Cold, but beautiful morning atop Raccoon Mountain

Seems like it was just yesterday we ran Daufuskie Island, but 8 weeks goes by quickly and it was time to head out for the next state run.    We picked Run Raccoon Mountain for our Tennessee race for all the usual reasons, but also because the organization “AwesomeSauce” appeared to be super laid back and committed to ensuring that everyone had a good time.   There were no timing chips, no electronic mats, no mile posts, no awards;  just goofy people, coonskin caps, promises of beautiful trails and lots of goodies, and long, windy emails from the race director.   We are always game for something a bit different so we signed up.

This time around we had a crew which always increases the fun factor.   Colleen and I were coming from Mesa, AZ; Melodie from Alameda, CA; Janille from Baker, NV and Laurie from Woodinville, WA.   The master travel plan was to meet in Atlanta, pick up our rental van and drive 125 miles to Chattanooga, TN.    Coordinating flights from 4 different airports is always interesting, but we are fairly proficient by this time at making it work.  Colleen and I arrived first, with Janille arriving not long after.   Atlanta is the largest airport in the United States which was made clear to us as we rode a tram for 10 minutes just to get down to baggage claim.  We decided to hang out there and grab a bite while waiting for the others.   As we were eating, I heard the familiar “ping” of my phone.   Laurie was texting from Kansas City to let us know her plane had made a medical emergency landing.   Someone was apparently in the throes of a heart attack.   Very scary for that passenger but unfortunately meant we were going to be waiting for Laurie longer than anticipated.   Melodie arrived on time and hung out with us as we waited for updates from Laurie.   After a 90 minute delay with the full drama of EMT’s boarding the plane, stabilizing and removing the sick passenger on a stretcher, the plane was finally able to take off again.   Laurie arrived in Atlanta, not too much the worse for wear, and we were able to take off only two hours later than planned.  No biggie.

Our late afternoon departure from the airport meant we were caught right in the middle of Atlanta commuter traffic.   With Laurie as chauffeur and Melodie as navigator, we threaded our way through the congested freeways without incident and arrived in Chattanooga around 7:00 pm, safe and sound, but starving.   After a quick Google search, we stopped at a restaurant called “Farm to Fork”.   The full parking lot was a good indicator that this was a local favorite.

The food was acceptable, but good ol’ country music dominated the scene.   If conversation was what you were after, you would have been disappointed.

I had been trying for the past two hours to contact our Airbnb hosts to get the access code for the townhome, but so far, crickets.   We were starting to wonder if we would have to punt and find something at the last minute, but they finally chimed in with apologies and the code (3 hrs after check-in time!) and we breathed a sigh of relief.   The townhome, although located in the industrial southside of Chattanooga, was very comfortable and relatively new.  After a very long travel day, we happily settled in for the night.

From the front….

From the back….

This is how we relax…

A welcome sight after a LONG day of travel

I had done a bit of research prior to the trip and found that we were only 20 minutes from Lookout Mountain, home to three of the most well-known Chattanooga area attractions – Ruby Falls, Rock City, and the Incline Railroad.    Friday morning, after breakfast and coffee, we headed out to Lookout Mountain to play tourist with hundreds of other visitors.  First stop, Ruby Falls.

Finding the Starbucks before anything else happens.

Trip researcher and planner extraordinaire

My beautiful daughter and her mom

Someone never stops talking…

Preparing for our trip down the 1,120 ft elevator to Ruby Falls Cave.

At 145 feet, Ruby Falls is the nation’s tallest and deepest underground waterfall. The Falls are located at the end of the main passage of Ruby Falls Cave, in a large vertical shaft. The stream, 1,120 feet underground, is fed both by rainwater and natural springs. It collects in a pool in the cave floor and then continues through the mountain until finally joining the Tennessee River at the base of Lookout Mountain.  In 1928, Leo Lambert and a team of excavators found the breathtaking waterfall located over 1,120 feet below the surface of Lookout Mountain.  Lambert named the falls after his wife, Ruby, and opened the area as a public attraction in 1930.    Today, tourists are transported to the opening of the cave via elevator and only allowed in on guided tours.    We joined the masses and got in line for one of the tours.

After 45 minutes of listening to our tour guide and plastering ourselves to the walls of the cave to let exiting groups pass, we finally got to the waterfall.   It was truly spectacular.   So amazing to see something like this underground that has continued to flow for centuries.

We enjoyed the tour, but were glad when it was over.   There were a lot of people sharing the same space, a lot of standing was involved, and the space was narrow and crowded.  Some of our crew required immediate feeding after the tour so we headed over to the Urban Stack for lunch.

Next stop was to scope out the race course on Raccoon Mountain, and then head over to REI to pick up race packets.

It turns out that Raccoon Mountain and REI were on opposite sides of Chattanooga, so we ended up putting in a lot of car time.   It was nice to see the countryside, but we were grateful to get back to the townhome for a bit of downtime.  Our race packets included the much advertised coonskin caps so we indulged ourselves with a little photography session.   Only a few arms had to be twisted.

When in the country….

We decided we’d had enough of the car for one day, so that night we walked to downtown Chattanooga for dinner at a place called Alleia.    Chattanooga’s restaurants so far had been very lively, and this one was no different.   We ended up waiting for 45 minutes to be seated, but both company and food were excellent so we didn’t mind.

