Rock City Gardens

27 May 2022--Went to Rock City Gardens today, a 700 acre mostly "rock garden" established by Garnet and Frieda Carter and opened to the public in 1923.  They weather was absolutely beautiful---our first day of no rain--perfect for walking around these grounds for a couple hours.

    

They have different names for different sections, so we started out at the "Grand Corridor".  Initially it was just a bunch of large natural rock formations that you are walking thru, but it got better and better as you go thru it.

  

Definitely more interesting at what is called the "Needle Eye" section.  If you click on the pictures you can see there's not much room to squeeze thru these massive rocks.

 

These pink flowers are called Lenten Rose, but not sure what the white ones were.  This place would really be stunning if we were able to see it in full bloom, but it's not quite there yet.

    

There's quite a few colorful doors and interesting entryways to the different paths that you walk along.  In the 2nd pic Caja and I are sitting at what's called "Mushroom Rock".

    

With Frieda being a German immigrant, they say she loved German folklore, so she was a big gnome fan.  Varying sizes of gnomes are randomly placed throughout the gardens...we didn't see dozens as this info board suggested, but we saw a few.

   

Here we are on the "Swing-Along-Bridge"...not sure how high it is, but as you can see in the 2nd and 3rd pics it was quite high...and quite bouncy!  lol  Jeannie was a little nervous I think.

   

The biggest attraction as far as advertising is Lover's Leap--so named according to folklore because 2 youngsters in love, from different Indian tribes, met their untimely death from here.  You can't see it from these pics, but there is a big waterfall coming out of those rocks.  Click on the 2nd pic for sure...really a beautiful shot of the area and structure.

   

They say you can see 7 states from up here.  Of course they could tell us anything, as you're mostly looking out at tree cover as far as the eye can see, but I'm going with it. lol  In the 3rd pic are the flags of the 7 states--NC, TN, KY, AL, SC, GA and VA.

   

Leaving Lover's Leap, next up was "Fat Man's Squeeze"...I'm trying to not take these tight spaces personally, but they shouldn't over-do it. lol 

  

Here is the big waterfall coming out of the Lover's Leap rocks...It is behind us in both the pics with us in them, but a little harder to see.

  

A 1000 ton "Balanced Rock"...that's Caja and I holding it up while Jeannie stands around watching. lol

Fairyland Caverns was the last section we went thru...an incredibly cute and elaborate display of every nursery rhyme you ever heard of, or read to your kids.   We've only posted a few of the displays here, and you would probably think they are paintings or drawings as you look at the pics, but they're not.  They are all 3-dimensional, and what I assume are ceramic forms of everything from the Cow Jumping over the Moon, to Rip Van Winkle, to Little Red Riding Hood, etc.  Kids would find it cute, but probably more appreciated by adults for the level of detail involved.

         

Another day under our belt.  Going bike riding tomorrow along the Tennessee River...looking forward to it.