A Few Days In Chattanooga

I feel like my posting has been so sporadic and a bit all over the place. I guess it has been that way because that is how I have been. Ha!! This past week was another crazy one. But then they all are it seems like. I spent the first part of last week in Chattanooga and got back home on Wednesday night. And then did a wedding cake over the weekend with a young couple I work with. Here is a recap of Chattanooga and I will share the cake with you on Friday. Well not the actual cake but you know what I mean.

After our meeting on Monday we met in front of the hotel and car pooled down to the Chattanooga Whiskey Distillery. We had a tour of the distillery and met with the owner and learned about some of their marketing strategies. Ummm we also had a couple of tiny samples. http://www.chattanoogawhiskey.com

***This may look yucky but it produces some amazing whiskey.***

Later that night we walked to dinner, it was just a short distance from the hotel, I think I mentioned in a previous post we stayed at Hotel Indigo. It was very nice and located within walking distance of lots of things. Back to the restaurant. We ate at Easy Bistro. The food here is served family style but it was very different. I tried the Octopus, I was not impressed. We also had a whole roasted fish. I think one per four people. It was tasty. The dessert was yummy. http://www.easybistro.com Check out the menu and the restaurant.

The next morning we took a CARTA bus to The Tennessee Valley Railroad. We had breakfast there in their newly opened tea room. It is adorable and the food is amazing.

***As we were riding the train our conductor gave us a brief history of the railroad and Chattanooga.***

http://www.tvrail.http://www.tvrail.comcom. (Tennessee Vally Railroad)

Next we rode the Incline Railway up Lookout Mountain. The incline railway follows a one mile track straight up Lookout Mountain. Once you are at the top the views are amazing. There are microbreweries, fresh fudge, an indoor climbing wall and lots of other fun things to do. Once you are at the top of the mountain you are on the Rock City side of the mountain.

http://www.ridetheincline.com

If you haven’t been to Rock City you have to go and check it out. Rock City gardens has over 400 different plant species, a panoramic view where you can actually see seven states, several regional gift shops and a wonderful restaurant called Big Rock Grill. While you’re there be sure to stop in and see Fairly Land Caverns and Mother Goose Village. http://www.seerockcity.com

We also toured Ruby Falls. I have been to Ruby Falls many times and I love it so much. Here you actually descend 260 feet underground by elevator. Once underground the cave system is covered with some of the most beautiful active formations I have ever seen. Ruby Falls is the tallest underground waterfall open to the public. Although there are different colored lights on the waterfall the name Ruby Falls comes from the man who discovered the cave and the falls, Leo Lambert. His wife was named Ruby. He discovered the cave in 1928. There is such wonderful history to this cave. And the waterfall is just breathtaking. http://www.rubyfalls.com

After visiting Ruby Falls and the tree houses at Ruby, I’ll tell you more about those in another post. We went back to the hotel for a quick refresh. We then took the CARTA bus downtown close to the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge. The bridge was built in 1890 and is 2,376 feet long. There is no traffic on this bridge other than bicycles, Segways or scooters. And many many people walk across the bridge. The scenery is beautiful.

Once we crossed the bridge we had dinner at Frazier Five and Dime. It was so yummy and luckily we walked all the way back to the hotel I needed it after all the calories we had. I had the Cajun shrimp with a cheddar biscuit and the trout fritters. http://www.frazier5and10.com

View from The Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge

Vendors were selling balloons on the bridge

We got back to the hotel around 10:30 PM. It was a long but fun day. According to my watch about 16,000 steps.

The next morning our meeting started early and we were out by noon. It took me about an hour and a half to get back into town. I stopped in at work for just a little while and then went home to hubs and the fur babies. Wow!!! I love traveling but I am always glad to get back to my own bed.

I hope you enjoyed this short trip to Chattanooga and if you ever get to this part of Tennessee be sure to visit some of these wonderful places. You will not be disappointed. For more information about Chattanooga visit: http://www.visitchattanooga.com

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

Hello Monday, Scandinavian Vacation, First Stop Copenhagen

Hello friends, Happy Monday, Labor Day, and September. Sorry for the long silence on the blog. I have been traveling with my husband and nephew. We visited Northern Europe and just got back this past week. We visited five countries, well six if you count the Netherlands but we were only there during our brief stop in Amsterdam. Each country is so unique I will share them with you in separate posts. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Estonia. This is how it went down.

