Completely out of character for us as of late, we went on a quick overnight trip to Chattanooga.
It was my fault.
As most of you might know, Steve doesn't like to travel because he travels so much for work now (plus we have wildly different ideas about where we'd go, and if he's bored he makes it obvious) so we rarely go on vacations anymore. I love to travel, but I can't go alone because the world sucks and I don't feel safe doing it. So, when Steve told me he had a band concert in Chattanooga (one he does every year, but I never attend because of reasons that are my business) I asked if he wanted me to go with him. Mainly, I wanted to get out of our house for a while, and I thought this would be a good chance to do so. The band concert would be incidental! He was surprised, I think.
We also invited Anthony, because he's family, and he said that he couldn't make it as early as we were going (he teaches and had an early class that day) but that he would meet us there that afternoon and we could have dinner and do some stuff! From there we made dinner reservations and planned to attend an event at the Chattanooga Zoo - Spirits in the Wild -where you can drink, eat, and be around animals!
Once I realized that the event ran until 9, I talked Steve into getting a hotel room for us so that we didn't have to drive back so late, especially if we would be having cocktails at this event. I was really kind of surprised when he agreed to do it! We had a little bit of a problem getting a room because some big events were happening in Chattanooga that weekend, so we had to get a place just a smidge out of town, but it wasn't too far away.
Unfortunately, the actual reason for the trip got cancelled. His concert was called because there was supposed to be rain, but we'd already bought tickets to the zoo thing and had the dinner and hotel reservations, and it was within 24 hours of all of it before we knew about the cancellation, so we decided to go anyways. I felt really bad. I knew Steve would have rather not gone, but he also didn't want to lose the money we'd already spent. Eh, well, carpe diem, I guess. Heehee.
So we left late on Saturday morning and made it into Chattanooga by about 10:00 AM. It was so busy! The Chattanooga Ironman triathlon was scheduled for that weekend, and streets were blocked off and people in spandex were everywhere with their fancy, flat bikes! We finally found a place to park and got out to walk around. I'm not unfamiliar with the Ironman event (I have a cousin who coaches the people who do them) but I had no idea the scale of the thing. There was a whole village of tents set up for the athletes and a big shop where you can buy merch. Athletes were testing out the route on bikes and running, and there was a whole parking lot full of bikes and bags. It was a bit overwhelming. I really just don't "get" it though. Don't get me wrong, I have a deep awe and respect for people who can do that sort of thing and I know it takes months of training and discipline, but I don't understand why they want to do it. It seems like an incredibly brutal thing to put yourself though. Of course, I say this as someone who almost died trying to run a 5k on a hot day, so maybe I don't understand because my body rejects the very idea of that kind of physical activity! At any rate, despite my confusion with why, mad respect to everyone who participated (except for the one guy who was resting on the sidewalk that tried looking up my skirt. I hope his shoe clips got stuck in the pedals of his fancy bike when he tried to get off and it took him two tries to transfer to the next stage of the race, negatively affecting his personal PR. I also hope the banana he got at the snack tent was bruised.) Perv.
Despite my feeling bad that I got us caught up in all of that and obligated to stay out of town, we actually had a good time, I think. We walked around, ate snacks at a couple of the local places, and shopped a bit. we also stopped and had a couple of midday cocktails (one that didn't affect me at all, but another in a place a couple of hours later that caused me to do some expensive drunk shopping at the Hot Chocolatier. I regret nothing.)
Anthony got there just in time for our dinner reservations at a place called Tupelo Honey Cafe. the food was fantastic! I picked it blindly when looking for a place to eat because it was close to downtown, but I'd gladly eat there again. I didn't know it was a chain, but you wouldn't really know it! We left there to go to the zoo, and the rain started pouring down by the time we got there. We got some shitty gift shop ponchos, though, and powered through! That was actually a lot of fun, I thought, even with the rain. You could walk up to any booth or bar and eat and drink as much as you wanted, and you got to see all the different animals! Don't worry, after my afternoon cocktail excitement, I had about 4 sips of the drink they gave me when I walked in and decided that I'd rather be sober thankyouverymuch.
The highlight of my evening was that I got to feed a giraffe! You could pay 5 dollars and get a hand full of lettuce, and they let you feed a male giraffe named George! I loved him! Anthony took some pictures of me doing it, and despite my face, it was great. George licked me by accident, though. Ah, well, how many people can say they've been licked by a giraffe?
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