RUBY FALLS, TN

May 26, 2022--A quick note before we get started.  Cathy fixed the HTML code so you should be able to click on each picture now to make it bigger for a better view.  Also, for those of trying to write comments--go to comments at the bottom of the blog and click there.  Next you will see "Enter Comment", so click there.  When you do a screen will come up saying "Comment As: Anonymous" and there is a drop down arrow there.  Click and you will then see a list of 3 options, and you want to click on the one that says "Name/URL".  Just put your name there and then hit continue and you can comment.  It sounds more detailed than it is.

So, off we went to Ruby Falls today, a cavern discovered by mistake by Leo Lambert back in 1928.  Tours actually began in 1930, so he didn't take long to capitalize!  Cathy and I were here about 25 years ago with her mother and father, and like today, it rained then also. lol  We have actually had rain and total cloud cover every day since we left Ft Myers on the 21st.

  

I put these pics here so you can see what I'm dealing with.  lol  Notice the difference in the 2 pics.  Jeannie took the one of Cathy and I, and didn't take even a moment for us to smile.  Now look at the beautiful pic I took of Jeannie and Caja...close-up, smiling, really looking happy to be here.  I now have to give Jeannie remedial picture taking classes. lol

  

We had to take an elevator 420 feet to the floor of the cavern.  When Leo discovered this, he and a few helpers crawled on their bellies for 6 hours, in an 18 inch high space, to find what he ultimately found.  I get the creeps just thinking about that.   

   

There are Stalactites and Stalagmites in here, among other structures.  The Stalactites grow down from the ceiling, while Stalagmites grow up from the ground, and they only grow 1/2 an inch every 100 years.  In this 1st pic is a Stalagmite that they let you touch--they don't want people touching anything else in here as the oils from your hands will stop the future growth of what you touched for 10 years.

  

You'll need to click on these pics to see just how pretty they are.  I put 2 of the Leaning Tower just because I liked it so much. lol

   

There are a few formations they have named...this 1st one looks like a fish.

  

  

Here we have bacon and a potato chip  (They may be taking a little license with the chip--lol)

  

More bacon followed by tobacco leaves.  Now I've never seen a tobacco leaf, but Cathy assures me this is what they look like before they dry.

 

Here is the main room we have been trekking thru the cavern to get to the actual Falls.  As I said earlier, we started at 420 feet off the elevator, and we are now at 1120 feet below the surface.  The falls is measured at 145 ft...really quite amazing!  The video will light up for you after a few seconds, so don't turn it off.

They keep changing the lights, giving a different take each time.

   

   

When you turn around from the Falls, this is directly behind you.  You see Cathy has a mask on...a few other people did also, but the vast majority did not.

   

The trek back to the elevator.  A little fun fact:  In the 1960s this cavern was made a designated bomb shelter with enough food, water, and medicine stored for 720 people for a few weeks.

   

And finally, Caja and I up on a rock tower made from stones excavated from the cavern.  We are looking out at the city of Chattanooga and the Tennessee River.

Tomorrow we are off to Rock City, so more to follow!

Finally Blogging Again!

May 25, 2022--So we're off for our first trip since we last posted in 2016--whew!  It's been a while!  We left N Ft Myers with our friends and neighbors, Caja and Jeannie, on the 21st.  Since we started hanging out together, I have totally radicalized them with watching politics (haha), to the point that Jeannie is now displaying signs as she travels throughout the country.

 

We arrived in Cuthbert, GA on the 22nd and headed out over the next 2 days to do some sightseeing.  This is a very small, I would say dying, town of approximately 3400 people.  As you come into the town the 1st thing you see is the water tower, immediately followed by a somewhat small cemetery with headstones dating back to the early 1830s.  There were a couple markers placed in 1980-1990, but the overwhelming majority were in the mid to late 1800s.

 

  

The town clearly does nothing to maintain the place, as several of the graves were in varying stages of disrepair.  This one that was cracked open was a little concerning...I wasn't so sure there might not still be bones in there.

  

A handful of the graves had this flag placed on them--this was the original rebel flag when the Civil War began.

And then, of course, we had the stars and bars Confederate flag placed on just this one grave.  This guy was a colonel in the rebel army and died during the war.

