We left at 8 am (ish!) Monday morning, and headed east. The trip was fun, and I noticed that as we headed east, it was similar to our trip through Texas last year; the easter we got, the more trees and the fewer people. About 100 miles from Chattanooga, we started seeing the signs for Rock City, Lookout Mountain, Ruby Falls and the Incline Railroad. Most of the signs were painted on barn roofs, which was apparently the advertising campaign that was dreamed up by one man in the 1930s.
We stopped at a rest stop at Nickajack Lake, then headed up 1920 foot tall Montegle Mountain. The climb wasn't especially steep, but it was loooooong. On the way down, it was rather scary. Seeing the signs warning about out of control trucks was bad enough, but the weirdest thing was seeing 'runoff ramps' for trucks who might have lost their brakes. They were cut into the mountain at the side of the interstate, and were basically 100 yard long ramps filled with sand to stop a truck. I wish I'd gotten a picture of one of them!
We crossed into GA... then back into TN.... then back into GA. Somewhere along the way, we saw a sign for Steak and Shake, which is my new favorite place. Funnily enough, they don't actually serve steaks. They serve 'steakburgers', and the best shakes I have ever had. Plus, they're open 24 hours a day, and have superb service (I've been to three of them, and have always been impressed with the service). Also, they're not too expensive, which is always good. So we went off in search of Steak and Shake. 5 miles, and one stop for directions later, we were there, and had a thoroughly enjoyable lunch. I highly recommend the 'frisco' burger, and the chocolate/banana 'side by side' shake.
On our way back to the interstate, we stopped at a tattoo place, so Jamie could buy a new lip ring, since she lost her 'good' one. While we were there, I snapped this picture of one of the ads hanging on the wall, with my camera phone:
What makes this picture interesting is not that the ribbons are tattooed onto the girl. In fact, the ribbons are real - they are attached to her by a series of eyelets pierced down her legs. Yeah - that's what I said.
So we mosied on down towards Atlanta, fortunately managing to avoid the city itself, which I've heard from numerous people has the worst traffic in the country. We did run across some really cool buildings (why do they call them 'buildings' when they're done building them? They ought to call them 'builts'! Haha. Thanks, Gallagher). These buildings were twins, exept for the tops. One of them had rounded features and the other had square ones. They looked really cool. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into position to get a really good contrasting shot, but here's what I did get:
We entered Gwinnitt, which was where both our hotel and the concert were located. The hotel looked nice from the outside, but inside seemed run down. They didn't have the air on in the lobby, which was sweltering in the mid-day heat. They also tried to refuse our 'coupon' (we had earned $50 off due to our stay back in California), but Wanda convinced them. She's good at that. So, we checked in, relaxed for a few minutes, and then went off take the kids to the arena.
As we traveled, we realized just how bad of a neighborhood we were in. I won't go into details there though. Just before we hit the interstate, Jamie spotted a Denny's, which made her all excited, because they don't have Denny's here in Tennessee anymore. So she wanted to go there after the concert...
The Gwinnett arena was a nice looking place, and there was a 24 hour Kroger's store across the street (for my non-Southern readers, Kroger's is where Alton Brown does all his grocery shopping), so we agreed to meet the girls there after the concert. After we dropped them off, Wanda and I went back to the Kroger's to check it out. The massive store had a huge Deli, a wine cellar, a pharmacy, a conference room on the second floor, and they were in the process of building a Starbucks inside. Cool.
Wanda and I decided to eat at this place called Roadhouse Grill. It was sparsely decorated, but the food was pretty good. Then we went back to the hotel till it was time to pick up the girls.
We finally got them about 11:30, and headed to Denny's. Except Karina wanted McDonald's, which was right across the street, but which was very, very slow and had some weird scary guy stalking the car in front of us - which was driven by a woman who couldn't drive. Hilarity ensued. Anyway, I think he was asking her to buy him some food, but when she forgot to order it, she started backing up towards us, stopping inches away, then left her car in reverse while she ordered. Yeah, we were sure she was giong to hit us, but she remembered just in time. Anyway.
It was the worst Denny's food and service I have ever had, and that's saying a lot. Afterwards, we went home and crashed, except Wanda couldn't sleep, and I was awake all night hearing her not sleep. We checked out at 10:30 and headed home.
We stopped back at the tattoo place on our way back, where Jamie got her nose pierced. It hurt a lot. It fell out last night, and she's apparently decided to let it grow over. Yay.
I convinced Wanda to stop at Rock City. We saw the Incline Railroad (the steepest passenger train in the world), but I was too chicken to try it (I didn't think I could handle going backwards up the hill). As we climbed 1800 foot tall Lookout Mountain, we again went back and forth between GA and TN, and the scenery was amazing. Once at the top, the girls and I went in.
This is the girls crossing the swinging bridge, while I photographed them from the solid bridge across the way. I'm not dumb.
This is the view from the 7 States Flag Court at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, it was too hazy (that damn marine layer!) to actually see 7 states the day we were there, but it's the thought that counts!
This is the girls walking through the Fat Man Squeeze. If you're claustraphobic, don't go down there.
This is Karina in front of the Falls. The area you see in the background above her head is 'Lover's Leap', which is right next to the Flag Court.
Other than briefly getting lost on our way back to the interstate (we decided to blame that on poor signage!), the rest of the trip, while long, was uneventful. In the end, a good time was had by all, and I very much look forward to returning to Rock City with my camcorder!
