chattanooga

When I first decided upon Tennessee I wanted to go to Gatlinberg because, well, everyone does. A nice cabin in the mountains with the rest of the world...ummm on second thoughts, NO! I never even gave Chattanooga a second thought until we drove through on our way to Lebanon. It was pitch black and we had been on the road for 15+ hours when suddenly we were on a mountain road over looking a lake and it was stunning, gorgeous...insert a myriad of your own adjectives here. We knew we would be back but since our trip was short it made no sense to drive 90 minutes south and then head north again.

I made the decision to incorporate it in to the drive home, albeit briefly. The drive down was just gorgeous. You cannot beat the colour of the sky on a day when it is sunny but the temperatures aren't abve freezing. THe views we amazing and I loved the big open sky.

A main highway and no traffic. I have more traffic in my hood.

A bridge. I leave it at that as my exuberence for bridges might overwhelm

A MOUNTAIN. I could have squealed

actual scenery.

crazy to think we were there.

The briefly part was a fantastic idea until we got there and realised we would be there a while. A quick drive around downtown to see what needed to be seen there and then off we went to the Chattanooga Chew Chew. Yes, that is spelt correctly, it's the name of the dog park.

From there we headed to Ruby Falls which was beautiful. Sadly it was massively under contsruction and no dogs were allowed. Fortunately they offered free kennels which were nothing more than concrete slabs with chain link fence around them. This wouldn't have made me bat an eyelid in the summer but this little hound would have frozen to death plus it resembled her racing days and no, just no. ( in another year I'll do it but not yet)

photos would be gorgeous usually but the chain link fences and construction mess made them awkward at best

you wouldn't know it was 11 degrees. 

Every thing was pretty

thats right

I might have been a bit nippy. I had been waiting outside whilst the girls hit the gift shop.

Ahoy below

happy girlies and hound

We ended up staying much longer than anticipated and a tentative plan to meet 2 lisas from the old blogging days, flew out the window. By the time we left out ETA for home was 2.31am. Zoinks. We stopped quite a few times but thankfully due to us getting in to Atlanta so late we were able to knock nearly an hour off the trip. We arrived home shortly after 1am and once inside the house the hound went absolutely stark raving mad. She was so happy to be home. We on the other hand, had mixed emotions about it.