My first job while living in Chattanooga was working for a start-up newspaper in Dade County, Georgia, which is just over the Tennessee/Georgia state line. One day this past winter, while searching for article ideas, I found Lookout Lavender Farm. While the farm is not in operation during the winter, it would make a great story come summer time. Well, the paper has since shut down, so no article could materialize, but that didn’t mean that Derek and I couldn’t check it out for ourselves!
Lookout Lavender Farm is located on Lookout Mountain in Rising Fawn, Georgia. Every year the farm opens up for a short two-week lavender season. People are invited to pick bundles of lavender, but if you don’t want to pick, then you can just come up to enjoy the fields.
It cost $10 to get in, $5 a person, and a u-pick bundle is $7. They were also selling their own line of lavender products. We bought lip balm.
It was a lovely morning, and the lavender fields smelled amazing! We spent some time picking our bundle, and then we just enjoyed walking through the lavender. We made sure to get a lot of photos! The fields are the perfect place for portrait photography.
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.
The New York Peace Memorial
This bend in the Tennessee River is known as Moccasin Bend.
An enlarged painting of The Battle Above the Clouds in the visitor’s center.
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!
A close up of downtown Chattanooga as seen from Lookout Mountain.
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.
See Rock City!
Inside the corn maze.
A higher up view of the corn maze and barn from a little wooden bridge.
These fluffy cows were my favorite!
Entering the corn maze on the hayride.
A little section to buy pumpkins.
A playground for the kids, with the cow train passing through in the front.
