Chattanooga, part 5

There's a history in our family going back to when the kids were little of us trying without success to ride a train. Either they only offered them on alternate weekends, or they leave the station at 2 in the morning, or there's a random "closed" sign in the window when we show up, or some other scheduling complication arises, but we finally made it. I rode a train! Here's proof:

We bought tickets here:

It was a short ride, but I got such a kick out of it:

The station at the other end:

had a snack shop and a repair shed where they do renovations, reconstructions, and repairs:

We got to see the engine turned around:

The return trip was, of course, the same as the trip out, but I did get a better shot of coming out of the tunnel:

It's quite a narrow space. You can see the TVRail video of the train coming out of the tunnel here:

They had a number of train cars on display:

and you could enter this old dining car:

Now I'd like to ride the Orient Express, please.

On the way back to the hotel we passed the Boathouse restaurant and stopped in for lunch.

The parking lot was all but full and we thought we'd have a wait ahead of us, but we gave them our name and sat in the little entryway:

In no time at all we were seated on the covered deck overlooking the Tennessee River:

They have a pretty extensive menu, but I had the catfish, of course, with a side of fried okra:

We rested at the hotel for a bit before heading up the mountain by car to go to Ruby Falls:

It's a private attraction, and quite touristy, with much less emphasis on geologic formations and history and more emphasis on "cute," but we'd been before and knew the history and what to expect and have been in enough caves to know about the formations we'd see. People come from all over the world to see this, and since we were in Chattanooga I wanted to see it again. It is a dramatic sight. You can read a short history at the Wikipedia article here. The website Only In Your State says, "It's the largest underground waterfall that's accessible to the public, and many consider it to be one of the most beautiful in the world."

One visitor has posted a 6-minute video overview of their trip:

The tours are crowded and move quickly down the narrow path to the falls, but I had no trouble getting some photos along the way. You take an elevator down to this point:

and begin the tour there.

and the Falls:

The way back was along the same route but offered another look.

Back down the mountain's narrow, curving road we went, headed back to the hotel. We had a snack supper in the room and watched the second night of the Democratic presidential debate. While the first night could well be summarized as "Centrist candidates use Republican talking points to pick at Sanders and Warren," this second night was "Let's dig through the candidates' ancient history files for actions that are no longer considered politically correct".