Our weekend trip to Chattanooga, Tn

Friday, we decided to jump start our weekend by traveling to Chattanooga, Tn. It's a little over an hour from us. One great things about living in a centrally located town is that it's easily accessible to over seven states around us. Within a couple hours we can take a small vacation with our family and enjoy the few days a month we spend with Reggie who has been traveling overseas often for his job. I love to travel and experience new things so we decided to visit the caverns in Tennessee. We had a great time. Our adventure began while waiting in line for about 20 or so minutes. Once inside the building we began our journey. We boarded an elevator that took us 260 ft below ground level. Once there we were put into a bigger group (I would say 15-20 of us). Then our real journey began--to the underground water fall. We walked a half mile to and from the waterfall through all types of cave formations. Some areas were narrow and others were low.  Then, there is only 1 way out and in so each time an outgoing group "survivors" passed by, we had to stop and put our backs to the wall. In a small space this was uncomfortable at times especially with Reggie being so tall. They also had no restrooms inside the cave and I was thinking that I hoped my kids didn't have to go to the bathroom. lol.  Once we made it to the waterfall we got to see the most spectacular sight I've ever seen. Nobody knows where the source of this 145 foot waterfall comes from but it rushes out of a rock into the Tennessee river. The more it rains, the more it rushes out.  There was a beautful light show and peaceful music to help capture the beauty of the waterfall.  On the journey back, WE were the survivors so WE got to keep walking. It took us about 2 hours round trip. There is a nice children's mining area, playground, and cafe once we got out of the cave.
Our next stop was the Tennesse Aquarium. We were told that it's one of the best in the United States.
I’m pretty much an aquarium junkie and one of our reasons to visit Chattanooga was to see the aquarium. We've been to the Atlanta Aquarium and Baltimore Aquarium. So, we were hoping it measured up to those great aquariums and it did. The architecture of the aquarium is very interesting; and the layout makes it easy to traverse without missing anything. There are two buildings – River Journey and Ocean Journey. One of my favorites was the jellyfish; they had a great display with black lights and we were able to get some spectacular pictures. The kids seemed to enjoy the 3-story tank with sharks, as well as petting the stingrays, fish and seeing the snakes. They also enjoyed looking at the penguins and big tortoises. It was centrally located so we headed across the street to Buffalo Wild Wings for a late lunch and to Rita Frozen Custard for a much needed cold dessert for it was hot outside. We had scheduled a 4:00 IMAX 3d movie earlier in the day and made it just in time to see a cool Wildlife movie. By the time the movie was over Jadon was knocked out sleeping and Noa was yawning. Within five minutes of our car ride the kids were sound asleep. Hmmm, I can only imagine what their dreams were like as they crashed in the back seat of our vehicle.