Lookout Mountain, Georgia

Last night Asa, Esme, Nova and I went to another hotel to see some live music. We walked and it was raining again but with the heat, the rain didn’t bother us.

I thought it would be a band but it was a girl with a guitar. It was still nice though and we listened to her play while we had dessert. We bought some crayons yesterday and brought those along and Nova drew a picture with a microphone and some music notes for the singer. Nova danced to a bunch of her songs and she got one of her requests played, “Dancing Queen”.

I told them we could Uber home because it was pretty late but there were no cars available for 4+ people so we walked home. It was only a 10 minute walk and it had stopped raining so it was fine. Nova was disappointed that we didn’t get to take a “Goober ride” though.

We slept in again this morning. Check-out was at noon and we didn’t have any firm plans except to drive to Franklin in North Carolina.

I thought we might take the incline railroad (railway car that goes up a mountain) or see Rock City. I ended up deciding we would do Rock City because it said you could see 7 states from the lookout.

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We ended up loving this place! It is a garden, technically. It is basically a winding and looping path in over and around rocks on a mountain top.

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A lot of it was in the shade and being surrounded by rocks is kind of like being in a cave–cool and damp–so we didn’t get too hot. There were a couple of places where the cleft in the rocks was very narrow and you had to squeeze through.

They also had this section that was kind of whimsical with black lights and a fairytale theme.

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There was a rope bridge which was really fun to cross.

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There were some pretty spectacular views!

The kids absolutely loved this place and I would highly recommend if you’re in the Chattanooga area. It was actually in Georgia even though it was just 15 minutes from Chattanooga.

Walking through at our own pace took us about 2 hours. Then we had about a 3 hour drive to Franklin. We drove along the Ocoee River for a long time which is known for whitewater rafting. We stopped to look at two of the dams.

Franklin is a pretty small town. We did some laundry at a laundromat when we got here and tried to find some dinner. It was harder than I thought. Being a Sunday and Father’s Day on top of that, a lot of the restaurants closed early. We ended up getting McDonald’s and after a bath for the girls, tried for an earlier than usual bedtime because we want to get an early start tomorrow. I let the girls use three towels each after their bath which they found to be the height of luxury.