Our Adventures: A Valentines/Birthday/Babymoon in Chattanooga!

For my birthday, way back in November, Andy promised me a trip to Chattanooga. We planned on taking it in December, I think, but then we decided to move out of the Money Pit instead. A good call, in my opinion.

So then, we decided to take my birthday trip over Valentines weekend and call it a Valentines/Birthday/Babymoon! Have you ever heard of these Babymoons? I hadn't until I got pregnant. People take these fabulous last pre-baby trips before their lives are changed forever and they can never go on a trip again (eyes rolling all over the place). Ours was a quick one-night trip to stay in a nice hotel and do some sightseeing in Chattanooga, TN!

We started off our trip in Chattanooga in the Arts District of town. Because, as you all know, we are very cultured and sophisticated types. Ok first we started off eating lunch. But it was at a cool coffee shop in the Arts District. Then, we walked for a long while, and took note of the awesome running route all the tons of runners we saw had. I am jealous of all runners and their ability to run. I can't wait to be able to do the same again! There was a sculpture garden along the river where we observed a woman putting a rabbit figurine on all the sculptures and taking pictures of it.

We walked past the art museum and admired more of the sculptures.

Along the way, we decided that at some point we would find this path and walk up its winding walkway. We did, eventually.

But not before walking over the glass bridge, which made me dizzy and very unsteady-feeling. Looking over the river bridge we half-way walked across made me dizzy and unsteady too! Might my equilibrium be off, or might I just be turning into a wuss?

There is an awesome foot bridge across the Tennessee River in Chattanooga, but it was closed for some reason. So we had to walk across the foot part of the busy vehicle bridge. Still cool.

Finally, we wound our way back towards the Arts District and the uphill twisty walkway. It was all we ever dreamed a walkway could be.

[SIDE NOTE: We found that Chattanooga is VERY wheeled-vehicle (see stroller) friendly, and that there is TONS of stuff to do with kids there. Tons of tacky stuff. And some not tacky stuff as well. We also found that the redneck contingent visiting Chattanooga is quite a bit higher in number than the sophisticated contingent such as ourselves. We tried our best to blend in, though I'm afraid we just couldn't cut it....God I'm such a snob.]

Saturday night, we went to a delicious dinner where I ate the best freakin piece of fish, possibly EVER. Sea bass. I am probably not supposed to eat sea bass, but I ate it anyway, and it was delicious and Big Baby Hoefer is kicking around as usual so I'm not too worried about it. Also, I think that I should have some moral issues with eating sea bass because certain types are severely over fished, etc. but I did not take this into consideration and I do not regret my decision.

After dinner, it was too early to go back to the hotel and go to sleep, though I totally could have, so we just walked. And we found........

THE CHATTANOOGA CHOO-CHOO! You can see the joy in Andy's face at this discovery!

It was a redneck mecca and it was totally awesome. I wanted to go back today (Sunday) in the daylight since my camera doesn't like to take pictures in low light, but the weather was bad, so we had to pick and choose where we went and the Chattanooga Choo-Choo didn't make the cut.

We COULD HAVE stayed in one of the Chattanooga Choo-Choo sleeping cars!

But we stayed here instead....

Today (Valentines Day), we arose after having been woken at 3:45am by some jackass with a wrong number, who by the way, had called with the wrong number at 6pm the evening before, so you'd think he wouldn't make the same mistake again. Anyway, we slept in a bit and arose to snow outside our window. We checked out of our swank room and decided to choose where we would go on our last part of the trip. I had originally wanted to go SEE ROCK CITY or visit Ruby Falls, but I think those would be better suited for non-snowy/rainy days. So we went to the Tennessee Aquarium instead! By the time we got there, after having a greasy breakfast in a Day's Inn 24-Hour Diner (recommended to us by the valet guy), it was really snowing like crazy!

The Tennessee Aquarium is really neat! It's two buildings, one for river stuff and one for ocean stuff. I'm obviously being very technical in my description here. They are right by the river, and have these random cool bridges between them. The bridges don't connect the buildings or anything. They're just there. Hence, random.

I didn't get too many good pictures while in the aquarium, but oh well. We liked the river side better, but the whole experience was nice!

Andy saw his first alligator snapping turtle, and I got to tell him the story of the man in Tallulah who shot some 250 year old (or so I remember it being) snapping turtle and it, while dead, having bitten his finger off. That sucker was HUGE! The guy brought it by our house so we could see it in all its dead glory. We were trying to decide what the man in Tallulah would have done with the turtle, and I guessed eat it? What does one do with a gigantic dead alligator sapping turtle?

We also saw this gigantic turtle shell. I don't know if it was the real deal or a replica, but it was pretty awesome regardless.