Labor Day Weekend in Chattanooga: We Went to Ruby Falls

 

There were SO many caves that I'd wanted to see in Kentucky and Tennessee, but the timing didn't work out for most of them. In particular, my much-longed-for Crystal Cave tour doesn't actually exist, alas, although I have hiked to the Floyd Collins Homestead, at least. Dunbar Cave, where I REALLY wanted to see Mississippian indigenous peoples' cave art, moved their tours to just weekends the very week we visited, argh. 

But Ruby Falls, inside Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, was perfect for a late-evening tour after a long day playing pinball. I mean, why NOT go see a cave at night? It's going to be dark in there anyway!

The tour guide's explanation of how Ruby Falls was discovered was a little hard to follow (later, Matt and I were all, "The guy was excavating for a railroad, right?"), but this little podcast episode is short and precise:

And now I really want to see the original Lookout Mountain Cave! It's bonkers that it's completely inaccessible.

This cave tour wasn't the most educational I've ever been on, but it WAS super accessible, and our tour group had a wide range of ages represented. The tour guide was more fun and bantering than I, personally, prefer (I prefer a tour guide who recites a lot of facts and then lets me ask them a lot of questions and answers me with a lot more facts), but everyone else seemed to enjoy it, so I'm pretty sure the same type of self-reflection is required as when you find yourself continually surrounded by assholes.

(It's you. You're the asshole.)

We had a pretty large group walking down these long and narrow cave passages, and so to my horror, the tour guide introduced a call-and-response for the last people in the group, who THANK GAWD were not me and Matt, but a young couple just behind us. Every now and then, he would call out, "Tick, tick!" and the couple had to then respond, "BOOM!!!" To their credit, they all seemed really into it. It just made me not want to exist in this particular universe, is all.

HOWEVER, the cave passages WERE all rather long and winding, and various parts of the group would often pause to take photos or admire something, which would get parts of the group backed up, and then someone else would also want a photo so then those parts would get backed up further, etc. It was all well and good when it was a single passage, but at one point I came upon two identical cave passages in front of me, one straight ahead, one curved to the left. 

Which way had the rest of the group gone? Hmm, no way to tell. 

Should I choose one at random? Probably not, but think what an adventure!

Just then, heard very faintly from far ahead, came a distant "Tick, tick!" We still couldn't tell which passage it had come from, so the couple withheld their boom until the tour guide came back and fetched us.

The next time there was dilly-dallying, another visitor in our group was stationed at a confusing junction to wave us the correct way...

I really liked the informational signage that accompanied some of the cave formations, so we'd know what we were looking at--

--or just to tell us the names of the most famous formations:

The mood lighting was maybe a little cheezy, but I liked it, too:

It was a fun change of pace from the typical yellow lighting inside a tour cave.

Our tour was essentially an out-and-back trek to the titular waterfall:

Again, there was a little bit of a cheeze factor with a prerecorded light and sound show, but I thought we had plenty of time to gaze in admiration at the waterfall and discuss amongst ourselves its formation and the watershed that flows into it.

By the time our cave tour ended, everything else on-site was closed, but we could still walk up the stairs to see the original castle-like tower that Leo Lambert had built from the rocks he excavated while improving the cave entrance:

It must be an incredible view on a clear day, but it was beautiful even on this overcast night.

There is still SO much that I wanted to do in Chattanooga that we didn't have time for! I want to revisit the national park sites, ride the incline railway, stay in the Chattanooga Choo-Choo hotel, kayak to that island in the Tennessee River, and visit the bakery that I'd promised to bring Syd treats home from but it turned out to be closed on Labor Day, oops.

Next time!

Labor Day Weekend in Chattanooga: On Day 3, We Were Pinball Wizards!

THIS is the other compelling reason why I wanted to come to Chattanooga. Not only did they have a museum exhibit of fantasy art, but they also have a museum of pinball and arcade games, all playable with one single admission price!

