COOLIDGE PARK AND THE TN AQUARIUM

Chattanooga is a very kid friendly city: a plethora of parks and playgrounds and splashpads, the climbing gym and the aquarium, nearby shallow creeks for swimming and splashing, plenty of ice cream joints and restaurants with kid approved food items, and just an overall feeling of being clean, safe, and welcome. We loved it, and we went during one of the busiest weekends of the year (and didn't go into any neighborhoods, but still feel like it would be an awesome place to live).

Our first stop of the day was Coolidge Park, where the kids made some music and ran around, checking things out.

That thing was LOUD...

Next up was Good Dog, where Jay had a Reuben Brat and I had a Hawaiian Dog (and the kids stuck to boring, plain Good Dogs). They hand cut their own fries and serve them in a cone, which is stuck into a hole in the table.

We even let the kids have a bit of Coke to put some pep in their step, in preparation for the long walk (about half a mile, long to them, though technically known as "the world's longest pedestrian bridge") across the Walnut Street Bridge into downtown (parking was really cheap on the North Shore, and I wanted to walk the bridge anyway).

The boys were being silly for my photo. Cora was not impressed...

Scooped up by daddy, but still not smiling. That's Lookout Mountain in the background (similar to Raccoon Mountain, but more tourists and more expensive).

Kisses and high-fives for the dog statue on the other side of the bridge. Lots of street art in Chattanooga!

The busy tourist weekend combined with one broken credit card machine meant a very long line to purchase tickets to the Tennessee Aquarium (which we had visited once back when we were still dating, AGES AGO, when I first moved to the east coast and Jay accompanied me for the drive cross country, and thought it was one of the best aquariums we'd seen - we think it's on the same level as the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Georgia Aquarium - which both kids have also visited, they're so well traveled, though Cora wasn't in the great big world yet...)

While daddy graciously stood in the line, I followed the kids around the "splashpad" (a water feature shaped like the Tennessee River). It was kinda dirty and grimy, honestly, but the kids didn't care. They walked the length of it up and back (not staying the least bit dry, as I asked them to attempt to do - silly mama), then hung with the big group of kids at the large sidewalk-split section where they could slide down the concrete. That was all well and good until Cora pushed James and he slid down roughly, badly scraping and bruising 5 vertebrae on his lower back. Somehow, he didn't cry, but he was pretty angry with her...

I know, lots of pictures here, but he kept asking me to take them...

They really liked the otter talk and feeding demonstration.

Petting the sturgeon - pretty cool!

She just wanted to climb... but she looked awfully cute sitting up there!

"Mama, it's Rio! It's Blue from Rio!"

Petting the sting rays, manta rays, and hammerhead shark!

This one's for Uncle Stephen!

They both wanted blue sharks. As if they need more stuffed animals... At least they picked the blue, reasonably priced versions (I had JUST been remarking, quietly to Jay, on the size and likely cost of a gray shark in the arms of a very whiny boy...) Luckily, these sharks have barely left their sides for days (actually writing this post on Tuesday night while James and Jay are at the first U8 soccer practice of the season followed immediately/overlapping their first Cub Scout Den Meeting), so I think they are truly loved. I'm not a huge fan of buying souvenirs and don't normally do so, but this has been a special weekend and I've been feeling very grateful that we had the opportunity to venture out of Mississippi and make some great memories together while exploring a new part of the country!

After about 3.5 hours at the aquarium (much longer than we'd expected the kids to last), it was time to head back across the bridge, which required some bribery in the form of ice cream and splashpad promises. We high-tailed it to Clumpies Ice Cream Company (along with a couple dozen other families...) for some delicious locally-made ice cream (we had Ben and Jerry's at their store downtown last night - lots of ice cream on this trip!), stopping by the chalk art alley on the way, then changing the kids into swimsuits to splash around Coolidge Park with at least 50 other kids...

When James got tired of splashing (or fighting the crowd?), Jay and I took turns throwing the Frisbee around with him. It was beautiful out there - all that open space... (but just a little hot!)

That building with the golden horse on top housed a carousel (which we didn't ride, because the kids couldn't see it, and thus didn't ask about it, though we totally would have let them).

