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Chattanooga - Part 2
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
Day 2
Ruby Falls. When I heard that name, I thought of either falling or precious stones. Sometimes I thought of an elderly woman named, Ruby, who couldn’t keep her balance.
When someone sees the sign on the highway, I’m sure the average person would think, "My, oh my, I do think they have some rather nifty falls over there."
The sign lies! Yes, it’s a deceitful place. There is one waterfall, a singular waterfall. What? One waterfall? What, is this a trick? Why would they deceive us? Why say falls if it’s just one?
But Ruby Falls is more than just the waterfall. Here’s the secret: the waterfalls are underground. What? How crazy! Yes, under the mountain, and over the hill, near grandmother’s house is the cavern. You go down the elevator, deep under the mountain, then walk another mile, even deeper into the mountain to see the wonderful waterfalls. You say, "Oooh or ahhh" and return. The caverns are just as interesting to me as the waterfalls, but that’s just my taste. Margherita thought the waterfalls were prettier, but she’s into pretty things... that’s why she married me.
Surely I digress, for now we were on top of the mountain and how were we to return? We could drive down, but she might get carsick. We could roll and tumble down ala Jack and Jill, but I’m not sure which end is my crown.
Chattanooga is home to the nation’s steepest inclined railway. And when they say steepest in the country, please take them literally, it’s steep.
It’s like: "Wait a minute, are we going to fall and die?" type of steep.
It’s like: "Is this an incline or simply a train falling?" type of steep.
It’s like: "I think we’re better off calling it an elevator" type of steep.
Get the idea?
You get a phenomenal view of the mountain and a rather steep ride. (Did I mention it’s steep?)
Before this, my entire knowledge about Chattanooga could have been in a total of two conversations with my grandmother. It turns out that she married my grandfather in Chattanooga and was quite the expert for having been there for only a year. Then, again, she lived there 60 years ago and didn’t see much of it, so she had a rather limited scope and knowledge of the city.
I called grandma and asked if she ever went down the railway or saw Ruby Falls.
"No, we just hung around at the army base where Grandpa was stationed. And, who is Ruby?"
It was time for lunch and we went to a local restaurant (now a chain), the Big River Grille & Brewery Works. Now, I can’t report too much about the food as the restaurant had an in-house micro-brewed beer that tasted so good that it's all I remember. Margherita said we also enjoyed the food, but I don’t recall much. I just walked out babbling about the beer tasting good and that this chain must move north.
After eating, we walked across the street to the aquarium. Now, Chattanooga is a land-locked city and aquariums somewhat hint at the concept of fish. Some people think of fish and make the connection with an ocean, but here they’d be mostly wrong; yes, mostly wrong. Chattanooga’s Tennessee Aquarium is the largest fresh-water aquarium in the world. If it swims in a pond, river or stream, they have it. They also have salt-water stuff, but they are given second billing. The coolest portion though, was starting in the roof display area with gardens that look like the riverbeds. You walk down through the building both in altitude and also in depth along the river.
Next we saw a part of town called, "Warehouse Row," a place where there once were warehouses, but are now outlets. There’s a free shuttle that loops through town and we jumped on it, so I could take a nap on the outlet store’s park benches while Margherita shopped for things she claimed we needed. For a woman who has twelve full closets in our house, she seems to still have empty closet space to accommodate all of her needs. Every time she purchases for all of her "needs," even more needs appear. To make matters worse, her friend Rachel was there to help encourage her toward the goal of depleting the budget.
After sleeping on the park bench like a wonderfully patient husband, we headed back to the hotel to attend a cool presentation by the River City Company. This is a nonprofit group that is responsible for updating the riverfront for utilization by the full community not just industry. In a 21-century exhibit, they built a scale model of the riverfront section with neat little matchbox-size cars, buildings and trees, etc., done to show how the river could be better used. Basically, Chattanooga developed further and further away from the river. Odd for a river town, but even the town center moved a few blocks away from the river's bank. The River City Company’s job is to bring the town's activity center back to the river. The idea of moving the focus of a town felt a little like a real-life computer game and captivated my interest.
It was getting late and we headed over to a friend’s hotel for dinner at the Chattanoogian. It’s a rather long and fancy hotel with enough horizontal lines to make Frank Lloyd Wright feel quite satisfied. They also had a seafood buffet that was a pleasure for my buffet eating skills.
To my right was Margherita who has heard my lectures about the proper way to eat at a buffet. To my left was Omar, a writer from Queens who, although having the body of a linebacker, was an amateur buffeteer.
Embarrassing.
"What are those on your plate?" I asked while pointing to the spiced potatoes. It wasn’t an issue of identifying the what, but more of the why. Maybe I should have asked, "Why are those on your plate?"
"They are potatoes." He said, correctly identifying them.
"Get them off," I insisted. "You fool, you amateurish fool," waiving my hands to figuratively brush the potatoes off his plate.
"Why would I do that? They’re pretty good," he said as he popped one in his mouth.
"You should be banned from buffets, my friend, but your ignorance in such matters might simply be a lack of education," I said sympathetically. "At buffets you don’t eat potatoes. The Chattanoogian has lovingly supplied crab legs, shrimp and other seafood. Potatoes are merely ‘stomach fillers.’ They accomplish nothing beside taking up room."
"Okay, I’ll eat my salad." he said.
"Green leaves - gathered from a garden? I paused and caught my breath. I put my hand on my heart to indicate the pain that I was feeling. "You only should eat what doesn’t unnecessarily fill up your stomach and is cost-effective." I pointed to Margherita’s plate, "See, salmon, rather cost-effective. Tomato, not-so-cost-effective, but that’s not the point."
After enjoying my cost-effective meal, we went dancing. It ’s not often that I’ll risk something like that, but we were in Chattanooga and it just seemed like the thing to do. We headed over to a street that appeared to be Main Street (although it wasn’t), and went to a club called Buck Wild. Outside were bikers, cowboys, and other people who usually seem frightening outside of clubs. Of course it was another juxtaposition as they were all polite and nice and completely unlike what I expected. Margherita pushed her way through the crowd and hit the dance floor.
Ice, Ice Baby! Vanilla Ice was playing everywhere and the crowd was going nuts. A woman across the dance floor was dancing with a gentleman who looked like a cross between Forest Gump and a mass-murderer and Margherita was dancing with some friends amidst this. I attempted to protect my woman while dancing, which gave me a bit of a stiff Frankenstein-looking appearance, as I blocked her from any dangers.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
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