Matt loves all kinds of video games, including vintage arcade games and pinball games, and I LOVE pinball. Although I owned Nintendo Pinball when I was little, and the movie theater where I worked as a young adult had a pinball game that I spent way too many quarters on, I had never, until this day, played my fill of pinball.

It was a GREAT DAY!

Happily, the rain that had mostly avoided us on the previous day was spitting down off and on all day on this day, which made it the perfect occasion to eat a hotel breakfast and then walk over to the Chattanooga Pinball Museum. I accidentally got into the line for the Maple Street Biscuit Company at first, because we turned the corner, I saw a long line, and assumed that obviously everybody else in Chattanooga would be standing there on a Sunday morning at 10:58, as well, waiting for the pinball museum to open. I mean, what on earth ELSE would you want to do on a rainy Sunday in Chattanooga?!?

Fortunately, Matt was all, "OMG stop standing in line for biscuits, we just ate, come over here and play pinball."

So we did!

The pinball games are set up in roughly chronological order, each with a little stand-up informational blurb sitting on it. The stands were a bit in the way, but later I saw someone hook the stand over the side of the game when they went to play it, so then I did that, too, so that everyone would know that I was an expert.

I absolutely loved the mechanics of these older games. The score physically ticks over as you play, and there are literal bells that the pinball hits that make a delightful musical cacophony. It is magical!

Some of the older games ARE pretty racist, though, which is a bummer:

I love these stylized stencils on the sides:

Move forward in time a decade and you're dealing mostly with sexism rather than racism:

And now you've got more colors and lights and digital effects!

This 1982 Haunted House pinball game was my second favorite game in the museum:

You can't really tell from my terrible photo, but it's a multi-level game, with an upper level at the back that is the haunted attic, but then, if you hit the ball just right, it will roll down into a hidden lower level below the main deck. A green light will turn on, allowing you to see that your ball has rolled into a haunted basement, with new obstacles and flippers that you can control, but the ramp is REVERSED so that it tilts down towards the back of the game! Such an awesome gimmick and very Upside-Downy.

Matt enjoyed the pinball games, too, but he was really there for the vintage arcade games:

He literally stood there and beat the entirety of Streetfighter II:

OMG 1991 me would have been just as impressed as I was on this day!

My favorite thing about pinball is all the millions of fun, creative themes every game has:

Each game always has a new and different creative theme, and new and different gameplay elements that you've never seen before AND that support the theme.

And check out how much of it is hand-drawn. It's like playing a vintage comic!

I don't always love a lot of sensory input all at once, but for some reason, being overstimulated by pinball is the BEST.

Check out the wings on top of this game!

Okay, the one sensory thing that I do not like, actually, is multi-balls. Ugh, two balls in play is TOO MANY BALLS IN PLAY! I can't watch them all, and I just end up losing all my balls quicker than if I'd only kept the one.

So even though I loved the theming of this pinball game (you KNOW how much I love space!), I actually loathed playing it, and I *only* played it something like four or so times before I was done with it for good:

Its multi-ball gimmick? Ugh, I can barely even stand to think about it again. It blasts you with THIRTEEN BALLS SIMULTANEOUSLY. Because it's Apollo 13, get it?

2/10, recommend playing only four times and then never again. That Star Wars: Episode I game to its left was surprisingly awesome, though!

For lunch, we walked through the drizzle to Burger Republic, where I ordered this spiked Nutella shake--

--and then complained to Matt for half an hour that I didn't think it actually had any alcohol in it. But just now, as I was forwarding their spiked shake menu to Matt via email and asking him to learn how to make me ALL of them, preferably this weekend, I noticed that there's also a regular, non-alcoholic Nutella shake.

The menu was one of those giant chalkboards on a wall that you had to look at before you ordered at the counter, so now I'm wondering if I saw the Nutella shake in the spiked shakes section and ordered it without specifying the "spiked" part because I didn't realize there were also virgin Nutella shakes on the menu...

Well, when Matt makes it for me it'll definitely be spiked!

Lunch hit Matt hard, so afterwards, he suggested walking back to the hotel for an afternoon nap. Since it was his birthday weekend, I told him that was an awesome idea, and was then all, "Do you want to just walk back to meet me at the pinball museum when you wake up? Because that's where I'm headed!"

