It’s been a travel heavy several months for me. But a unique opportunity arose that Cherie and I had to take advantage of. I needed to get the company truck from our office in Virginia to our work site in Alabama, and then stay there two weeks for work, flying home at the end of the second week. With Cherie now working from home, or wherever, we realized that she could ride down with me for no additional cost, stay in the hotel room for 2 weeks, and we’d just have to pay for her ticket to come home!
Chattanooga, TN
So last weekend we headed out to explore nearby Tennessee! Saturday we hit Chattanooga. Our first stop was the Rock City Gardens. We were a little surprised at the cost but decided what the heck and got the bundle to include several other attractions in Chattanooga. It was a overcast cool breezy day so bundled up we headed in to wander the trails and explore this tourist trap! The layout of lazy winding paths was kind of cute, and definitely shows its age in it’s design, but it’s well kept and clearly still a top attraction in the area.
The paths wander around endlessly up, over, under and through the top of the mountain and the many natural and man-made paths. We enjoyed the view from atop the waterfall (which is manmade!) and the stone bridge and two small suspension bridges. The unanticipated part of the self guided tour happened when we happened upon the Fairyland Caverns. I won’t try to remember exactly the inspiration for this attraction, but if you have a young daughter that isn’t creeped out by dolls in dark caverns it’s a unique attraction you’ll need to visit.
Our next stop was the Incline Railway to the top of Lookout Mountain. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the railcars were produced by Brookville Equipment, the company my uncle and cousin work at in Pennsylvania! The view from the top was pleasant, but I’m sure it’s much nicer on a pretty day.
After leaving the Incline Railway we stopped at nearby Ruby Falls. The tour was pretty typical for this type of attraction, with the entire tour mostly going down one long stretch of the cave and then returning the same way. The lightshow at the end with the waterfall was impressive, and it was pretty neat to see a natural waterfall of this magnitude inside a cave.
It was getting late and there was a chance we’d see sunset so we did the short hike to Sunset Rock. The outcropping was nice but the clouds never broke. I guess we’ll have to make it back another time.
Before heading out of town we stopped by Hillbilly Willy’s BBQ. The servings were generous and the price was good for what you got, we were pretty satiated by the time we left!
Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg, TN
Sunday morning we headed out from the hotel again, this time headed toward Lynchburg, TN, home of Jack Daniel’s distillery. We took the Angels Share tour which included a tour of the facilities, a great background on the history of the place, and a tasting of some of their finer Whiskeys. I came away from the experience more impressed with Jack Daniel’s and the effort they put into each barrel they produce. It is quite a process, and it was clear that the people that do it consider it more than just a job, it’s a part of the local culture and they’re proud to be a part of it.
Continuing the culinary theme for the weekend we hit Barrel House BBQ in nearby Lynchburg, TN. It’s the nearby 1 light town, you can’t miss it. We got a variety of sausage, pork, sides, etc. Not sure if they put Jack in while cooking or the flavor was entirely from the Jack Daniel’s barrels they claim to smoke the food over, but the Jack flavor was subtle but present and was a great topper to our visit to the distillery.
Hunstville, AL
Headed back to the hotel in Huntsville we found ourselves with some time before everything would close down. We headed over the Huntsville Museum of Art to check out a traveling Norman Rockwell exhibit in it’s last night in town! Norman Rockwell apparently would compose his famous paintings from sometimes hundreds of images of real models in real locations that he would meticulously pose and adjust. He might take the hand posture from one image, but the way the sleeve fell in another, and ultimately might scrap entire paintings before landing on the one he would publish. It was especially neat seeing the source material and original paintings for his work that we recognized such as the sailor getting another girls name tattooed onto his arm.
The art museum also had an amazing collection of sterling silver animal sculptures. As dumb as that may sound they were awe inspiring! The collection was produced by the Italian Luxury Jewelry Firm Buccellati. In addition to figuring out how to create the complex shapes necessary to recreate an octopus or a lobster they also came up with special soldering techniques that allowed them to add thin hair like strands of sterling silver to animals such as a bear, or flamingo.
Overall I have to say that Chattanooga was a pretty neat place to visit, and I think we’ll have to go back someday to explore more. The Jack Daniel’s distillery was a bucket list item, and we’re both glad we got to do that too. Oh, and if you’re in Huntsville, there is plenty to do here as well, that just wasn’t the focus this weekend. But their Art Museum was pretty impressive!
