Tall or Handicapped Persons, Stay Home

As I left Ruby Falls, the rain had stopped, but that wasn't much comfort as I wound through more twists and turns on the way further up Lookout Mountain. I thought I might be getting delirious from the dizzying curves because the road signs seemed to have names from fairy tales or other children's stories. Yet, the signage directing me to Rock City was excellent. (I wonder how many years of giving directions to lost tourists it took before someone thought of all those sign posts.)

I haven't read through the site's whole web page, but it might give a more concise history of Rock City. The place, incidentally, is named for unusual and wonderful limestone formations which were far more interesting than the plants -- well, except for that huge Nyssa sylvatica (Sweet Gum, Black Gum, Tupelo) which utterly dwarfed the one next to our driveway in Cherry Hill. First, I learned that Mrs. Frieda Carter wound string around the property to lay out the path she wanted visitors to take. Then I learned that she and her husband, Garnet, built their house two years after the garden was opened to the public. Then I learned that she planned the surrounding community to have nursery rhyme names. That was one mystery solved, and perhaps the backwards nature of planning the garden, house, and neighborhood extends until the present day and the disjointed retelling of the site's history. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for not naming me after a rock, like Ruby and Garnet's parents did!)

Unlike in Ruby Falls, Rock City actually had hand railings every place they were needed. The stone steps and paths were slippery from the recent rains, and I pondered how many visitors such as my mother or friend Gimpy wouldn't be able to enter and enjoy the site, even on dry, sunny days. Then I walked through Needle's Eye, a path deliberately leading between two very close, massive limestone boulders. Fat people beware; this place is narrower than the "Weight Watchers Alley" in Ruby Falls. Tall people such as myself are inconvenienced at Goblin's Underpass (Do Chattanoogans enjoy luring tourists with unusual rocks and caves then inconveniencing them by making them stoop all the time?). Disabled people probably should avoid the Swing-along Bridge. I did, but that's because I preferred the nice, solid Stone Bridge rather than a rope one that wobbles and wavers and threatens to pitch you into the chasm. (Give me a nice, stable floor and railings you can't see through any day!) Then, all three categories are almost prevented from passing through the appropriately named Fat Man's Squeeze. This corridor was so narrow, I had to walk through sideways (due to my brawny shoulders, ahem), and I also had to stoop because the rocks were too close together at my altitude to fit my big, fat head (now humbled, ahem) between them. I nearly crawled through on my hands and knees. (All this, by the way, is at the bottom of the steps shown in the picture link.) I presume that average or short adults and children would have no problem here. Lord only knows if the two tubbies who were in my tour group at Ruby Falls (and who overloaded the elevator -- honest!) came here, but they never would have made it through (well, not without dynamite). This is why I nearly bought the T-shirt (quite reasonably priced at just $16) "I survived Fat Man's Squeeze."

Incidentally, I did see one of the other tall people from my Ruby Falls group here at Rock City, as well as that Japanese tour group that was behind us in the cavern. I know it was the same group because of the woman who looked like a Japanese Jackie Kennedy and who spoke English very well, which I learned as we puzzled over the garden map to see if there was a quicker way she could get to the exit.

At Lover's Leap, one is supposedly able to view seven states (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, and Mississippi) on a clear day. Thanks to the clouds -- er, fog, since they were below me -- I couldn't even see Chattanooga, except for a strip mall with a turquoise colored, metal roof. I doubt the claim is possible even on a sunny day, since it is always so humid here that I consider no day clear enough to see that far away.

The 1,000 Ton Balanced Rock is just another big rock by this point (and how did they weigh it then rebalance it in the first place?).

I did enjoy the passage through Fairyland Caverns. A long, winding tunnel through more rock (but this time with ample headroom) takes you by little rooms carved into the stone, with vignettes of fairy tales (yes, the mining seven dwarves are there) and nursery rhymes depicted by wooden figures illuminated by ultraviolet light. I remember seeing something just like this when I was a kid. Then, as now, I thought it was kind of stupid but kind of neat at the same time. (Nuboss calls it "kitschy".) You have to bring your kids here so they can think the same thing. Plus, they won't have to bend over to look through the openings. (Darn it! Got me again!)