A little more than two weeks ago we left for a long trip to Northern Europe. Our first stop was Copenhagen Denmark. We have been planning this trip since before Covid was a thing. As you know any big trip like this requires so much planning and preparing. For some reason I think as women we get the brunt of this. Before leaving I planned for who would be at the house taking care of the babies and when everyone would be there. I made sure my mother in law was taken care of and would be checked on while we were gone. And that any supplies she needed would be gotten for her. I bought all of the necessary items we needed to take with us, although my husband did buy a few electronic gadgets we needed. Secretly he loves that.

I packed and packed and cleaned because I can’t leave my house dirty when people are going to be there. I caught up on everything at work and felt like I could be gone for a couple of weeks. And we were ready. Oh and my husband packed his suitcase.

We flew out of Knoxville to Atlanta and then to Amsterdam where we would take a shorter flight into Copenhagen. The flights over were very uneventful and all of our luggage made it through. Little did we know we wouldn’t be as lucky on the return flight.

I loved that the Amsterdam airport had this fresh flower market. The tulips were just beautiful.

Also lots of fresh meats and cheeses at the airport. That is not something we see a lot of in the U.S.

Look how tiny our room was. This was in Copenhagen at The Scandic Spectrum Hotel. Other than a small bathroom this was the size of the room. We were there for three days and fortunately didn’t spend a lot of time in the room.

I am always blown away by the amount of food that is on the breakfast bar at European hotels. There is so much that it is hard to choose from. Of course most Europeans make breakfast their biggest meal of the day. There is a lot of fresh meat and vegetables and this particular hotel had chocolate. You know I was all for that.

Our first day out we explored Copenhagen. I have to say I love this city. The people are so nice and friendly. They like to have fun and they enjoy being outdoors.

Kayaking in the canal. So much fun and activity going on. Bicycling is a very popular mode of transportation and who can blame them with gas being about $10.00 American. WOW!!! I also loved all the fresh flowers everywhere. And I loved that so many people wore dresses, short dresses, long dresses, flowy dresses. I loved them all.

See all the bicycles? There are dedicated bicycle lanes everywhere. And you better stay out of them because the cyclists will run you over. They have the same right of way as vehicles.

We saw the Little Mermaid Statue. Our tour guide explained that she has suffered a lot of wear and tear through the years. She has been the target of defacement throughout the years. How sad. But she has been restored each time. The Little Mermaid has been a major tourist attraction since its unveiling in 1913.

This building was near our hotel. Very unique.

We visited Glyptokeshaven. This park has some of the most unusual statues and the most beautiful flowers. It was a perfect day for it with temps in the mid 60’s F.

The next day we visited Christianborg Palace. The Palace has an 800 year-long history as Denmark’s seat of power in Central Copenhagen. This site houses the Danish Parliament, Prime Minister’s office and Denmark’s Supreme Court. The palace is also home to visiting Danish Monarchs.

We also visited Frederiksborg Castle. It was beautiful!!! There was even a moat all around the castle. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV of Denmark- Norway in the early 17th century.

I will have more about the other countries we visited in later posts. We started making our way back home last Monday. We flew out of Helsinki Finland which was our last stop on the trip. We left out at 3:15AM, It was a nightmare. Every flight was delayed and ultimately resulted in us missing our last flight which was out of Atlanta. Home is only three hours from Atlanta so we figured if worse came to worse we could just rent a car and drive back. But we were able to get on a later flight out of Atlanta. However it was delayed by about four hours. We finally got home after midnight on Tuesday morning. My luggage came through but Mark and Tyler’s luggage was left behind in Paris. Tyler got his the next day and Mark finally got his on Thursday.

I took off Tuesday and went back to work on Wednesday. Mark still has quite a bit of vacation time left. The rest of the week was spent catching up at work, buying groceries and doing the mountains of laundry we brought home. We had never had so much trouble traveling. Traveling is definitely not for the faint of heart especially international travel. But all in all it was a fantastic trip with so many memories and stories that will last a lifetime.

I am looking forward to catching up on many of my favorite blogs and my own. How have you been? What is going on in your part of the world?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

Hello Monday!!!

Hello friends and happy Monday. How was your weekend? Mine was actually very quiet. I had a lot of things planned and then I didn’t get to all of them. I did a grocery pickup on Saturday morning and ran a few errands in town. Then I spent most of the day Saturday puttering around doing small things.

I cleaned the spider webs from the sides of the house. The spider webs have been really bad this year. I plucked several Japanese Beetles from my rose bushes. I’m telling you it was exciting times over here. I cooked dinner both Saturday and Sunday, laundry, the usual.

On Saturday evening a terrible storm came through. August is the worst month for these late afternoon thunderstorms. The skies get black as night and the wind is terrible. It’s really scary sometimes. Anyway the power was knocked out at my nephew and his wife’s house. They live about fifteen minutes from us. My nephew called on Sunday morning and wanted to know if he could come and get our generator. They had already been without power for about fifteen or more hours. They came to get the generator and spent some time with us and just before they left they got power back at their house.

