Travel: Nigerian Girl Under Lookout Mountain! (Chattanooga)

For someone who claims not to be cut from the cloth of adventure and thrill-seeks, I seem to have a thing for mountains! You'd think I'd stick to low grounds, huh? Anyway, please "Take me back to Lookout Mountain and Ruby Falls!" Location: Chattanooga.

Last Summer, Ed and I went on a road trip to some of the southern cities of the United States. Our first stop was Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville, because a certain someone loves country music and listens to David Nail, Florida Georgia Line, and Sam Hunt all day long. Plus, that certain someone also loves the idea of honky-tonking wearing a skirt and cowboy boots. Stating the obvious, Ed doesn't wear skirts.

Anyway, after roof-top bar hoping, eating ice cream, dancing on the street at the traffic lights (there are speakers at the traffic lights constantly streaming music) in that mean ol' sun, we drove to Chattanooga to ride the steepest train in the world and to see the underground waterfallbeneath it, known as Ruby Falls. Ruby Falls is a 145 foot waterfall named after the wife of the geologist, Leo Lambert who discovered it in 1929.

No one has been able to trace the source of the water of the waterfall, which sounded spooky to me. Actually, that day, at 1,120 feet below the ground, everything sounded spooky to me. Barney and the Telly Tubbies would have sounded spooky to me on that adventure. *pensive* The Telly Tubbies scare me already, so that kind of weakens my argument. Anyway, truth, being 1,120 feet under a mountain is darn-spooky. We walked for over a mile through this dark, narrow path with crevices of rock formation on either side. The formations grew out of the walls and the ground like little trees; to my palms, they felt like marble and to my eyes they looked like huge blotches of candle wax pretending to be rare.

Our guide was thrilled by the fact that we were in the dark and we were a bit spooked, so he told us that there were bears in the cave. He was joking, of course, and found this very funny. I didn't and I made sure I was close enough to Ed as possible. It was all very Shaggy-and-Scooby-Doo.

"The previous week", The guide said, in his perfect southern drawl, "the elevator got broken, everyone was stuck here for a long time and we had to walk up the fire exit, all the way up!" then he chuckled and kept walking. He was a fun guy. He also mentioned that they had a Halloween tour edition. Lol. And why would I want to attend that, pray tell?

Did I think we would be stuck there forever?

Yes

Did I believe the bear story?

Yes

Did I wonder about volcanoes and earthquakes at the moment?

Yes. Very much.

How steep was the train track?

Steep. Steepest incline in the world. Looked like something out of an old Okeke Physics text book. "Inclined planes" chapter. It had a 72.7% gradient. Hello, falling over!

Best part about the tour:

When we got out. I'm kidding, when we saw and heard the waterfalls...and then when we got out.

What did we eat for lunch?

All the junk food we packed for the trip! Gummy bears. Jollof rice and chicken (for sure), corn chips!

Would I recommend checking out Lookout Mountain and Ruby Falls?

Absolutely, you'll love it, unless you are claustrophobic and really, really not cut from the cloth of adventure, which is completely fine by the way. That makes two of us.

If ever you are in the area - you know, Georgia, Tennessee, the Lookout mountain and Ruby falls tour is a really good idea! Let me know how it goes?!

Are you cut out for adventure or not really? What is your all-time most favorite adventure memory?