I’ve been having a rough go of things lately. Today, I took the day off from work — boss’ orders. It was nice to gift myself a three-day weekend.
Many of our weekends have been spent sitting on the couch, thanks to COVID-19. I wanted today to feel special. We decided to go to the Hunter Museum of American Art.
The museum has been on my Chattanooga to-do list since we moved here last year. Then we couldn’t go even if we had tried to, because the museum, like so many other places, closed down in March and stayed closed for an extended period of time. They recently opened back up a few weeks ago.
I’m still concerned about being around more people than necessary in an indoor location, but I thought it would be safer to go on a week day. We were by ourselves for most of our time there. It only got crowded later in the morning, when we were on our way out.
The Hunter Museum of American Art is in the Bluff View Art District. It consists of two buildings, a modern building and the historic Hunter Mansion. We both enjoyed our time there. There was a wide range of different types of art. My favorite were all of the landscapes, especially some of the autumn related scenes and ones of Chattanooga.
There was a special exhibit on display, The F Word: We mean Female! This was a whole collection of art by female artists in honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the U.S.
A painting of Lookout Mountain, with the Tennessee River in the background.
A painting appropriately titled “Autumn.” I loved this one.
August has been a hard month. The running theme has been depression and anxiety.
Derek goes back to work next week at UTC and I am scared. Yes, everyone will be wearing masks in the classroom, but knowing that he’s going to be around more people worries me.
I’m worried about Derek getting COVID-19 because his immune system isn’t the greatest. If someone else is sick, he usually gets it. He’s had the gamut of illnesses. It should be noted that whenever Derek is sick, I never catch it from him, but COVID-19 feels like a different beast.
I am struggling with work. It was hard to start a job working remotely from home, and to still be stuck at home almost five months later. Currently I’m working through a big project, and there has been a lot of confusion surrounding it. My anxiety is already high from the pandemic, and I’m an anxious person by default. Couple that with the confusion of the project and still working from home, well, let’s just say I’ve been a mess. My confidence and self-esteem are down. I cry a lot and I’m not sleeping well because work follows me into my dreams at night.
And then there is the long lasting cabin fever. We are still doing smaller activities in general. In a sense, one could argue that I have fulfilling weekends. Today I took two separate walks, worked on my scrapbook, read and watched The Sound of Music. But it’s not the weekend I want.
We still go to parks. We’ve walked the Walnut Street Bridge. We still eat at some of our favorite coffee shops and restaurants, or at least the ones that have large enough outdoor seating areas. But the problem is that we’re not doing anything new. My Chattanooga to-do list is stagnant. This is what I was afraid of in March, which feels like a lifetime ago.
The one good thing to come out of staying at home is that I’ve been challenging myself to take more photos with my macro lens. As the seasons progress, there are different things to photograph. I will attach some of my photos below.
I’m counting down the days until September. I want fall to come. I don’t expect anything to automatically change when the days get cooler, but I just need something to feel different — even if it is only the temperature.
The pandemic is not the only thing that has halted our activities. The heat has done that too. The only things we can do safely are outdoor things. Derek doesn’t handle the heat as well as I do. It’s just better to stay inside and stay cool.
When fall comes, there are some things on my to-do list that can be crossed off. I am looking forward to picking apples at Wheeler’s Orchard in Dunlap, Tennessee. We will also go hiking at Cloudland Canyon State Park in Dade County, Georgia.
With September also comes my birthday. We were thinking of making a lunch reservation at The Cookie Jar Café, also in Dunlap. The family owned restaurant has a large porch with seating, and, specifically for the pandemic, they also set up extra picnic tables.
There are plenty of indoor things open now, but do we really want to do any of it? Everyone wearing masks does go a long way in keeping everyone safe, but it’s better to wait it out for now.
I do not have much of a sweet tooth for some “heavier” type desserts, like cakes and cupcakes, but I will not turn down a good cookie!
One of our favorite bake shops in the area is The Signal Mountain Cookie Lady. We discovered the shop the very first weekend I moved here. My parents were visiting and we were exploring around the mountain.
