Friday, August 2. I got up at 6:15 when I heard the coffee maker start percolating. I had 25 minutes of quiet time before the girls got up at 6:40! Breakfast of sweet rolls and cinnamon apple bread from a local bakery plus some cantaloupe, strawberries and blueberries prepared by Tricia. Girls practiced Somewhere Over the Rainbow on the electric keyboard. They chose their consolation stuffies: a koala for Laureva and a Beanie Baby cat for Maëva. Finally reached the gas station by phone, but no sign of doudou pillow. Then we got ready for a day of exploring Chattanooga.
10am arrival in Bluff View Art District. Sculpture garden. Lookout points over the Tennessee River. The riverfront area is very pretty and pleasant. Walking Bridge across river to a riverfront park with a large carousel. Girls rode twice. Guillaume's Uncle Cessna met us there and treated us to lunch at a bakery back in the Bluff District. He speaks French and asked us to speak it with him so he could practice. Sandwiches and French style dessert gâteaux.
1:30pm: Tennessee Aquarium. They have two buildings: one for salt water and another for fresh water. Ocean exhibit first. Girls enjoyed the tank where they could touch the rays. Butterfly garden. Saw lots more pretty Blue Morphos. Humungous tank with fish, sharks and sea turtles. We attended the show with a diver doing a talk from inside tank and learned about their target feeding of the sharks and the rescued turtles. Jellyfish. Giant Spider Crabs. Tanks with peekholes the kids could crawl up inside. Girls decided to spend more of their money on t-shirts in the gift shop. Maëva chose a blue one with lemurs, Laureva a pink one with a unicorn seahorse! Next we went to the fresh water building. In each building, you start by taking escalators up to the top floor then gradually wind your way down through the exhibits. Here, the girls enjoyed touching the sturgeon. We learned they are native to the Tennessee River and the Aquarium has been successful at reintroducing them. Later, a volunteer told us they can grow up to 20 feet long! The very large Amaraina from the Amazon were also quite impressive as well as the big fresh water rays. We were all amazed to see many different kinds of turtles. We didn't know they came in so many types! The most curious looking thing was the American Paddlefish. It had a long nose and swam around with its giant round mouth open revealing its gills which you could see right through from one side to the other of its body. Fascinating. This was an amazing and beautiful Aquarium. A completely unexpected wondrous experience.
Guillaume treated us to frozen yogurt at The Ice Cream Show near the walking bridge. You pick vanilla or chocolate yogurt then your add-ins and they mix it all together for you, like Cold Stone but for yogurt. I had vanilla with pineapple and macadamia nuts. Tasty.
Leaving downtown, drove by one of Cessna's sculptures along Market Street. He's an artist who works with bronze.
Back up Signal Hill to Pruitt's, an independent Whole Foods-like grocery store. I wanted to pick up a bottle of wine for dinner. We had 30 minutes before going to Guillaume's grandparents' for dinner, so we also got beers to drink outside on the store's patio. It was like an outdoor bar with service in the store and games for kids including a giant Connect 4. They even had three large TV screens playing outside with a variety of sports and cartoons. Fascinating! Sylvain and I tasted two local Hutton & Smith IPAs. Not bad.
Then it was time for our dinner invitation. Guillaume's mom, Rachel, made spaghetti, salad, brownies and vanilla ice cream for us at her parents house. Cessna and Tricia were also there and we met Guillaume's stepdad Dennis, half brother Vincent and Uncle Don. The girls took a liking to Vincent and played with him all evening. He was a very good sport! After dinner walk on the golf course. Cicadas and lightning bugs reminded me of Kansas. The girls stayed home with Rachel and Vincent and prepared a dance show. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see it all as it was getting late and Laureva went into meltdown mode. She did have quite a big day with the added stress of her lost pillow case ... Late to bed after 10pm!
0 comments:
Post a Comment