Chattanooga - Labor Day Weekend

We are trying to squeeze every bit of fum out of this summer!  And we aren't even done yet!!!

We always have a blast when we go to Chattanooga.  We arrived around 2pm on Saturday, so we went to dinner.

On our way back to the house that night I spotted this tent sale!!!

Sunday we woke up and went to the Chattanooga Market.  This place is AWESOME!

This was when it first opened up, it was already pretty packed.

This shirt cracked me up!

There is a small-ish seating area - we stalked around waiting for someone to get up and then pounced on the open table!

Each weekend has a theme, and this weekend was food trucks!

Tim found a leather stand and got himself a new belt and a new wallet.  He paid $49 for both of them and I didn't think that was bad deal!

There is just the funnest stuff there.  I guess there is a rule that if you have a table you have to have had created that product.  You can't have your direct selling company there, everything was handmade.

It even went outside the arena!

Kennedie found a guy that had anime art and she was star struck.  She chose to buy this painting for $20 (it has UV paint in it that glows under black light)

These cookies were pretty cool.  She gives you a brush with your purchase and all you need to do it dip in water and paint on the cookie!  So while we sat down to eat lunch at Naked River Brewing he was painting.

Finally left lunch - we always have fun just chatting with our family.  I made them pull over and stop at the Lilly/Vineyard Vines tent!  I ended up getting a LP dress and a VV long sleeve shirt.  Tim actually got two shirts as well - I think they were billabong brand.  Everything we got was $142 and that's less than my dress was worth full price!

Of course Cale had to go back in to the pool and this time he convinced dad to get in with him.

and oops!  Dad broke the floaty!

The way to Cale's heart?  Through a Waffle House waffle.  At this Waffle house my husband was wearing a shirt that said Coach Tim Farris, well when we walked in they mentioned it and apparently the General Manager of that Waffle House in Tennessee was also named Tim Farris.  We got a big laugh out of the coincidence!

We are always sad to leave but we know we are in for a fun weekend when we come back!!

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park

We have been to Chattanooga a number of times.  Never once have we stumbled upon this spot.  Neither one of our iphones were trying to let us use the maps on them.  Normally our maps find the quickest route (as my installed GPS in my flex is 7 years old - it doesn't find new roads that make routes quicker), but because they weren't working we had to use the GPS in the flex.  We took the shorter route (though it said it was longer, because we weren't going straight highway, and in our experience it usually isn't that much longer since we are bypassing Atlanta traffic. We ALWAYS find some cool stuff along the way.)

So the GPS routed us through the Chickamauga battlefield.  Like you drive right through it.  We didn't have time to stop on our way into Chattanooga but knew we would take time on our way back through to tour what we could.

 

We first stopped at the visitors center.  They had a gift shop, a gun collection and a huge map.  Also the rangers of the park were on hand to welcome us and let us know what we needed to know about the park and navigating it.

 Entrance to the visitors center.

They handed us a pamphlet with some facts/history on it as well as the park's map.  They pointed out that there was an interactive guide to the park.  Each stop is marked with the cannon balls and a number (below picture), and that's how you know which number stop to play and a lady comes on with a pre-recorded history "lesson" on what happened at that spot.



Cannonballs at tour stop 2.

This is the big map in the middle of the visitors center.

 This area had some artifacts and static displays in it.

 Cale loved the tent.

 

 How a spencer rifle changed the tides of the war.  Even had a little video of how it was to shoot both types of guns. 

 This room had 300 guns in it.  It was a husband and wives private collection, before it was donated to the center.

 

 More displays.

 Had a short video of how Chickamauga happened.

 We were inside long enough to catch the video on the 3 day battle.  Apparently girls are stinky so they chose to sit in the middle of the theater.

 

  Outside the park where you can take the driving tour.  Each state/battalion/battery that had a part in Chickamauga has a monument set up.  This is Florida's.

  I believe this is Kentucky's.

 

  Wisconsin

 I believe this is tour stop 3 and it had a little hike you could take and go farther back into the woods.

 I was pinteresting the park before we got there and it looked like a lot of people had taken pictures and "ghosts" had appeared in them.  So Cale took a ton of pictures to try and catch one.

 This is the tallest monument in the park. 

 We didn't make any more tour stops as most of them required you to get off the highway and not into a parking lot.  So we just drove through.

 Can't really see but there is another monument WAY out in the distance in the middle of the picture at the tree line.

I think this was a great experience for us a family, as it was our first battlefield.  They are all over the south but this is our first being able to stop and tour.  As we were touring Kennedie mentioned she had done a report on the battle last year.  I thought it was cool to be able to seen the park after her report and get a first hand experience.