The gatekeeper

My beautiful niece

The girls

We headed to bed early with the race and the weather on our minds for the next day.  The race didn’t start until 9:00 am, so we were able to be slightly more relaxed than usual, but we were still up early in anticipation of our day.    To our chagrin, the weather was hovering in the 30’s, so we layered up before heading over to Raccoon Mountain.

She’s having fun, honest.

Despite the cold, it was a gorgeous morning.

The young uns’ signed up for the all-trail half marathon course.

The older, wiser generation signed up for the part-road, part-trail half marathon. Turns out wise may not have been the right word.

Laurie is very adept at dressing for cold weather.

The happy crew with 20 pounds of clothes among them.

One of my favs. Love this group. They are so fun to travel with.

This race was billed as having something for everyone; all trail, all road, part-road and part- trail, half marathon, marathon, 10K, and PM Half.   What this meant was that you had to be looking for color-coded ribbons constantly to ensure you were running the right course.   The caveat was that TVA decided to do some blasting in the area and all the trail sections had to be changed three days before the race!  More to come on that, but the race was on and we were off.

The first 6+ miles were great – clearly marked trails, beautiful vistas, lots of diverting objects hung in the trees, and a friendly raccoon to point you in the right direction.

Laurie and Janille ran the all-trail course so we didn’t see much of them after the first couple of miles.    They had significantly more hills and rock than we did.

Somewhere along the line, we still aren’t entirely sure how or where it happened, an entire group of runners got steered in the wrong direction.   Unfortunately, Melodie and I were part of that group.   We knew something was wrong when we started passing half marathoners coming the other way and their mileage was the same as ours.   We plowed on until we got to an aid station where we learned that indeed, we were running the course in reverse.   We grabbed a few goodies, stretched, stood in line for the porta potty, took in the views, and headed up the road again.  What else can you do??

We ran into the race director directing traffic around mile 8.   She told us we were just doing the PM course and not to worry.   She gave us instructions for the next trail loop and then when we joined the road again, she told us to turn right at a metal gate over a trail.   What she neglected to tell us is that there were two metal gates and we needed to turn at the second one.   Because the mountain was full of lost, confused people (including Janille who was as lost as we were) there were actually other runners coming down the trail at the first metal gate, so we felt relatively certain we were in the right place.   We ran all the way up a steep gravel road to the top of the mountain at which point we became certain we were in the area where they were blasting and runners were NOT supposed to be there.   By the time we turned around and got back to the road we had added an additional 2 very hard miles to an already long, hilly race.   We continued down the road and found the second metal gate accompanied by ribbons in the trees, but by then we were so disheartened we couldn’t get excited.   We carried on, but there was a lot of walking involved at this point and a feeling we may wander this mountain in circles forever.

As the story goes, we did eventually find the elusive finish line, 15 miles later.   It remains a mystery where, why and how we got so lost when technically there were course monitors and ribbons to guide our every footstep, but suffice it to say, we have never taken so long to run a race, or ever been so glad when it was over.

Laurie, in her inimitable way, somehow managed to run the right distance and not get lost.   She arrived a full 35 minutes before us, definitely the veteran trail runner among us.   Janille managed to find the finish line not long after us and her story was not a happy one either.   Colleen ran the 10K and was waiting patiently in the car for all of us to find our way home.   After a little food and drink, we cheered up considerably and managed to capture the traditional post-race photos.

A very weary crew headed back to the townhome to clean up.   We were tired and cold enough we didn’t even surface for a meal until much later that afternoon.   Of course, we talked and talked ad nauseum trying to figure out where we had gone wrong, but at the end of the day, it was a race for the history books, but not in the way we had intended.   We learned that laid back is great, but does not always play well with organization and clarity.

Sunday dawned clear and warmer.   We had a few more hours to fill with sight-seeing so we headed back to Lookout Mountain to ride the Incline Railroad and tour Rock City.    The railroad experience was pretty touristy, but regardless it is still impressive to go straight up and down a mountain in a rail car.

Last stop, Rock City.   Thank goodness this was a self-guided tour and we could go at our own pace.  Rock City gained prominence after owners Garnet and Frieda Carter hired Clark Byers in 1935 to paint “See Rock City” on barn roofs and walls in 19 states.   The experience is worth the billing.  Rock City is truly a marvel of nature, featuring massive ancient rock formations, gardens with over 400 native plant species, and breathtaking “See 7 States” panoramic views at the top from “Lovers Leap”.  

Lover’s Leap

We finished exploring Rock City just in time to jump back in the car and head to Atlanta.   We figured we had given ourselves plenty of time, but accidents abound on these truck-congested freeways where everyone drives bumper to bumper at 85 miles an hour, and we ended up at serious risk for Laurie and Janille to make their flights.   We dropped them off with only 50 minutes to spare and headed over to the rental car center to drop off the van.  Laurie texted me 40 minutes later that she had made it by the skin of her teeth!    Colleen, Melodie and I all boarded our flights in a much more relaxed fashion within the next hour or so and started the long trek home.

As usual, it was such a fun weekend, filled with goofiness, camaraderie, exploring new countryside and seeing some pretty amazing sights.   We always learn so much on these trips;  about our country, about each other, and about ourselves.   The race may have had its frustrating moments, but the positive always vastly outweighs the negative.   We are so blessed to be able to travel, run, and experience life together.

Next up, Alton, New Hampshire on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.