I took hundreds of pictures as you can imagine.

The hotel recommended a BBQ joint in downtown Nooger - Sticky Fingers - and even gave us a coupon for some free wings at this place. So we jumped in the truck and headed downtown. The food was awesome, not many people there. After eating we drove around to see what the city had to offer. I had done a ton of research before going down so I knew what I was looking for, but Rich didn't know anything about the city.

The Tennessee River runs right through downtown, they have built a really nice riverwalk and park. On one side of the river there are all kinds of cool shops and places to eat. They've got a walking bridge across the river that connects downtown to that cool area of town on. Lots of Nooger-ites use this bridge for exercise it seems, there were lots of people out there exercising including a man that looked to be about 100 years old jogging on that bridge!

Here are some pics around the river:

Sunset on the Tennessee River

Walking Bridge over the Tennessee River

Coolidge Park, there's a very neat carousel in that building


The Art Museum on the river in downtown Nooger

Curvy sidewalk that leads down to the river from the art museum.

Condos on the river

A riverboat with lots of "red hat society" ladies on it

Cool lamp on the walking bridge

Here's the Incline Railway.

It's the steepest railway in the world climbing an amazing 72.7% grade up the side of the mountain. The residents who live on Lookout Mountain actually use this railway when it's slick out and they can't drive down the mountain to Nooger. Sitting in the car, it's really not scary. It looks crazy when you're at the top of the mountain looking down or at the bottom looking up, but in the actual railcar, you lose that perspective. It was fun, I'm glad we did it for the experience. Anyone going to Lookout Mountain should jump a ride on the railway!

The view from the top of the mountain, inside the railway car. The red X shows the bottom of the mountain and were the car stops. You can catch the railway at the top or the bottom of the mountain.

This is the bottom of the mountain, they let you off and there's an ice cream shop, pizza shop and a magic shop (you know Rich loved that). You can roam around as long as you want and hop the railway when you're ready to go back up. It runs about every 10 or 15 minutes and only takes a few minutes to get back up to the top.

Tennessee Aquarium

So as part of our package, we went to the Tennessee Aquariums - yep there are 2! One is a river aquarium showing all the wildlife in the rivers around Tennessee and around the world. Then there's an Ocean Aquarium that, well you get it, shows all kinds of stuff from oceans around the world.

We started in the Ocean Aquarium. Here are the penquins...aren't they just too cute!

They have a huge tank with several BIG sharks. We called this one Big Dog McSharkerson
because he just swam around at a leisurely pace, he totally owned that tank and he knew it!

Rich checking out Big Dog

Ok, we can go eat dinner now, just please don't eat Nemo!

The river aquarium was nice too. They had some huge catfish in there and some interesting turtles I would never want to run into in a lake. But it was kind of boring to me, so I won't bore you with any pictures of it.

Rock City

We started our day at Rock City on Tuesday. Let me tell you, Rock City is absolutely amazing!!!! We didn't know what to expect, maybe some cool views atop the mountian and a lot of walking. It was a lot of walking but very easy.

You take a self guided tour through Rock City on limestone pathways through walkways carved out of the mountain. It's too hard to describe and so beautiful. I'd go back to Chattanooga just to go there again. We loved it!

After a considerable drive up the side of Lookout Mountain, we're finally here! I didn't think about it but I should have taken a picture of .... you guessed it ...... STARBUCKS right across the street from Rock City. Is nothing sacred for Starbucks????


This is the ticket gate at Rock City, isn't it cute!

At the ticket counter, they give you a map but you don't really need it. There are signs throughout Rock City that keep you headed in the right direction. Below, we just entered through the gates and we're about to enter the "Grand Corridor". It was pretty grand, I must admit. Unfortunately pictures don't do this justice.

About to enter Goblin's Underpass...weeeeuuuuuuuuu I'm scared!

Some of the walkways were really narrow, even had to walk sideways at times.

Another cool walkway at Rock City

Me in Fat Man Squeeze, Rock City

Here Rich is walking across the swing bridge. Boy did it move as you walked across it, so of course, I had to swing it back and forth and make it bounce up and down.

These lunatics were installing a beautiful eagle statue on the side of the mountain at Rock City. Notice how close they are to the edge and have NO safety ropes on whatsoever. Hello mountian men, we come from the flatlands of Indiana, we call that dangerous!

As we exited a dark tunnel, we were greeted by this beautiful entrance to Observation Point . I loved the colors of the rock contrasting with the darkness of the tunnel.

Lover's Leap, this is where you can see 7 States all at once.

Rich on Lover's Leap. BTW, he refused to jump so I'm
questioning his love for me...wouldn't you?

Seven States Map at Ruby Falls, Lookout Mountain

The waterfall at Lover's Leap

Another angle of the falls at Lover's Leap

They've got these Gnomes sitting everywhere and have little displays of them doing different things. I thought this moonshinin' gnome was especially creepy!

The Infamous See Rock City Birdhouse (we got a small, Christmas ornament sized one and it's hanging on our rear view mirror.