Murval Day 2 (brace yourself for photo overload)

Thursday March 31 aka "Yankee Day"

We left Atlanta and headed up towards Chattanooga.

It was raining. Hard. Keep that in mind. 

First we stopped at Chickamauga Battlefield Park.

SO. AMAZING. Even in the rain!

I basically freaked out with all the history, I mean, I was actually at a place where people like Bragg, Hood, and Longstreet were actually fighting at.  The North lost here, and because of that is why Sherman started his march. So much rich history! This being the first MAJOR Civil War battlefield I've ever been to, I mean like, I think I was ok to freak so much.

 There were so many monuments in tribute to all the different battle groups that were there.  Small to large to a castle.  Seriously, so many monuments it was insane to think of all those people really there.

Some monuments were larger than others...

85 ft,136 stairs, 5 landings, 131 years old (roughly)

 

 

Next we stopped at the Incline Railway, America's steepest mile! The rain had kinda stopped but fog still clung to the mountain side and we were warned that the views won't be as impressive.

 It was still amazing! 72.7% grade! We went from top to bottom and back again.  That top part, where the steepest grade is, was so cool! It felt like you were dropping off the side of the mountain!

At the bottom we had some local hand churned ice cream at Clumpies and checked out a cute store called Finders Keepers.  Shaun got a wool blanket that was made in Scotland & an old school Nancy Drew book that she's collecting. The lady was really nice & I loved her accent! And yes, she told me about her sandwich and I was in heaven!

Going back up with a little bit more clear skies...

Short stop to Lookout Mountain at Point Park.
(not my photo, none of mine turned out *sad face*)

See? This is what I got. even though it's still pretty cool..

Rock City was next on the list! Just a few miles from the Incline and Point Park, was this space of land with crazy rock formations that someone turned into a fairy tale walk. 

"Let no one say and say it to your shame that all was beauty here until you came."

Mushroom Rock

Art installment

Knight training area

Jack's Beanstalk.. Here was where I was asked if I was a "Yankee"..

From this area you can see across into 7 States

a little bit of clear skies..

All 7 States in one shot..

"Fat Man Squeeze"

They had these tiny white deer..

The Rainbow Hall

Lover's Leap off the waterfall..

It's a face!

I found these signs funny

Inside this "cavern", they had attached what looked like coral type things to the ceilings and had fake "jewels" all over the walls to make it look like you were going into the dwarfs mine.  They had little cut outs in the walls that depicted different fairy tales.  It was interesting..

Afterwards, we got dinner and took the scenic way, HW 411, back to her house, passing along side the Cherokee National Forest.  It was getting dark and  we still had a long drive ahead of us so we didn't get to explore the area, but it sure did look amazing, even with the trees still in post-winter mode..

(also not my photo)

There were lots of little towns we had to slow down for as we passed through.  One of these towns was Etowah, when we passed the sign I totally thought it said "Ewok". Anyways..

(not my photo)

We got pulled over for speeding because we thought the limit went back up after we passed through the town, it does but we went too soon.

Shaun: rolls down window.

Officer: (walks up to window) Good evening.

Shaun: Sorry officer, I know I was speeding.

Officer: Yes you was.

The officer was super nice, AMAZING accent too.  While Shaun was pulling up her insurance on her phone, we got the officer to be apart of a conversation about cell phone coverage just so we could keep him talking so my sake. He let us off, no ticket, just asked us to slow down.

"Yes you was" has been in my vocabulary ever since.