Our last plan for Chattanooga was an early dinner at Taco Mamacita, where we ate delicious guacamole and fancy tacos and Mexican Street Corn, before heading back up to the campground for s'mores around the campfire and a relaxing evening watching the kids play with their new friends (sorry, I didn't take any pictures, because I didn't want their parents to think I was weird - funny enough, they were visiting from our neck of the woods, Mandeville, Louisiana). And yes, I researched all our restaurant options before we traveled, just to make decisions easier/faster, and it worked out wonderfully!

FOSSILS AND FAST DRIVING

After sleeping in and a minimalist breakfast (we actually don't really like cooking when camping unless it's hot dogs and s'mores over the campfire...), we went back up to the cavern gift shop (just up the walkway from our cabin - which meant lots of people watching while we sipped coffee and beer on our porch throughout the weekend) to do some mining. The kids had the choice of gemstones, arrowheads, or fossils, and they chose fossils. Of course they did!

Yes, Cora now has her very own walking stick, just like James. She was thrilled! Not to be left out of the souvenir shopping, James chose a glow-in-the-dark salamander. If only the cave salamanders glowed... how cool would that be?

Lots of fossil shells, some shark teeth, and some petrified wood. They were very happy with their finds, and later traded some teeth and wood for gemstones with a boy they met in the campground. They actually made a few friends on this trip... the girls in the cabin next to ours (ages 3 and 5) instantly became their "new best friends" and they played together for hours on Sunday morning and Sunday evening. When we got back from town, the older girl was literally sitting in the walkway, just waiting for Cora to return from the aquarium. It kinda took away from the "family time" we envisioned, but they had so much fun, we just had to realize that our kids are growing up - as parents, we only get to be their "whole world" for a limited time, and ours seems to be slipping away already. Kinda sad, but also kinda nice... We relaxed with them in view, they ran circles around us as they played, and it was comforting to witness yet again how well adapted our kids are socially. We seriously love that they can make friends everywhere they go and hope that their independence and confidence takes them good places in life.

After the fossil search and running around with friends, we went down to the campground's go-kart track to race, boys vs. girls. Jay says my go-cart was just unfairly faster, but I think my years of training with Robyn and Stephen in Oregon just made me a better driver ;-)

See? I won even while taking photos. Booya!

BIG RIVER AND THE HIGH POINT

Our restaurant of choice for dinner was Big River Grille and Brewing Works. The kids had their fresh brewed root beer and Mac-n-Cheese, Jay had a giant burger, and I had the fish and chips. And we both got samplers, of course. Large samplers... (Everything was good except the seasonal on the bottom middle, which was a sour - I don't like sours. Their seasonal White IPA, bottom right, was awesome - I love white IPAs! Their lager and award winning stout were also really good.)

Since neither of us thought we should drive right after drinking all those 2oz samples and we spent our outside dining experience watching a bunch of people climbing the outside of the building across the street (which Cora, of course, wanted to go do, no matter how tired she was), we headed over to see what it cost. Turns out $17 got you a full day's pass to the High Point Climbing Gym (and they were open for 2 more hours), which was not simply the outdoor climbing walls, but a HUGE gym with 5 large indoor climbing rooms (one just for kids, and two just for adults and bouldering) plus a fitness and yoga room. Cora was beside herself with joy! James followed along as we went through all the instructions and were given the tour, still insisting he didn't want to climb, but as soon as he saw the final room (the Kid Zone) with a Spiderman net and cityscape to scale, he was ready to rent some gear and give it a go.

 

We made it outside at 9:30pm (which was technically 8:30pm Mississippi time, so they weren't up TOO far past their normal bedtime at that point). The outside walls were really hard (most of them sloped outward) and the kids were physically spent by this point, but we had to let them try. It was cool how the light colors behind the walls changed, but I think it added to the difficulty for the kids (it was hard for them to locate the holds, which were further apart than most of the indoor walls they attempted).

 We finally called it when the kids started falling off and laying down for a few seconds... The Tennessee Aquarium was lit up in the background, which the kids knew we were planning to visit the next day, so I attempted to take a photo of them in front of it. James proudly showed me his rock climbing muscles, but Cora could barely keep her eyes open and her hands up. SO VERY TIRED. So many fun adventures today!