While Matt napped, I discovered my 100% absolute favorite pinball game on the planet, 1999's Revenge from Mars:

It is SO FUN! There's a holographic video screen made possible via a Pepper's Ghost effect that hides the back area where the pinball can go, which means that the game can have all these video-based mini games where you shoot the ball at various holographic targets that are on top of ramps, so you get real-world effects as well as video effects. And the mini video games were SUPER entertaining, like saving the White House from a giant spaceship, or saving the Eiffel Tower from alien troopers, etc.

This 1973 game also had a fun mini game associated with it:

As you play, the pinball builds a game of tic-tac-toe in that central grid:

I was disappointed in this Star Trek: TGN pinball game, which had a lot of cool ramps and gimmicks, but it just wasn't as fun:

Eventually, Matt came back with a second wind--

--and we played pinball for a couple more hours--

--before at one point, just finishing a Hot Wheels pinball game, I kind of blinked and thought, "Huh, is this what it feels like to maybe be kind of tired of pinball? What time is it, anyway?"

Only 7:00 or so, which meant that I'd ONLY been playing pinball for, oh, let's say 6.5 hours. I could literally play another 6.5 hours of pinball right this second, but on that rainy Sunday evening, I reluctantly shook out my aching hands, and found Matt, who reckoned that he, too, could probably be done with pinball.

Instead, we went to go look at a giant waterfall under a mountain!

Labor Day Weekend in Chattanooga: On Day 2, We Looked at Art and Walked across a Bridge

 

When I was planning Matt's birthday trip, I was actually looking for ideas more around Nashville, because I'm still paranoid about both of us traveling too far away from our nearly grown-up teenagers. It's probably very Smother Mother-ish of me, and I don't even care.

But then I saw a TikTok about the fantasy art exhibit at the Hunter Art Museum, and THEN I Googled and saw that there's also a free-play pinball museum there, and a few weeks later, there Matt and I were in Chattanooga!

I really wish we'd done more than drive through Chattanooga when the kids were small, because they would have LOVED IT HERE. On our morning walk to the Hunter, Matt and I passed the Tennessee Aquarium--

--including a plaza out front with a free splash pad and wading stream meant to resemble the Tennessee River just north of it.

We followed the stream past the aquarium, then turned down The Passage towards the Tennessee Riverwalk--

--and found an equally beautiful and interactive memorial to the Trail of Tears and the experience of the Cherokee Nation:

There were interpretive signs for all the symbols, and you could enter the stream at any point, walking down the steps towards the river in a graphic representation of the Trail of Tears.

At the bottom, there was another wading area. Children could play here, in this gentle reminder of former tragedy, and families could enjoy their time together here. 

I love it when spaces overtly defy the intentions of the original acts of cruelty that led to the need for a memorial.

It was a cloudy day for the Tennessee Riverwalk--

--but nevertheless I was stoked, because the forecast had told me it would probably be pouring all day. We hardly got rained on at all, so yay!

THIS is why we came to Chattanooga!

Matt and I both love fantasy fiction. He loves fantasy video games, and I used to play D&D like mad (I'm a half-elf bard at heart, y'all), so this was the BEST exhibit for us!

Prince Valiant is still running, and it is so good!

This is Grendel's Mother, by Yoann Lossel, because fantasy art isn't all dragons and skeleton pirates:

But SOME of it is dragons!

I don't think I owned the D&D guide this art was on the cover of, but I've definitely seen it and used it!

This artist, Scott Fischer, also did the cover of Peter Pan in Scarlet:

And look what else I found!!! DINOTOPIA!!!!!!!

The family love affair with Dinotopia is a long one, and I'm always thrilled to see Dinotopia in the wild! I've just learned that James Gurney actually sells prints of his Dinotopia art, and OMG I want them.

It was really fun to see all these illustrations from beloved books. Here's an Arthur Rackham illustration:

I've got his illustrated Alice in Wonderland, but I think of him more as a fairy tale illustrator.