The passage culminates in Mother Goose Village, the underground ultraviolet equivalent (Wouldn't "Ultraviolet Equivalent" be a good name for a rock band?) of a massive toy train display. The trail takes you around the perimeter of a large room loaded with even more wooden depictions of nursery rhymes (with pictorial signs that help identify which nursery rhyme you didn't necessarily recognize at first, and which frequently have incorrect lyrics shown), while your ears are bombarded with loudly played singing of said nursery rhymes, some of which are not in English. Either that, or the darkness and ultraviolet lighting (which caused my shoelaces, but not so much my white leather sneakers nor my light gray T-shirt, to glow, something which never ceases to enthrall me) had so disoriented me that I was listening in tongues. By the time I made the circuit of the room, I was so stoned that I couldn't tell if I was glad to leave or tempted to go around again. Hmm, maybe that's why the T-shirt prices at the gift shop (the final stop, immediately after Mother Gooseland) seemed so reasonable. I'm lucky I didn't go into the restaurant, or the munchies would have caused me to order an overpriced burger.

Next stop: the Incline Railway. How to get there: twist partway back down the mountain, then turn sideways and twist some more. Then learn that the "small" fee for parking mentioned on the web page is parking meters (a dollar an hour). Then fret that you have only two quarters in your pocket, and hope that a half hour is enough. Then read the sign that says the ticket you bought ahead of time isn't the right one and that you have to go to the ticket booth to exchange it. Then be told by the grumpy man in the ticket booth to read the other sign (which happens to be behind you, out of the viewing range of most normal people), which says to slide your ticket into a ticket machine (thus making the ticket booth irrelevant in the first place, not to mention making the instructional signs superfluous at best and incorrect at worst) and get a replacement ticket (which ends up being far less colorful but which has two tabs, one to be torn off prior to each half of your visit, to make sure you're not so giddy about the experience to get through it again without paying). Then get confused because the machine's instructions don't tell you that the slot where other visitors put paper money to buy their ticket on site is also the slot where you're supposed to put your prepurchased ticket (face down, with the bar code facing up). Then get in line behind a family with seven children (equally split between girls and boys), ranging from one year (or less) to about thirteen, and discover that, just like when you were that age, girls that age are incapable of not talking, especially when there's an audio description being played on the car's speakers that might make the descent a little more interesting and distract you from the 72 degree grade you're hoping the cables successfully take you down (or up, on your return trip). Then emerge from the railcar, thinking, "Is that all? I got gypped!". Then say, "Aha! There's Mr. T's Pizza across the street (right in front of that strip mall with the turquoise colored, metal roof). I can kill two birds with one stone by eating lunch and not having to navigate Chattanooga's streets at another time to find this interestingly named restaurant. Plus, I won't have to find out what obscene price they're charging for a funnel cake in the gift shop." Then be followed into the pizzeria by the same family of yapping dogs -- er, children -- who, out of all the vacant tables in the place, decide to pull together the two tables next to yours and repeatedly bump into your chair as they get seated then run outside to talk to their friend on their cell phone, then sit down again, then run back outside... (you get the picture). Then grumble to yourself that all you want is a little peace and quiet to read your book while you wait an interminable amount of time for them to prepare your pizza (Did they grind the flour themselves?) and consider assaulting the children with said book -- except that you don't condone abuse to innocent books. Then eat your pizza quickly (not bad, but not worth seeking out again) and race back across the street so you can get your return trip uphill before the family does. Then emerge from the railcar, turn down the offer of buying your photo (I didn't shell out 25 bucks to do it at Ruby Falls, where the backdrop was an anonymous rock that you claim was underground, so I'm not going to do it here, where the backdrop was a green screen that you could turn into any scenery behind me.), check the time on your cell phone, and fret that standing in line, and waiting for pizza, and eating said pizza, and standing in line again, made your half-hour parking meter overdue by an hour. Then revel in utter bliss because, after all that frustration, you do not have a parking ticket, and you now get to go home!

A note to my friends who are reading this travelogue and certainly must be navigating in another window to buy tickets to Chattanooga as soon as possible: You will -- I repeat, will -- go to all three of these tourist traps in one day, because I sure as heck ain't gonna drive these curvy roads more than I have to -- and as tempting as the winter light show sounds at Rock City, I don't want to attempt those twists and turns in the dark. (I'm just glad my mom wasn't in the car, or she'd have been making all sorts of troubling, disturbed [and disturbing] noises as she looked out the window and down the mountainside.) I do offer one alternative: we can go to the Incline Railway on a separate trip. That way, we could park for free and eat at Mr. T's (or another restaurant, whose name I can't remember now, also conveniently located at the bottom of the incline) and complete our round trip up and down in a shorter amount of time.

TO BE CONTINUED...