Chattanooga - Trip Report

The kids were off for spring break and I took just one day off on Friday to give me a three day weekend to spend with the family. We kicked around the idea of a short trip. Our daughter was excited when CHA was mentioned. She remembered going to the
Tennessee Aquarium there and thought her little brother would love it. He was too young to remember our last visit.
I also checked out the <a href="http://www.lookouts.com/" target="_blank">Chattanooga
Lookouts Web site</a> and found that they had a game Friday night that would be
followed by a fireworks show. They are a Minor League team. It's a very nice
stadium adjacent to the Aquarium and I love the small town atmosphere.*

Arrangements were done hastily and I did not do as much homework as I should have. It was too cool for outdoor swimming and I thought it would be nice to find a place with an indoor pool to let the kids swim. I checked
The Nonrev Network Hotel Search and
The Chattanoogan was listed as a downtown property with an indoor pool. I called directly to see if there was an airline discount. There was but it was the exact same rate as I had gotten on the site - $109 so I booked it online. We thought about flying but there was no inexpensive or free shuttle to and from the airport to the hotel and the drive from ATL is only about two hours so we decided to drive.*

We arrived late Friday morning and arrived a bit too early to check in. We
had packed a lunch for a picnic and headed out to find a park. Lookout Mountain
is close by and I thought there should be a park or table in the area so I
headed towards the mountain - you can't miss it from downtown. We started
driving up it and passed the entrance to Ruby Falls. It is a pretty amazing
natural wonder that my wife and I both visited while growing up. It's a large
waterfall inside of a cave but since we had come mainly for the Aquarium we
opted to skip it and drove past it and on up the mountain. Further up on the
mountain we were surprised to find that it was all residential and we came up on
some ball fields to our left. To our delight it had a very nice park with
sheltered and unsheltered picnic tables and a huge wooden maze like playground.
We ate our lunch and let the kids play for a while then we headed back to the
hotel to check in and enjoy the pool for a while. The pool was very nice and was
enclosed by windows all the way around with a nice view of the nearby
mountain.*

I did notice that there were several billboards for hotels with indoor pools
on the way in so a little more research may have gotten us a better rate but
being in downtown was very convenient. We discovered that there is also a
Marriott and a Hilton adjacent to the Aquarium, IMAX and Stadium. One had an
indoor pool that was visible from the street.*

While talking to someone at the pool we discovered that some of the IMAX
Theatre shows had sold out for the same day. We had read about specials on
tickets for both the Aquarium and the IMAX so we decided we should go and secure
our tickets for the next day. We asked the same gentleman if he could recommend
any local restaurants. He said "<a href="http://stickyfingers.net/" target="_blank">Sticky
Fingers</a>" was the local rib joint that was very popular. He also told us
that they had a very reasonable kids menu. After a good swim we drove downtown
and found a lot next to everything that we needed to go to and purchased our
tickets to the IMAX and the Aquarium. We paid $5 for parking. We headed over to
Sticky Fingers from there and were not disappointed. It was a moderately priced
laid back local joint with great food and very good service.*

We walked over to the stadium after dinner and bought our tickets. General
admission was only $4 for adults and $2 for the kids. The seats were*
further towards the rear but it's such a small park that it doesn't make much
difference. We sat behind home plate and it was great! The kids were loving it,
well at least for the first three innings or so and we didn't even feel that we
had been robbed when we bought them some drinks inside the park. I was having
some serious thoughts about moving away from Atlanta to a smaller town. After
the game they let the fans out onto the field to watch the fireworks. I have
never in my 40 years ever walked on such perfect grass! The fireworks show was
by no means amateur. It was top notch.*

We got a fairly early start the next day at the Aquarium.* We parked
about 3 blocks away on the street next to a parking meter. We noticed that all
the flags were up on all the cars we saw and concluded that it was free on
Saturdays. The aquarium opened up into a new seahorse exhibit. In that exhibit I
saw the most "other-wordly" creatures that I have ever seen - Sea
Dragons from Australia and Tasmania. They look like a ball of sea weed until you
look carefully and find the eyes and realize they're gracefully swimming around.
They had many other salt water and fresh water exhibits. It was fairly crowded
but we probably made it through in less than three hours. We had some great
pizza at <a href="http://www.mellowmushroom.com/" target="_blank">The Mellow
Mushroom</a> and were off to the IMAX Theatre.*

The IMAX show was "Ocean Wonderland" in 3D. They gave us some 3D
glasses on the way in. I thought the 3D thing might be a bit cheesy but I was
amazed! It began with a large school of fish and it was like we were in the
midst of them. The kids kept reaching out to touch them. We saw many ocean
wonders as if we were in scuba gear in the ocean for the whole show. It was a
great ending to very good trip. We look forward to returning to Chattanooga or
to visit some other Georgia towns with Minor League ball clubs. 

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