My mom is a good baker and is colloquially known as The Cookie Lady among her friends. So you can imagine us driving down the road, reading the names of the stores out loud, and us shouting “The Cookie Lady!!!” Naturally, we had to stop.
The Signal Mountain Cookie Lady’s website, www.signalmountaincookielady.com/, says that she has over 900 designs! Some of the ones we’ve gotten over the last year include fall leaves, llamas, polar bears, suns, flip flops and dinosaurs. It’s usually hard to choose which one to pick!
Her signature cookie, the one made into all of the designs, is a sugar cookie with almond flavored icing. I love almond flavored desserts, so this is one of the reasons why this place has become a favorite.
Of course, you can also get other types of cookies too, like oatmeal and chocolate chip. She also does custom orders too.
She wraps each cookie individually and ties it with a colored ribbon — a nice touch.
I always look forward to stopping here on a weekend and wondering which design I’ll get next!
The Cookie Lady’s store front in Signal Mountain, TN.
Four years ago today, July 30, we were half way through our cross country move from Wellsboro, Pennsylvania to Houston, Texas. It was a 24 hour, 1,600 mile drive that took three days.
Our second day was a long 900-mile stretch, from Harrisonburg, Virginia to Picayune, Mississippi. Chattanooga is somewhere in the middle.
My parents had been to Chattanooga before. They reenacted the 150th Battle of Chickamauga (we used to be Civil War reenactors) and while there, they took a quick trip up to Chattanooga, to see the National Cemetery. My dad also loves trains and wanted to see the Andrews Raiders monument.
Tennessee was the first new state that we had driven through, so I think that was why I committed that part of the drive to memory, more so than any other sate.
My dad was driving to Houston with us, pulling the U-Haul trailer behind his truck. We were communicating with walkie talkies. As we were driving around Chattanooga on I-24 West, Dad was pointing out landmarks. From the road, we could see the flag pole on the top of the National Cemetery’s hill. Dad also made sure to point out Lookout Mountain, where the Civil War “Battle Above The Clouds” took place.
I specifically remember being in awe driving around Moccasin bend, around the mountain and the Tennessee River.
We took the Lookout Valley exit and stopped at a Subway for lunch. We ate in the parking lot. And then we were on our way, reaching the Georgia line just a few minutes later.
Little did we know that Chattanooga would be come our home three years later!
This past winter, I wrote an article about a new real estate office opening up in Lookout Valley. I drove past that Subway, and it was fun to reminisce. I think it would be fun to go back there and eat lunch again and think about how different things were the last time we ate there.
After we finished blueberry picking in LaFayette, we were kind of hungry, and a drink was due. Derek Googled coffee shops in the area. He asked me if we had been to either Ringgold or Chickamauga before, and which town would I rather go to. I said no to both, and to pick whichever.
And so we ended up in Ringgold for a couple of hours. The town surprised us in a good way. We will more than likely go back there again.
We had a light lunch at Caffeine Addicts. I did not take any photos here, oops! I always get a chai wherever I go, since I do not like coffee. Usually chai doesn’t change too much from place to place, however, Caffeine Addicts featured toffee nut flavored syrup, a flavor I had not seen before. My go-to is usually hazelnut syrup. It was so good! I would definitely come back just to have that syrup.
Also, the people who worked there were wearing masks, and every other table was closed off. We were there before noon, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.
We headed a few doors down to the cutest store front, A Fern and a Feather General Store. Derek bought moonshine jelly and muscadine cider (non alcoholic) and I bought a spoon holder for my tea that says “Today’s good mood brought to you by tea.”
If you’ve been reading for a while now, you probably know I love Civil War history. The Great Locomotive Chase ended in Ringgold. A group of Union men, led by civilian James A. Andrews, stole a train with the intention of running it to Chattanooga, damaging the railroad tracks in the process. The locomotive ran out of fuel in Ringgold, and the men fled on foot. Many of them were later put on trial and were executed.
We checked out the Ringgold Depot, which was closed at the time. We waited for a few minutes to see if a train would come through, but no luck. We drove about a half mile down the tracks until we came to the General monument. The General is the name of the locomotive that the men stole. I’m glad I texted my dad that we were there, and he gave us directions to the monument!
