exercisers.
The bridge seems large when it’s looming overhead, but once you’re actually up there walking across, it doesn’t seem so long. Going one way took about maybe 15 minutes, and we stopped to take a bunch of photos.
I was recently at Crabtree Farms of Chattanooga for an appointment. It is a large farm that harvests produce and holds annual plant sales for the community.
I arrived to the farm early, and while I was walking around, I found a beautiful planted butterfly garden at the edge of the farm. It was a photographer’s paradise.