On Sunday morning I went outside to see if there was any storm damage. The sun was shining and there was a light fog over the lake. There is an Appalachian saying that the number of fogs that you have in August will be the number of snows you have throughout the winter. This was our first fog for August. But we shall see.

***You can see a very light fog. A beautiful morning after such bad storms were in the area.***

I decided to go over to my Father in law’s house. It is just through the woods from our house. He passed away several years ago but we have kept the house. I try to go over every week or so and check the house out and do any cleaning that needs to be done. I knew the spider webs were going to be really bad so I wore a hoodie. It is crazy how fast the trail has grown up. Last year we were walking the doggos every day through this path in the woods. The path is still there but I couldn’t believe how fast it had grown up.

***Look at this spider web!!!! I’m glad I saw it before I ran through it.***

You can barely see the trail it has gotten so overgrown.

***I had to be careful I knew there was a lot of poison Ivy here.***

The road I take to work is currently undergoing a huge renovation. There is a much needed turn lane being added. There have been a lot of car accidents on this stretch of highway. However being stopped for fifteen minutes at a time while trying to get to work is a bit annoying. That is exactly what happened to me this morning. After sitting in the traffic jam for about ten to fifteen minutes I decided to take a detour. Fortunately I was right near a road that I knew led closer to a road near my work. I took it and man am I glad I did. Look at the views I saw. I think I will take that road again. It was just beautiful.

Beautiful Countryside.

Did I happen to mention that the humidity here has been stifling. It’s like the minute you walk outside you instantly feel clammy. Or your glasses fog up terribly. Oh well changes are coming. There is already a different feel to the air. A slight shift in the morning air letting you know that fall will soon be coming. And as for me. I can’t wait. I don’t like to rush the seasons but I will be happy to see cooler temperatures. We have been really fortunate this year with a milder rainy summer. It has helped a bit with the heat. How is the weather where you are?

Have a wonderful week

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Friday Favorites

Hello and happy Friday. It has been a bit of a hectic week. Earlier this week we had the bad storms and the power outage at work. Luckily we did not lose power at home. But overall still a bit of a crazy week. I have a few Friday Favorites to share with you.

First up is this body mist, Ariana Grande, I am not a big fan of the singer Ariana Grande but I do think this body most smells great. I think you can also buy the perfume. The mist is not as expensive as the perfume and it is much lighter. I really don’t like a heavy scent. I got this at Walmart.

These little face masks are so nice. It literally is a little mask that you put over your face and leave for a few minutes. It makes your face feel so fresh and soft. You can buy them at Walmart or Target or just about anywhere cosmetics are sold. They are very inexpensive but will definitely give your face a refresh.

Do you have a Cato’s in your area. We have one in our city. I love it. I have found so many shirts and sweaters that I like. The prices are very reasonable and the quality is good. Definitely as good as Kohl’s or Target. I have a couple of shirts I have worn for years. I bought this long vest last week and I can’t wait to wear it.

I mentioned that our power was off at work all day Tuesday. It was a rough day for all of us. Our wonderful County Tourism Director, Blaina, brought a care package for all the staff. She is just the best!!! Thank you Blaina!!!!!

***Look at all of these goodies. The cookies are from a local bakery.***

Wednesday I got a much needed cut and color. I wanted to get it in before my trip. I was looking a little shaggy.

Last night we had a wedding shower for a couple of coworkers. They have been with us for several years. The fact that they found love at work and are getting married is just extra special. This is the same couple that I am doing the wedding cake for in September. I made the cupcakes for the wedding shower.

I made four dozen cupcakes Wednesday night. I like to make my own icing. I did the cupcakes on Wednesday night and got up early Thursday morning before work to make the icing and finish the cupcakes. They are doing a yellow, bee theme for their wedding and their house. I made yellow icing and bought the little decorative bees to put on each cupcake.

***Four dozen cupcakes. They were vanilla.***

***I don’t think I have ever bought icing for a cake or cupcakes. I always prefer to make my own.***

Of course I had to give them a taste test before I let them out of the house.

***This was at the shower. We bought a Pioneer Woman tablecloth for the table. The bride is also collecting a lot of Pioneer Woman dishes and utensils.***

Speaking of Pioneer Woman would you look at these glasses. These were a gift from the groom’s parents. They ordered them directly from Walmart. I haven’t seen them in our local stores. Such a beautiful color and so nice and heavy. I LOVE them!!!!