Labor Day Weekend

My poor sad tree thinks it's fall.  What should I do?

Saturday evening we got to go visit our missionary friends from Spain.

They recently bought a house here so they'd have one when they're old.

Hal and their friend Jesso fly back to Spain today.  

So they had a going away party for them.

Judi just loves Cloe.

Jesso doesn't speak very much English.. He spent a couple of days with Joel and Josh to see how Americans live.  They took him bowling and hiking and played video games with him.

Here are the guys hanging out.

The girls had their own table.

Jane made us this wonderful Spanish dish in a paella.. witch is a super large pan.

In Spain the usually include squid in their paella.. but Jane was nice and just used

chicken and bacon.  She even went to the store for some sea salt .. 

so it'd be corn free and I could eat it, too.

On to the Choo Choo

From the Aquarium we caught the free, electric, city bus to the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Waiting for the bus.

The actual Chattanooga Choo Choo.

They've turned the train station into a hotel with a restaurant and gift shops.

It's very beautiful.

It was built in 1909.

Look at the chandler.

Judi and I decided to check out the bathroom.  Wow!

When you stay the night, you actually stay in a train car that looks like this:

Judi's still not feeling photogenic.

I always think her hair looks nice.

Doesn't Mike look comfortable.

They have a couple different restaurants.

This one looked especially expensive.

Don't you want to visit Chattanooga now?  I hear they have a zoo, too.

Traveling through Chattanooga Part 1: The Aquarium

We went home through Chattanooga so that we could 

eat at Smokey Bones and see the TN Aquarium again.  

We have season passes and wanted to see it again while we could.

Down stairs is my favorite part.. the sea horses.

I took that picture.. can you believe it??

After going down to see the sea horses you ride 4 flights up an escalator and work your way back down.

Good think my mom never dropped me down an escalator and I am not afraid of them.

I used the sports feature on my camera and actually got a photo of this little guy.
He was fast.  I got lots of pictures of the water before I actually caught him.

The divers were in the tanks feeding the sting rays.

Loved the jealous, giant sea turtle.

Doesn't James look like he's having a nice time?

Joel, too.  Right?

Judi's wearing my hoodie.

Not because it's cold.

Or so cute.

but.. 

I am guessing because.. 

She's having a bad hair day?? 

I tried to sneak a picture.. but my camera has this auto focus that

shines a red light on you.. and she saw it EVERY time.

If only she could be as fast as these butterflies.. then they'd be blurry, too.

On the last floor of the second aquarium building are several kinds of jelly fish.

These are upside down jelly fish.  They stand on their heads at the bottom of the ocean.

They also have a whole section of jelly fish art.  You can actually buy one similar to these.

I loved them but couldn't think where to put one in my house.

James took this picture for us.

Got a picture of a river boat from the top floor.

Outside the aquarium a country band played under the bridge.

I couldn't pass up getting a picture of the dalmatian that rides the carriage.  

Most of the carriage drivers that we saw that day were women.

Chattanooga is really a pretty town.

More to come.. 

Helen, Georgia

I wanted to go to Helen was because I heard that it was a really

 cute "Alpine" town, and I especially like tubing.

It lived up to it's reputation.. flowers.. ton's of shops.. and great tubing.

The Chattahoochee River runs right though the town.

Guess I should be glad they stood still for the photo below. 

Smiling is just too much to ask.

I got half a smile.

Exploring the shops was fun.

See the mural painted on the wall?

Great flowers.

Some people tubing and playing in the river.

Lots of German wares.

I hear that it looks it's best at Christmas.

I wasn't brave enough to take my camera tubing.

We all had a good time.  The river and the weather was perfect.  

There were plenty of boulders to keep us busy navigating the river.

Joel had to pick up his tube and walk over to the wider part of the river once.

He used his flip flops to paddle.  Judi successfully dumped James out of his tube once.

I tethered my tube to Mike's and we kept getting hung up on opposite sides of the boulders..

Great fun.  Can't wait till we can do it again.

Afterwards we decided to drive across the mountains to Hiawassee, GA.

Driving over the mountains was pretty scary, but we were glad we did.  

The town was beautiful.  Lake Chatuge sat in the middle of it.  

It was so beautiful.  We were only a few miles from North Carolina but didn't realize it at the time.

Judi is collecting states that she's driven in.  7 so far.

They had a really nice family fun center there.

It had putt putt, laser tag, batting cages, go carts and all kinds of video games.  

You paid by the hour.  We had a great time.