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rock city, part one
26 Aug 07
After a long delay, but with inevitable satisfaction, it gives me great pleasure to recount my and Jodi’s tour of Rock City. When we mention Rock City to our friends, they have one of two reactions: northerners (mainly, but not exclusively, Canadian) say “hunh?” Southerners, on the other, get a queer look on their faces, followed by something along the lines of “You’re going there?”
Rock City is in Georgia, but so close to the state line that the nearest city is actually Chattanooga.
We spent the morning (of July 31, 2007) checking out downtown Chattanooga, which like most downtowns in America isn’t particularly people friendly. We walked down a number of barren streets (literally—one entire block of abandoned and falling apart shops was so desolate I was nervous to stay long enough to take out my camera, foolishly) looking for coffee. We finally got lucky at a place called Greyfriar’s, which was nice enough, and the coffee was reasonably priced (not what we’re used to in Athens, who like Chattanooga has a main street called Broad; but I digress).
Rock City costs about $15 to get in, and then you follow a path through some nifty fissures and other formations until you get to the peak of Lookout Mountain.
If you ask at the ticket counter or the main gate (and people do!) “How long does it take to get through here?” the answer is about an hour and a half. However, we did overhear some seemingly relieved power tourists saying they could do it in more like an hour. Incidentally, we obeyed the signs and stayed on the path. There’s some mighty powerful wildlife in them there parts.
That guy was about five millipedinous inches long. One interesting thing about this place is that it was originally created as a private garden, and the wife of the couple who owned the property and subsequently opened it to the public made an effort to bring in a wide variety of native and regional plant species. Since the location is relatively near the Carolinas, and since Southern Ontario too is (was?) a carolinian forest region, a whole lot of the plants brought in for the garden looked very familiar.
The path through the rocks winds past a variety of sites of interest, crossing over itself in a number of places.
Here’s a picture of Jodi’s butt following the butts of some other tourists through the Grand Corridor.
Those who know me know I absolutely hate tucking in my shirt, and I pretty much also hate looking at tucked in shirts. And the worst is t-shirts tucked in to shorts. If you’re gonna tuck in your shirt, do it right and wear some proper trousers and decent shoes, fer cryin’ out loud. Here’s some more wildlife.
And of course, no self-respecting tourist attraction is complete without a deer park.
Reindeer—no doubt the carolinian kind. Unlike us, they weren’t mad enough to come out in the summer sun.
Getting close to Lookout Point, you get to choose whether to cross the safe-seeming stone bridge, or the entirely not safe-seeming swinging bridge. Jodi and I staged this lovely shot for you of her on the one, and me on the other. That’s Chattanooga over her right shoulder.
They say from Lookout Point, you can see seven states.
That’s on a clear day. The day we were there it was so hazy we could pretty much see Georgia (the state we were in. . . I mean, the State we were in; you can see for yourselves what state we were in) and Tennessee, all of a half mile away. We could, however, see Lover’s Leap.
We didn’t, thankfully, all though it looks like maybe these people did. From Lookout Point we could also see a number of fascinating local features, like the Enchanted Maize. . .
. . . and Chattanooga, of course. . .
. . . and this little guy.
Here’s a close-up. He was rather hard to see, but that’s why our cameras have lenses.
Here’s another view of Lover’s Leap, complete with waterfall.
So Part One of the tour is above ground, and kind of fun. Complete with a break for coffee at the concession stand up top, it took us well over our allotted hour and a half. It’s like we already had our money’s worth, and we hadn’t even gone underground yet!
Underground is where things get a little weird.
The gnome thing goes from being an occasional curiosity to the central theme. Here Jodi looks back in some distress, wondering “should we go on, or should we run far, far away?”
She’s also shimmering like some Celestine Prophecy character planning to vibrate into another dimension, but that’s just lighting. We’re actually not quite underground, yet, so I can show you the little gnome guys working the still.
And here’s one more bug shot, to round out that theme. Is that a carpenter bee?
Actually, no, it’s not. Don’t know what it is though. It floated like a bumble bee, which it clearly isn’t, and was hanging out around the hanging flowers.
At any rate, this has become a long, picture-heavy post. Here, to whet your appetite, is the gate to the Fairyland Caverns, about which you will hear (and see) a great deal in Part Two, whenever I get around to posting that.
Posted by pzed on August 26, 2007 at 9.16pm
Categories: graven images
Comments on "rock city, part one"
Your mystery bug at the end is a Hummingbird Moth.
Posted by miker_ on August 27, 2007 at 9.01am :: link
