Kristen came up with a list of hikes for us to do as we left town. I must say that one of my favorite things to do in Atlanta is hike the mountains of Appalachia. On our way home, we stopped in Chattanooga, TN to hike the Ritchie Hollow Trail.
To get to the trail head, we drove on a very small road that ran parallel to the Tennessee River. The road was very narrow. The locals didn’t feel the need to drive the reasonable speeds that we did on our way down that road.
Within the first half mile of the hike, we came across a waterfall. I started to realize it would be common to see them in that part of the country. It isn’t unusual to have a small waterfall as a stream comes down a mountain. The hike itself was very rocky. Some of the rocks made steps. There was one part of the trail where two large trees had fallen. Rather than clean the trees from the trail, they cut steps into them. Annabelle and Buster got a kick out of going over stuff like that.
We were surprised at the amount of hiking AB did that day. We did carry her a little bit on the way home. But she insisted on walking shortly after we put her in the kid carrier. We probably hiked a mile and a half before we turned back. We came to a point in the trail where several switch backs began an aggressive climb up the mountain. Annabelle loved going up them. She would have gone up many more if we let her.
We didn’t want to spend too much time hiking. We wanted to get out of the mountains best we could before we lost daylight. Linda drove up until Illinois. I drove home from there. We made it home about 4 am.