  

As I said, this is a very small town--the town center is a stone's throw from the cemetery--and all the stores that make up the town center line the outside of this small park placed in a rotary.  So the 1st thing you see from a distance after the water tower is this very large tribute to the fallen Confederate soldiers.  A little background--I noticed as we walked around a bit that although we were not seeing a lot of people, most of those we did see were African Americans.  So as I looked at and read the stirring words etched into this statue, I googled to see what the demographics of the area were.  What I found was that just over 85% of the residents here are black, and all I could think was how appalling it would be to have to live with this abomination staring you in the face every day.

    

One of the few (maybe 2 or 3) stores that was actually open that rimmed the rotary.

 

There were several murals that looked recently painted.  These are some of the famous people who actually came from this town, like Rosie Greer the football player, the 1st woman to go the college I'll show in a moment, and then a famous Jazz musician...I don't know anything about Jazz so not much to say on him. lol  Larry Homes, the boxer, also came from here, but for some reason he didn't make the mural.

   

 

Cuthbert's biggest claim to fame seems to be this college, started in 1854 as an all women's college.  At the time it was just the 2nd college in the US to confer degrees upon women.  During the civil war, it was used as a hospital for the sick and dying confederate soldiers.  It is still open today, but only as a two year college.  It's actually a very pretty building.

 

 

This whole area started as huge cotton farms, so we were not surprised to see quite a few plantation homes.  This 1st house is the Englund Estate, built in 1840.  The 2nd house looks more like the other houses in the surrounding area, meaning run down, although it's bigger than most.  And not sure what's going on with this 3rd house...lol...didn't quite fit into the rest of the area, but it showed spunk! lol

  

The reason we actually decided to visit this area is the Providence Canyon State Park.  We went to the small visitor's center 1st, and learned that this area started to be farmed back in the early 1800s.  They said "poor farming practices" led to this whole canyon developing.  You can see in the 2nd picture below that the land was sloped, but I don't think anyone could have imagined that just by plowing rows into the slope they would eventually create an entire canyon beneath them.

   

The view from the top.  They told us it's only 150 feet deep, but it was a winding path to the bottom so it was probably about a 1/4 mile hike.  Jeannie, in the red, decided to stay on top and enjoyed the views from there.

  

Georgia is famous for it's red clay soil, and due to recent rains and humidity the trek to the bottom was just short of muddy.

 

 

The trek was worth it! Beautiful colors throughout the canyon, and what is really surprising is that although it looks like rock, it is all really heavily packed sand.  The iron in the sand gives the red color, but don't remember already (lol) where the other colors come from.  If you enlarge the 1st picture you can see a segment (above and between Cathy's and Caja's heads) of purple sand...and then in the 3rd picture if you enlarge it you can see little spikes of purple sand.  Pretty cool looking.

   

This 1st picture shows the "little tree that could".  Notice the roots are not really IN the sand, but running alongside it. 

 

Because this is all sand and not rock, they really don't want you to climb up in it, but occasionally Cathy and Caja couldn't help themselves. lol  And also because this is all sand, it continues to erode at a fairly brisk pace.  I read something that said occasionally, with heavy rains, whole sections of the walls will simply cleave off and crash to the bottom.  I imagine if you came back every 5 years or so, you may very well have a totally different viewing experience in some spots.

          

So check this out.  When you look up at the 2nd and 3rd pictures below, you can see a shaded area at the very top.  What you're actually seeing is shown in the close up of picture one...your seeing where the bottom has fallen out and left just the roots exposed, hanging from the ground at the top.  You could very well be standing up there and not have any idea of how close you are to taking a deep dive to the bottom. lol

  

You have to enlarge these 1st 2 pictures so see what looks like honeycombed sand.

 

Our last shots as we are leaving.  It is just starting to drizzle, so we try to make haste to the top.  NOT!  As you can see in the 3rd picture, I am sopping wet and only half way to the top!

  

Interesting side note:  Back when the erosion was becoming obvious, the Civilian Conservation Corps planted trees and what is called Kudzu to try to slow it down.  For those of you have never heard of it, Kudzu is from China, a ground cover plant that is very well controlled in it's native habitat, but not able to be controlled here in the US at all.  Supposedly nothing kills it but goats!  As you can see from the pictures, it doesn't stay on the ground--the vines climb and engulf anything in it's way, covering and killing whole bushes and even massive trees.  It is all over southern Georgia and northern Florida, now covering over 7.5 million acres of forested land.  I feel like somewhat could make a good scary movie with this.

  

 

So, that's all for now folks.  We are headed next to an area outside Chattanooga, TN, so will post our next blog from there.