Rock City’s Enchanted Garden of Lights

This week we went to Rock City’s Enchanted Garden of Lights. This is the second time we have been to Rock City.

We have been to quite a few Christmas light set ups in a few different states. Most of them have been bigger than Rock City, but I think Rock City holds up to the others!

There was one initial disappointment. I was looking forward all night to taking a photo of the star on top of the waterfall, from the little balcony that juts out off to the side.

Turns out, we completely bypassed that area. The waterfall was actually shut off. We did see the star at the top and off to the side, though.

We went through the whole thing and ended up at the exit, and I said, “But what about the view of the waterfall????” At first I thought that we had missed an entire section, but that wasn’t possible because there were workers guiding us down the paths at each section.

Later that night, I was still concerned about it, so I watched YouTube walk through videos! When I realized that yes, we did see the whole thing, I felt better. But honestly, I think this is a missed opportunity on Rock City’s part!

My favorite section was the Arctic Kingdom, which was filled with penguins. There were tons of string lights there, and they were all in frosty colors like blue, purple and green, which just happens to be all my favorite colors. It was so pretty there.

We also enjoyed the view of the city lights from Lover’s Leap, and the synchronized lights to music in the Magic Forest. The synchronized lights reminded me of the lights in Hershey Park, Pennsylvania, which we have seen many times.

There were social distancing measures in place as usual. Tickets have to be bought online, where a timed entry is reserved. In certain spots where distancing was difficult, masks were required.

This was a nice holiday themed outing, and I recommend it to anyone looking for something festive to do in the Chattanooga area.

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Holiday Cheer at the Pier

Holiday Cheer at the Pier is a Chattanooga riverfront event that signals the start of the Christmas season.

There were lots of food vendors and craft vendors (we did not check out the craft vendors though.) Derek had a hot apple cider and I had a hot chocolate. We enjoyed our drinks for a few minutes in front of a fire pit.

The two main parts of the event are a lighted boat parade and fireworks. Santa was also available to take photos with kids.

I was happy to be able to see the lighted boat parade. There was one on Galveston Bay, about a half hour from Houston, but we were never able to make it in the three years we lived there, due to the timing of Derek’s classwork. It is nice when things work out in a different way.

The highlight of the boat parade for me was seeing the Southern Belle riverboat in the lineup.

After the parade, we walked a few minutes towards the Bluff View Art District, where we had a nice view of the Walnut Street Bridge, and the fireworks.

Fireworks are one of my favorite things to photograph. I am always happy to be able to take photos of them in different spots with different backgrounds.

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