Spring Break

Well spring break has been over for just about 2 weeks now and I find that I miss it already. I had so much fun over the break that it made coming back to school feel like my own personal hell. Don't get me wrong, I love to teach. It's probably one of the best creative outlets of any profession and you get to have fun and joke around while doing it! The problem is that I don't like being a disciplinarian. I've said this before and I feel as though it's water under the bridge, but I feel like I'm baby-sitting sometimes and that’s what makes getting up in the morning so difficult.

Well, enough of that. There is no point in complaining. You just have to hope that each day will bring less disruption and more learning. Back to spring break. My fiancé and I went to Chattanooga, TN to visit Lookout Mountain. Lookout Mountain is just west of the Smokey Mountain National Park. Our first stop was Inclined Railway, the railcar with the steepest grade tracks in the entire world. We literally went up the mountain at a 70 degree angle during the steepest leg of the ride. Once there, it wasn't too exciting. I bet the view would have been fantastic if it hadn't been foggy. Still, it was a nice ride up and down the mountain.

Next we visited Rock City which isn't really a city at all. It's just a plot of land that some horticulturalist (I think) donated to the state. Ok, a little heads up. My facts may be really skewed here. I'm trying to do this from memory and it's so hard to pay attention to those boring tour guides when there is so much to see and do. Anyway, my fiancé and I really got a kick out of Rock City. It was basically just a path that wound through caverns and through a wide variety of flora. We did get to see an incredibly view (by this point, the fog had cleared) and 7 states. The park claims you can see 7 states from a vantage point high up on a mountain side but this is complete B.S. How can one see South Carolina and North Carolina from Tennessee? That's right you can't, but for some odd reason I fell for it when I was reading the brochure.

Finally we saw my favorite attraction, Ruby Falls. I had always seen billboards for Ruby Falls as a child when my family would take road trips to South Carolina but I never thought I'd ever get there. It's amazing and I would definitely recommend it to any non claustrophobic adventure seeker. It involves and elevator ride 280 feet below ground and a tour through winding caverns with several breath-taking geological masterpieces. The tour culminates with the amazing Ruby Falls, a huge water fall in the middle of the cave. What's crazy is that nobody knows where the water that feeds Ruby Falls actually comes from.

Our break was a blast and if any teacher corps member is looking for a quick weekend trip, I highly recommend heading to Lookout Mountain just outside of Chattanooga.