Wow, it's been four years since our last serious visit. I have wanted to spend more time in Chattanooga like about a month so we finally got half of it done.
Lookout Mountain dominates the Chattanooga area forming it's southern border. Last visit I finished with a night shot from Signal Point so I'll start this one with a day shot showing why they are called the blue ridge mountains.
Down along the waterfront at our parking area these guys were perched along the bank. THE major reason for staying two weeks was getting my DSLR which broke just before leaving Nashville repaired and back to me.
Naturally as soon as it arrived I had to get down here to try it. Like happens so often it looked like a good sunset from the motel but down on the water it just does not happen. From the dock I was using the Blue Heron does not seem overly concerned about the human traffic close by his fishing grounds. They are normally a lot more skittish having been hunted almost to extinction for ladies hats.
Another day and another trip to the riverfront I caught the riverboat returning from a cruse. We were doing other things like the Chattanooga Zoo, the sculptures shown below, and Cloudland Canyon SP on the Georgia side of Lookout Mountain. Hopefully we can take a trip when we get to the other half of the month.
Mostly I was fascinated by the Chief John Ross bascule bridge that opens in the center using the counter weights as stops to block the traffic lanes. I am not sure what they expected when it was built in 1917 but apparently it does actually open for the occasional boat even though it has a high enough clearance for the cruse ship.
With the popularity of the Chattanooga Choo Choo recording by Glen Miller which received the first gold record award for selling over a million copies it is a natural for a tourist attraction with this engine on display, a major hotel, dining in a pullman car, and even overnight accommodations in an old train car. As I recall there never was an actual Chaqttanooga Choo Choo and this display is more a whimsical creation than an operating locomotive but still fun to visit.
Building on the major attraction of the Chaqttanooga Choo Choo, Lookout Mountain, Pigeon Forge and Knoxville to the north, and Atlanta to the south, Chattanooga is very art centered with this brick train bench and the decorative water tower near the train. The brick couch was further up in downtown near the visitors center. They also have a major program of Art on Main with all these sculptures and displays below.
Unfortunately just after taking the photograph of the golden flower my good DSLR broke again. This time I did it right and sent it out to the guy I knew in Seattle although I would not get it back for several weeks. For the remainder of this visit I had to fall back on my little point and shoot which takes good photographs but does not have the range of lenses I would like.
The mural depicting Chattanooga features was extremely faded so please excuse the artistic restoration.
Battle Academy had these tile bands wrapping the four sides of the pillars.
Without restoration this mural had a rather garish color style I applied to the previous mural assuming it was the original intent.
This final mural seem to sum up the city attitude.
Getting out of Chattanooga proper the Great Horned Owl was in the rescue section of the Reflection Riding Nature Center on the southwest side which also has a great Arboretum with a lot of trees we would like to compare to our tree identification book. Closer to our motel on the south east side, the "fun guy" is from Camp Jorden Park which was an excellent place for a brisk walk or bike ride. We also had a great time at the Chattanooga Zoo with a Coyote into posing and a very active Snow Leopard. The area also has a lot of Civil War battlefields which are outside our interests but we did visit Cloudland Canyon State Park on the Georgia side of Lookout Mountain. Sometime we really need to get to the other half of a month in Chattanooga.
Heading back to Columbus, Ohio in early March after a photography seminar in Auburn, Alabama we stopped in Chattanooga for a meal and motel. In early October we passed through again heading back to Columbus after the photography seminar in West Virginia so we decided to stop and explore a little. The first question was where to stay and since we were focused on camping we looked at Harrison Bay State Park which being very charitable on a good day could be described as rustic.
We finally got a space at the Hamilton County Chester Frost Park although space was only available for a very limited time due to prior reservations. It's also a very crowded campground with spaces tightly packed and we were stuffed into site 142 or 142 I think. It did have an easy walk to the waterfront for some more experiments with sunset photography over the water.
Another great photo location is the Signal Point Park on Lookout Mountain.
We only got a quick look at Chattanooga but enough to put it on the list for coming back. If we use I-75 now we try to plan for some extra time to stay here at least a few days.