From Mississippi to Tennessee

Jim finally recovered from his virus and we spent our last day in Vicksburg driving around and looking at some of the beautiful old buildings and a few other attractions we'll write about later. The weather system sitting over Mississippi was giving us low 80's for temps but a very steamy 97% humidity--ugh. Time to leave !
We started out Wednesday early and headed East to Alabama. We were enjoying the lovely green rolling hills but started noticing very dark skies and rather nasty looking clouds behind us. The local radio started talking about severe storms and blinding rain so we found a nice little campground just south of Tuscaloosa Alabama and pulled in for the nite. Not 10 minutes after we got parked and "plugged in" we were slammed with buckets of rain and some pretty stiff winds. Good timing!
The next morning we awoke to clear skies and much cooler, drier air. We set off and drove through Alabama and a corner of Georgia to our new home in Chattanooga Tennessee. We going to stop here and explore this area for a while.
Today we to Rock City. Rock City is located on Lookout Mountain, the highest ridge in the area. Opened in 1932 as a local attraction, it is a an area with ancient rock formations, winding garden paths and spectacular views of the surrounding area. The advertisement " See Rock City" has been seen on over 900 barn roofs and walls from Michigan to Texas. Over course, we had to check it out.
From the entrance there is a winding path of nearly 3/4 mile that cuts over and through the giant rock formations. There are gardens and lovely plants all along the way. Everything is well labeled and we got to learn about the local greenery. Note in the picture, Karen is actually wearing a jacket! After weeks (or months??) of unseasonably hot weather, the pleasant mid 60's and low humidity was a change welcomed by both of us!
There was an area of the path that wound around and came to a suspended bridge. Here is the view from below the bridge--
Karen is glad she this view after she crossed the bridge.





At the top of the path the view of the surrounding area is really something. As you can see from this rock, the view encompasses 7 states! Being from the West, we are not used to some of these smaller states. From this point we can see Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Pretty amazing. During the Civil war the Confederate army used this strategic point to control a large area. Not suprisingly, there was a pretty major and bloody Civil War battle fought in the area. We will be visiting the battlefield another day.
This is a view of the rock from below it. Click on the photo to enlarge and you can see the people up there. It is quite a vista.


On the way down, the path winds through natural passages in the rocks. Some of these are quite narrow and actually require a person to walk sideways to squeeze through! Of course, we made it just fine.

Rock City was lots of fun. We would recommend it to anyone visiting the Chattanooga area.