We will definitely come to Ringgold again, because someday I hope to do an entire Great Locomotive Chase day trip, stopping at each of the railroad stations and towns along the way.
Our last two stops in Ringgold were two antique shops that were next to each other. The one was called Cotton Gin Antiques, named for the business that was established by the Callaway brothers in 1929. The outside of it was so cool looking! It is a treasure trove for people who like to hunt for old items.
Ringgold Feed and Seed Antiques was next door. We were on the hunt for a basket to put on our table by the front door; a place to put our masks and hand sanitizer. We found one that looks great with our overall house decor. By the way, while we were there, that was when the train chose to come through! Oh well.
Ringgold is a nice little town, and there was plenty more that we did not check out during our time there. Because it’s only a half hour away, I am sure we will come back sometime for a half-day getaway.
A Fern and a Feather General Store
The Ringgold Depot
Monument for The General, the locomotive that was stolen by Union men.
The Cotton Gin Antiques
There were cats at the antique store. I love this shot! Do you think this makes a good advertisement for Coca-Cola?
We picked blueberries at The Blueberry Farm in LaFayette, Georgia this morning. We had a nice time, and we picked enough blueberries to last us a while!
The Blueberry Farm is open every day except for Wednesdays. Because of the pandemic, there was no contact with anyone during the process. There were clean buckets (labeled as such) on a picnic table by the parking lot. There are three different ways to pay: you can scan a QR code and pay digitally, or drop cash or a check into the payment box. The blueberries are $10 per gallon. You have to bring your open type of container to bring the blueberries home.
We arrived early, before 9 a.m. (it is open earlier than that) and we only saw one other person. We headed to the very back of the fields and did not see another soul until we left.
When we lived in Pennsylvania, we lived near a blueberry farm, and we went every summer. Those blueberry bushes were tiny in comparison to the ones at The Blueberry Farm, which has been established for a lot longer. Their website says that some of the original bushes are from the 70s! They are super tall! It is helpful that Derek is much taller than me. We made quick work by him picking at the top and me picking near the bottom.
I am looking forward to blueberries as a breakfast side and snack for the next few weeks!
Raccoon Mountain Caverns was discovered in 1929 by Leo Lambert, who also discovered and opened Ruby Falls. (An attraction we haven’t gotten to, yet.) The Caverns was one of the attractions we went to with my parents when they visited.
The Caverns features 5.5. miles of passageways. There are two different tours. We took the main one, the Crystal Palace Walking Tour, which only takes you half of a mile, and the highlight is the main room, dubbed the Crystal Palace. The second tour is the Wild Cave Expedition, which is more for adventurers and explorers! Our tour guide pointed out some of the tight squeezes that the Wild Cave tours go through. As someone who experiences claustrophobia, no thank you!
Raccoon Mountain was the only attraction that we went to that was inside, but oddly enough, it was where we felt the most safe. Our temperatures were taken before we even entered the cave. We were also treated to a private tour, we were the only ones there, aside from the guide. I am not sure if this is something they try to do in non-pandemic times though. Everyone wore masks, too.
Our guide explained the history and formation of the caverns and pointed out formations that were shaped like objects, such as the lizard’s head, Abe Lincoln and Darth Vader’s mask! He gave us plenty of time to look around, ask questions and take pictures.
The Caverns is on the site of the Raccoon Mountain Campground. It is a small campground, but they have the usual gift shop, camp store and pool. They have cabins for rent, which I hope to take advantage of someday. I have not been camping in a long time, and I miss it so much!
Darth Vader’s mask!
A view of the campground with Raccoon Mountain in the background.
When my parents visited last weekend, we asked them what they wanted to do. The thing my mom wanted to do the most was ride on the Southern Belle riverboat.
There are a couple of different rides that you can take on the Southern Belle, which sails from downtown Chattanooga on the Tennessee River. The regular hour and a half sightseeing cruise is the most popular one and runs most frequently during the summer.
