For our anniversary, we wanted to take the boys to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. I had done a little research about where to have lunch, and many people were suggesting the City Cafe Diner downtown. At first it doesn’t sound like a great idea because…well, it’s attached to a Day’s Inn, which isn’t the most appetizing location, right? But it’s a real diner in that it’s all black and white and neon, and there are a zillion things on the menu including well over fifty desserts – tons of cakes. There are so many desserts that they have pictures of them running on a loop on televisions around the diner.
It was a good experience, especially since we don’t have ‘real’ diners where we live.
On a previous trip to Chattanooga a month or so ago, we had lunch at
Sugar’s Ribs that was highly recommended, and it was pretty good. It was a great place to take the boys because you can bring the leftover bread out and feed it to the goats they have outside (they use goats to clear the overgrowth on the property) right by the highway. One of them made friends with Shug:
We really like the
Winder Binder Gallery. Back around the holidays, they had this up for a Christmas tree:
Inside, they have art by *so* many well-known, and plenty of lesser-known artists. Here’s an
R.A. Miller:
…works by an artist who drills doors:
…a JL Nipper owl totem:
Our anniversary present to each other was a JL Nipper armadillo.
The
Tennessee Aquarium was
wonderful. We’ll probably get annual passes when the boys get a little bit bigger. There was of course so much to look at, and they have a special exhibit right now with jellyfish that was great.
On the way out, they had a large selection of folk art including BF Perkins, RA Miller, Jerry Brown, and Annie T.
Supper was at Memo’s so we could try a Chattanooga tradition:
The sliced hotdog, which is just a hotdog sliced into coins and smothered in *everything*. Bring an entire roll of paper towels! I’m really not a hotdog person – wouldn’t mind if I only had one every five years, so I’m not a great judge…you decide…
Their barbecue, which Av and the boys had, was nice.
When the boys get a little older, we’ll take them to
Rock City,
Ruby Falls, go to a
Lookouts game, and of course go see the Choo-Choo. We stayed at
The Chattanoogan before and it was nice – the last time was when we were going to a family reunion at Sewanee,
The University of the South, because one of my great-great-great…uncles was a founder of the school – Confederate General
Leonidas Polk, the ‘Fighting Bishop’. This is a pic I took of the All Saints Chapel there:
There are just so many nice things to do in Chattanooga, and so many nice things closeby too.
—
One of the other restaurants that was suggested in Chattanooga was the
Yellow Deli because they make such great sandwiches. If you look at
their menu, on the cover it reads, “
we serve the fruit of the Spirit at the deli.” Everything about the restaurant is done by members of a community called the ‘
Twelve Tribes‘. Their website has a lot of information and I found
an article with this:
Sprung from the counterculture movement of the 1960s and the Jesus movement of the 1970s, The Twelve Tribes community strives to live their lives as described in Acts 2 and 4 of the Bible. Members live communally and share everything. They must give up all possessions to live within the community.
Members dress in modest clothing, with the women usually wearing waist-length hair and long dresses with high necklines. Men wear beards with their hair bound in the back like the priests of the old covenant.
The interiors are supposed to be handcrafted by the members, so I’d love to see that. This is a
tiny photo album of the interior…nice!
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