And here's an illustration from The Lost World:

We did The Mysterious Island as a family read-aloud one magical year, and I remain nostalgic for all things Arthur Conan Doyle.

Here's just the "do not touch" sign at the base of a giant Bigfoot bust:

And here's the skeleton pirate I referenced!

That's another James Gurney illustration. 

This exhibit was presented by the Norman Rockwell Museum, because apparently Normal Rockwell was really into fantasy art. I went to the museum's website to buy the exhibition catalogue and accidentally got completely sucked into learning more about Norman Rockwell and his art--I thought of him as a painter of schlocky sentimental subjects, but then I watched this virtual exhibition of his Civil Rights art and now I'm hooked. 

After looking at every single thing in the Enchanted exhibition twice, we eventually made our way into the rest of the museum and looked at the rest of the American art!

self-portrait in a fancy plate

Diamond in Milk by Amber Cowan, using thrifted, upcycled, and found glass

Efflorescence, by Judith Schaechter

Under the Sun, by Andy Saftel

I found a quilt!

Black Star Family, First Class Tickets to Liberia

This is so timely, because I recently met with one of my Girl Scouts who's working on a Gold Award project about introducing more Bipoc authors and artists into her classical school's curriculum. We had a great discussion about the politics and power dynamics involved in determining whether an artwork or piece of literature is "canonical," and one of the examples that we discussed was types of art that aren't traditionally recognized as such, but are still art, like quilts. I'd been thinking more about the Gee's Bend quilts when I brought up that example, but here's another quilt!

I really like the details, especially the use of netting and tulle to add shading to parts of the quilt:

Matt laughed at me for taking pictures of the seating, but you guys, this is what it is to be known!

Seriously, why are museums so freaking exhausting?!? You're just walking around really slowly and standing a lot! WHY AM I SO TIRED AND MY FEET HURT?!?

Rule #1: When you find a mirror, you take a selfie!

I'm a bad vacation photographer, because I think this is our only photo together during the whole trip. Oops!

I did take a lot of photos of Matt, though. Here he is becoming art!

I also pestered the kids by constantly sending them pictures of art that they'd think was funny. Like, here is literally a photo of Matisse:

His muse was apparently 500 pigeons!

And here's an actual photo of me when I get some bread:

When we eventually made it out to the sculpture garden, I was happily amazed to see that it still wasn't raining on us!

And that meant that we could achieve my afternoon plan of walking around the sculpture garden--

--and across the Walnut St. Bridge!

There's the Hunter Art Museum behind me:

Matt does not like to stand near the edge of things, but he consented for this one photo:

Another view east, with the Hunter and a little island in the middle of the Tennessee River:

And the view west:

We didn't go over to this carousel, but I love seeing another antique carousel out in the world being used and loved!

I was VERY sad that the restaurant I'd been hoping to eat at had a sign on its front door saying it was closed for remodeling, so instead we went to a Mexican restaurant so I could eat a quesadilla and drink a spicy margarita.

My spicy margarita was super deliciously spicy, and the waitress said that the bartenders infuse the tequila with jalapeños to make it. So now I have another project for my to-do list!

Don't tell the kids, but afterwards we did a tiny bit of shopping to fill up their Christmas stockings:

Did you know that Chattanooga is the home of the Moonpie? I think Moonpies are gross, but the kids are thrilled by them, so we brought them home a bundle.

Fun Chattanooga street art:

After a while the clouds were starting to look more looming, so we walked back to the hotel to read, nap, swim, and eat leftovers for dinner. 

And then we ate at the most touristy ice cream shop in the country:

I promise that I did have some local, indie, authentic ice cream shops pinned on my Google Map, but Ben & Jerry's was both closer and, when we got home and I told the kids where we'd eaten, they acted like we had gone to the White House and shaken Daddy Biden's hand, they were so amazed and astounded that Ben & Jerry's! Has a real storefront! Where you can get Phish Food in a waffle cone!

Never let it be said that we do not live large on our grown-up vacations!