If you are looking for something a little more special, there are lunch and dinner cruises, sunset ones, fall foliage cruises and a cruise through the Chickamauga Dam locks. We picked the regular sightseeing one, mostly because that is what we were limited to, pandemic and all.
The sightseeing cruise comes with unlimited popcorn (not really unlimited, but you get a big bag that is plenty to go around) and souvenir plastic cups for unlimited soda. Honestly, we thought the popcorn was stale, and we didn’t get any soda, but we weren’t in it for the food. We did bring the cups home though!
The neat thing about the Southern Belle is that in order to dock, you have to first enter a larger dry docked riverboat. That’s where the gift shop is, where you buy tickets and there’s even the 3rd Deck Burger Bar.
The boat ride first takes you south about half way through Moccasin Bend, alongside Lookout Mountain. It was neat to be able to see the top of the New York Monument in Point Park, a place that Derek and I visited last fall. Then the boat turns back north and goes under all of the four main bridges near downtown. The trip is an hour and a half total.
The trip features narration, where you learn facts about the river, what you see on the shore and some of Chattanooga’s history. We were treated to music from the Southern Belle’s calliope, or steam organ.
We enjoyed our time on the cruise. This is something I would like doing again in the future.
The Southern Belle getting ready to dock.
The inside of the boat, where you would eat during lunch/dinner cruises.
The third deck of the boat. Too crowded for us! We were lucky and found a table by itself on the front of the second deck.
Coolidge Park was the place to be on Saturday evening. It was a warm night, but cooling down. We got ice cream at Clumpies and then walked the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge. We made it back to Coolidge Park in time for the sun to set.
I expect that a lot of people were there to witness the “spectacular sunsets” that were predicted due to the Saharan dust. There were quite a few people with some impressive cameras and tripod equipment. We had some rain earlier in the afternoon which I think may have helped clear the skies. The sunset that night was, in fact, a dud. It was still a beautiful night though and I snapped a few shots myself.
My parents visited us for a long weekend and we did a lot of outdoor activities in an effort to try and stay safe.
Advertisements all across the south say to “See Rock City.” It’s been ingrained in my brain so much that I accidentally call the attraction “See Rock City,” when I’m supposed to drop the See. But now I can say that yes, I have seen it!
Rock City is at the top of Lookout Mountain in Georgia, and it features a 3/4 of a mile trail. The trail meanders through different themed areas featuring gardens and scenic views. You can sort of get a feel for what you are going to experience by looking at the website, but we truly did not know what we were in for until we experienced it ourselves.
Because of the pandemic, and a poorly timed computer update, our experience wasn’t exactly the best, but I can’t see how social distancing at Rock City is even possible. They are offering timed entry every 15 minutes. When I bought the tickets, we were the only four at 8:45. However, there was a computer update which backed up the 8:30, 8:45 and 9 a.m. entries. Even though we went to Rock City on a Friday morning, there were still so many people. At first we tried really hard to keep our distance from others but it was impossible. I wasn’t exactly happy about it, but we eventually just had to let our guard down a little and weave in and out of the other people as best as possible. We wore masks, but hardly anyone else did.
Some of my favorite parts of Rock City were the swinging bridge, the rainbow room and of course the view from Lover’s Leap. There are different shops and restaurants at the beginning of the trail, and some in the middle as well, around Lover’s Leap.
We went on a cloudy morning, and the Saharan dust cloud was approaching, so we did not have the best, clearest views. This is just an excuse to come back, maybe in the fall. Rock City is definitely something I would do again, and my parents agreed. They offer different types of events throughout the year. I am most looking forward to Enchanted Garden of Lights, which is their Christmastime event. You go at night and walk through the trail to see the Christmas lights.
The entrance.
There were a lot of cute, whimsical doors to walk through, which signified different sections of the trail.
The swinging bridge. There is an alternative, stone bridge if you are scared!
We probably did not see all seven states on this cloudy day …
At the top of Lover’s Leap.
The rainbow room.
Posing with Lover’s Leap in the background.
Inside Fairyland Caverns.
Fairyland Caverns featured scenes from fairy tales. Here is Little Red Riding Hood.
Mother Goose Village, featuring scenes from different nursery rhymes.
