Chattanooga, TN - Day 2
Wednesday, May 4
Today was a special Mom & Kids Day in Chattanooga. Andi had some business things to take care of today, so the kids and I left him to work in the RV while we took the Jeep to downtown Chattanooga for the day. First stop — the public library.
Tory and Aden love the library — always have! — and it’s fun to visit different libraries across the country. They are all unique in their own way, and many have free programs and events for kids. Chattanooga’s downtown library was huge. The children’s area was on the second floor, so we made our way up to that level and found a table where we could spread out to do our schoolwork for the day. It’s a little more work lugging school books and papers away from home, but sometimes switching up our usual school routine is enough to re-engage Tory and Aden. They were both so focused on getting their work done so they could play at all the different stations set up in the kids area of the library.
I had to tear the kids away from the library around 11:30am. They wanted to keep playing! I would have let them, except I wanted to check out the Tennessee Aquarium in downtown Chattanooga. It’s touted as one of the best aquariums in the country and several locals recommended a visit. The aquarium is about eight blocks away from the library so we could have walked, but parking was easy to find in downtown Chattanooga so we drove over there instead.
Tory, Aden and I arrived at the aquarium around Noon and purchased our tickets. There were a lot of school field trips there, so I was worried it would be crazy inside the aquarium but luckily it wasn’t. In fact, we had a lot of the exhibits to ourselves. I think it helped that we visited in the afternoon when most of the class field trips had already made their way through most of the exhibits.
The Tennessee Aquarium has two sections — river journeys and ocean journeys — and I’d heard that both sides are worth seeing. We started in the River Journeys building which featured various fish and invertebrates that live in lakes & rivers across the world. It was really interesting! Our favorite was the river giants tank that had some massive fish inside. Tory and Aden liked how dark the aquarium which added a level of suspense to the exhibits, and they also enjoyed the interactive video / iPad games at some of the stations.
Once we finished with River Journeys, we walked to the food court area for lunch. I suggested we go somewhere else downtown for lunch since the food court looked pretty run-down and gross, but Tory and Aden wanted a cheeseburger and chicken tenders and the food offerings at the food court fit the bill. I decided to have a protein bar and wait to eat something healthier back at the RV. Luckily there were outdoor tables available on the aquarium courtyard, so we took our food outside to eat. It was a really nice afternoon in Chattanooga. It feels like summer here! The sun was shining and temperatures were in the mid 70’s.
When the kids finished eating, we walked to the Ocean Journeys building to continue our aquarium visit. The first exhibits in the ocean building were stingrays and butterflies. An employee encouraged Tory and Aden to touch the stingrays, but they weren’t so sure about it. Eventually, Aden did pet one on its back.
Both kids loved the butterfly area, of course. We’ve visited a lot of butterfly sanctuaries in our worldly travels!
The neatest thing about ocean aquariums is when massive sharks swim in tanks overhead and the Tennessee Aquarium also had an area like this which was neat. Tory and Aden liked the penguins best, and we learned a few facts about where various species live in the world. We saw Galapagos penguins in the wild a few months ago in Ecuador, but didn’t realize those penguins are the most endangered of them all.
No trip to the aquarium is complete without a visit to the gift shop. I let Tory and Aden each pick out a stuffed animal since they were so well behaved today. It wasn’t long ago that taking the kids to a big place like this would have been an exhausting excursion, but now at the kids’ ages of 10 & 8 it was a breeze! We all enjoyed our time in downtown Chatt today.
Around 3:00pm, the three of us drove back to our campground at Chester Frost Park. Andi was just finishing up his work calls. We let the kids have an hour of downtime, and then all four of us hopped back in the Jeep for an evening outing. Andi was itching to do something fun. We considered going for a hike on Signal Mountain, but opted for a return visit to downtown Chattanooga to walk around Coolidge Park. Chattanooga has a lot of outdoor recreation & people are out hiking, biking, and playing sports all over the city. The park was filled with people playing soccer, running drills, walking their dogs and having picnics.
We discovered a carousel in Coolidge Park and purchased two tickets for Tory and Aden to ride it. At $1/per ticket, we could've let them ride as many times as they wanted! Quite the bargain.
A friend of Andi’s recommended Old Gillman’s Grill for dinner, so we drove over there next to get something to eat. This restaurant looked to be on the fancier side and we weren’t really dressed for it, but we went for it anyway. This might’ve been the fanciest restaurant Tory and Aden have ever eaten in.
Andi ordered us two glasses of red wine, and the steak frites for Tory and Aden to share as their meal. He had scallops and Brussels sprouts and I chose the grouper with spaghetti squash and pickled carrot. The food was delicious, and the service was very good as well. Of course, Andi, Tory and Aden had to get dessert. They split a chocolate torte with two scoops of ice cream.
Tomorrow, we’re saying good-bye to Tennessee and heading south to Georgia. We really enjoyed our time in this state and will definitely be back again.
