Tennessee - Rock City

Let me first apologize for just how long it took to get this post up.  I found out last night when I tried to upload pictures that Google has changed how people can view pictures I post online.  My other problem is that the internet here at The Shed moves painfully slowly.  It took almost an hour to upload 100 pictures, and then I tried to create a link so everyone could see them which turned out to be impossible.  I had to start over which has made this project almost ridiculous.  However, the Ruby Falls post should be MUCH easier.  Anyway...

Rock City was just amazing.  This is one of those places that people recognized in the early 1800s as a unique place.  Most of what was Rock City has been maintained and updated, but there are so many naturally occurring formations.  It was just awesome to see how nature and man could work hand in hand to create something spectacular.

I am lucky that I planned my vacation for this week because there were very few people there.  I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have hundreds of people crawling all over the place.  I ended up being there for almost 3 hours, and I only took 2 of the 3 trails.  One thing I thought was absolutely great was that the trail wound around so that you were constantly going over or under or beside a place you had just been.  That's another reason I was glad there were less people there... I was constantly surprised when I realized that I was now in a section I could have seen from another location.  Less people made me less aware of where the trail led, and that made the trip a little cooler.

On the drive here on Sunday, I kept seeing barns painted with "See Rock City."  Apparently, that was a huge marketing project someone undertook years and years ago that has kind of become their "thing."  I saw many barns just like the one to the right.  I was even able to take a picture of one while walking through Rock City.  That being said...

I took about 130 pictures and slimmed them down to about 100 for the video.  You'll see in the pictures that there are a lot of Christmas decorations, even lights around the trees.  They do something called the Enchanted Garden tours at night this time of year.  The last part of the tour included going underground into a Storybook Area.  Many of the scenes in there were staged so you were looking through a window at a blacklight with painted figurines.  Maybe someday I will learn what setting I should have had the camera on, but the pictures that came out looked ridiculous.  Hopefully the many others will more than make up for it.  I put music with the video this time... Hope you like it!