Steve’s Retirement Trip to Tennessee June/July 2024: Part 5 - FUN & FREEDOM!

“Lazy” Day, Independence Day, and the Tennessee Aquarium

Sasquatch Farm, Site #17 

Wednesday, 7/3

After the MANY excursions yesterday, we had a “free” and “lazy” day planned.  One of the reasons we wanted to come to Sasquatch Farm was the many hiking trails to waterfalls and amazing nature the property boasted over 195 acres. 


After Auntie’s foot fiasco, I was left to hike and explore on my own.  The one thing I had NOT counted on was the summer heat in Tennessee. I did one hike, the yellow/red combination “easy” hike and only a total of 1.5 miles, but I was OVERHEATED.  The views were GORGEOUS and the signs were neat, but I really wanted to enjoy this far more than I did!

 

 
That said, I did find two geocaches on my little trek.  Grace would have LOVED to find these.  They were really fun! 

Gorgeous - but HOT!

Back at the campsite, because I was so overheated, I ended up falling asleep for over an hour in the air conditioning of the camper.  Steve took advantage of my slumber to head to the Foodland in “downtown” South Pittsburgh and found that not only did they not sell ANY pretzels, rather than the typical 80’s/yacht music of a grocery store, they ONLY played religious music.  Suffice it to say he thought the visit was interesting!  

Later that night, as we were trying to get supplies from under the bed, we did NOT remove Kaety from the bed when we lifted it and the springs to hold the bed up broke!  There was no fixing them while we were on this trip - it required significantly more research to pop those springs back than Steve could do on this trip, so we just dealt with it until we got home!

Thursday, 7/4

July 4th came with an early wake up to get to Chattanooga by 9am (8am CT) for a special TN Aquarium tour.  It was also the big day - Steve’s Official Retirement Day - his Independence Day!

We headed out around 6:30 to make the hour trek to downtown Chattanooga for our tour which was to open the TN Aquarium with a keeper.  This was one of the most amazing behind-the-scenes tours we have EVER done at a zoo or aquarium.  Our keeper/tourguide, Hannah, was FABULOUS and we got to experience SO MUCH!

Our tour started in the freshwater side of the aquarium, which also houses a Madagascar exhibit and lemurs!  We proceeded through the freshwater side and got to play with rays and gentle sharks and saw several other keepers opening exhibits, including the giant tortoises and the turtle nursery (which I LOVED).  We were able to talk to the keepers as they opened up their various areas and told us some things about their animals.


 


 


Then we headed to the saltwater side and REALLY went back stage! Hannah took us into an area where we could see the way they separate sick fish, breed new fish, and care for pregnant fish.  It was fascinating!

 

She took us to the shark exhibit, where they have an actual used shark cage - you can see the dent in the side where a shark hit it with a diver in it!  And we were able to stand in it - there was NOONE ELSE AROUND!

 


 

Fun times in the TN Aquarium…we were able to do so much and see so much because we were the ONLY 5 people in there.  What an experience!!!


 

 

 

 

 

 


We absolutely loved the turtle and tortoise nursery and the fact that we got to spend so much time with resident sea turtle, Stewie, whose echolocation is broken so he cannot be returned to the wild.  But he is PERFECT and beautiful!

 

The end of our tour was a private animal encounter and we got to meet their resident bearded dragon.  He was adorable and Kaety and Grace fell in love.  They have had him for 5 years, but he still doesn’t have a name!  He is “The Bearded Dragon.”  Too funny.

 

After our amazing tour, we walked across the street to Burger Republic and had an AMAZING lunch - the girls had the biggest, most chocolate-y shakes EVER!

 

Finally, we headed back to the aquarium to see parts we hadn’t seen such as the penguins.  We re-walked the entire aquarium and agreed the opening tour was totally worth it - the number of people there on July 4th was NUTS!  But the memories we made with that tour…gold!

 



At the end of the day, we made fools of ourselves in the gift shop - no we did not buy any of the hats, but we had a BLAST :)

 

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