Second day of our anniversary trip

As I post this I notice that yesterday's post is not showing up.

We slept in, at least by local time which is an hour later than our home time. I ate one of the breakfasts I prepacked at home. Chris made himself a cup of coffee. There is no frig or microwave in this room. It is rather cheaply appointed considering what it costs and that parking is extra. Chris showered first while I posted to my blog for yesterday and then I showered. I could tell water would leak out of the walk-in shower, and it did. We left towels on the floor to soak it up. Dressed and ready to go, we drove to the Chattanooga Zoo. It seems poorly advertised and somewhat small, appearing in a park. But there were selection of animals some of which I have never heard of before. One looked like a raccoon with a super long nose and it could climb like a monkey - a couti. And then there were the langurs which looked like baboons. And the cotton-topped tamarins - little monkey-like creatures, cute and inquisitive. Lizards, spiders, capybaras, pea fowl, a cougar, deer, turkeys, a pig, goats, Scottish cow, snow leopard, red pandas, etc. Their enclosures were really well done. It was an overcast day like yesterday, but the sun did peek through about 1.

Our next stop was Rock City. I had seen the signs for it in so many places that I thought it must be a tourist trap like South of the Border. But I was pleasantly surprised to find it was more than that. We walked extensive rock trails, through, under, around and over large rock formations. The natural formations were added to and tweaked to make the trails and little scenes possible. Inside Fairyland Cavern, gnome scenes in fluorescent paint were built in grottos everywhere depicting fairy tales. Rock City was celebrating Rocktoberfest with German music and seasonally dressed actors. One lady was playing an accordion. She was near the point where they say you can see 7 states (on a clear day and with the installed binoculars). One of the gift shops was selling pickled vegetables and other unusual seemingly homemade foods. I really wanted a jar of chow-chow. But that pint was $9. And the pint of garlic-stuffed olives was $11. Yikes! We stopped at a wine-tasting booth and tasted three wines. That is when I decided I needed to have some solid food. When we left Rock City, we drove to a Thai restaurant. But it was closed on Sundays. We headed for the corn maze, hoping to find a restaurant on the way. But there wasn't one.

We bought tickets and walked to the maze. We had seen it from Rock City and I wished I had paid more attention. Ha. But it wasn't just for wandering around. They had signs set at certain intersection where the correct answer would tell you which way to turn. But they weren't at every fork in the path, and some questions were badly answered. Anyway, after our wanderings, we took the hay ride. They did have a food stand, but amazingly there were no corn items on the list. We asked the GPS for a Thai restaurant and we picked one from the list. We drove back to the hotel, parked, and took the shuttle downtown. We walked from there to the Thai restaurant, which was also closed. The Indian restaurant across the street was closed, but we had high hopes for the Asian mix place on the second floor. Although they, too, were closed, they opened at 5. We waited about 10 minutes. I ordered sushi and sushimi. Chris got the garlic chicken. It was all very good. After eating, we walked back to the shuttle stop and caught the next trip back to the hotel. Back in our room, we watched TV and read e-mail. It was a relaxing way to spend an evening.