We have now, been here a week in Chattanooga Tn. . Our plans were to leave here Monday the 4th, but we have decided to stay another week and leave for the Smokies on the 11th of May. There are a couple of reasons for this, which I will explain below.

Chattanooga Tn, is right at the bottom of the state very near Georgia. It sits right along a bend in the Tennessee river. The native Americans were the first here and named it Chattanooga, meaning “rock rising to a point”, which refers to the view they had of what is now called lookout mountain. Views of Lookout mountain from Chattanooga are below. Being along the river Chattanooga grew a lot during the 1800’s. Industry came in the early 1900’s, which brought jobs and all that but also pollution. Not until the late 1990’s did the city have a sort of revitalization. Now it has many nice tourist spots and walkways around the river. Lookout mountain right on the other side of the river also has many tourists spots to visit.

View below is from a top of Lookout Mountain, looking down on Chattanooga

As I mentioned before, the park we are at is in Georgia, very close to Tennessee. Sometimes driving around this week, I had no idea what state we were in. So why are we staying longer, well, the weather for one will be nicer here than in the Smokies, and we have also found a few very nice places to walk everyday here. The most important reason though is that the Floodgates have kind of opened up. Georgia last week opened up almost everything that has been shut down. Tennessee this week is opening a lot of things that have been shut down. So, maybe if we have any luck, places like Ruby Falls, Incline railroad, Lookout mountain garden park, Lookout mountain point park, Chickamauga battlefield park, Dalton Tunnel hill and museums in Chattanooga will open up. Maybe we will see, but we decided to stay and find out. Otherwise we have been doing some thing here like hiking, walking and driving around Lookout mountain. We have even been to two different Bar B Q places. Plus I have now seen that the Waffle House near us is reopened, Ya Hooey.

Of course Chattanooga has civil war history which I will post on later this coming week.