Saturday, in the park

Falls
Originally uploaded by Olivia Linkel

Today was an excellent day!! I was the first one up around 6:30 and by 8:30 we rolled out of the campground and hit the Chickamauga Battlefield. The junior ranger books were very extensive and it took us about 3 hours to get through them but we learned a lot. This was by far the best battlefield that we have been to. I have always been fascinated by the Civil War and this battlefield brought it to life really well. There were monuments for every brigade and division for both union and confederate armies. And the cool thing was that these monuments marked the exact spots where they stood for every state.

There was also a VERY impressive gun collection that is worth $30M. It had rifles that dated from 1590 through the 1920's and they were beautifully displayed. Once we finished the junior ranger books, we headed for Rock City.

We ate lunch in the camper before heading into the gardens. The kids had a great time with all of the different rock formations. Next we headed to the Incline Railway. While this was really cool, I probably wouldn't do it again because the wait was so long. The kids loved the fact that we rode down from the top, got off and rode right back up.

We gave the kids the option to go to the aquarium or to Ruby Falls and they chose the falls. It was already about 5 by this time and the last aquarium entry was 6 pm and we knew we wouldn't make both. Ruby Falls was great and the kids loved being in the cave and seeing the falls all lit up.

By the time we finished the tour, we were all tired, hungry and getting cranky. I had originally hoped to make it into town to eat and explore the riverwalk but it just wasn't going to work. So we stopped in to Wendy's for a quick bite and then headed to the campground for some downtime.

The Easter bunny comes tomorrow and we have 2 parks to see and Nashville to get to. Check out more pics on FLICKR.