Forced to listen to a dog nearly choking on it's own tongue from howling at its neglectful owners, two guys starting on R.V. repairs at 11p (and as soon as the sun came up in the morning) and, worst of all, a man who was clearly no stranger to violence, screaming to his friend about how he was going to slit some poor woman's throat, made for the worst night's sleep yet. This was a loud and scary Walmart.
Daylight didn't improve the city any as we drove around trying to find something nice. By this point our GPS was completely out of commission and without us phoning a friend to find directions to a McDonald's so we could get WiFi to look up a map, we would have never made it anywhere (Every town has a McDonald's on seemingly every corner, but in Chattanooga the closest one was 8 miles away).
High above the city's hellishness, however, was a different story. The Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park sites both have their unique charms, with the Chattanooga Park perched at the top of Lookout Mountain, commemorating the Civil War battle that was fought there. Point Park, as it is now called, is a lovely little park offering an incredible panoramic view of the city below. From this idyllic height even Hades looked nice.
We also had the chance to drive through Chickamauga Park, which has miles of memorial statutes along a lovely scenic drive. In both of these battles the Union and Confederate forces alike lost a staggering amount of lives, second only to the Battle of Gettysburg and this certainly weighed on our minds as we drove.
The most recent battle over these grounds was fighting to make the area as a National Park. Doing so was an important way to remember those who were lost and brought healing to survivors from both sides of the war. It was also the first ever National Military Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment