Three Sisters Bluegrass Festival

While Chattanooga is not Nashville, we have been impressed by the city's free family-friendly music offerings.

During the summer,  Nightfall is a free concert series held every Friday night in Miller Plaza, rain or shine; Riverfront Nights is another free concert series offered on Saturday nights at Ross's Landing; and every fourth of July, the Chattanooga symphony orchestra has Pops on the River at Coolidge Park to celebrate our country's independence. And on top of that, Signal Mountain has the Mountain Opry where local bluegrass bands play for free on the weekends.

In addition to those great family (and dog) friendly options, every October for the last ten years, the Three Sisters Bluegrass Festival has taken place at Ross's Landing. We haven't been able to go every year, but this was our fourth year to attend and we had a great time.

This year we went on a Saturday afternoon (so we didn't see some of our favorite's like Chatham County Line), but we had fun none-the-less.

There is a huge field at Ross's Landing where everyone sets up their camp chairs and the kids can run and play. Jack learned how to hula hoop and Isaac was determined to sneak off to the "cake by the slice" tent.

We met up with friends and had a lovely afternoon. Who knows, maybe next year we might be able to last into the evening. The laid back, family-friendly, music scene is just another reason we love where we live.

Jack shows off his dance moves at the Three Sisters Bluegrass Festival. #threesistersbluegrassfestival #3sisters #chattanooga #jackjack #mohaus2016

A video posted by Cheree Moore (@mo_haus) on Oct 1, 2016 at 11:59am PDT

Incline Railway: My {Very Late} Birthday Present

Very late may be a bit generous of a descriptor since this was supposed to be my birthday present LAST YEAR. Just 11 months late, but who's counting?

Last year Daniel surprised me with a trip to Chattanooga for a birthday breakfast at the BlueGrass Grill and a proposed trip to the top of Lookout Mountain on the Incline Railway. The only problem was that it was really foggy and we didn't feel like the views would be worth it. 

Plus I was almost 9 months pregnant and the thought of going into labor on the steepest train in the United State, while ascending a mountain didn't seem like the best idea...

At the time, we did take a scenic drive up Lookout Mountain and I experienced my first Braxton Hicks contractions. However, Jack did not show up for another week.

Anyways, I recently informed Daniel that he better figure out when he could take me to the Incline Railway since my birthday is fast approaching and he still owed me a trip. So on Friday, we headed to Chattanooga for a day of family fun.

We really needed that time together. We have both been busy with work and home improvement projects; then last week a friend of ours died unexpectedly. It just felt right for us to take some time to be together as a family.

We made it to the base of the Incline Railway in time to make one of the last trips to the top. This railway is the steepest in the United States. At the top the grade is 74% – which is kind of nuts! The track splits halfway up the mountain so a train going the opposite direction can pass.

We enjoyed our scenic ride up the mountain. We only had about 30 minutes at the top since it was late in the day. It was probably the perfect amount of time for Jack. I think he had a good time riding the train.

After our railway experience, we headed downtown to attend the Three Sisters Bluegrass festival at the Riverfront. We decided to eat The Blue Plate Diner, which is right behind the grassy area where everyone sits for the concert. We even scored a table on the patio without having to wait too long. We had a lovely dinner and finished it off by splitting a slice of their Moon Pie Cheesecake for dessert.

This is our second year to attend Three Sisters -- it is very family and dog friendly event that happens to be free. We ended up leaving about 9 eastern since Jack was falling asleep in our arms; despite his best efforts to stay awake to watch all of the kids, dogs and general concert craziness. I'm sure that we will be back in the future.

It was a good day. We are trying to be more proactive about not spending our ENTIRE weekends doing things that can wait. We want to make more concerted efforts to spend time together doing things we love. Sometimes the chores can wait. 

Project 52 Date Nights: Three Sisters

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Last Friday we met friends at The Terminal Brewhouse for dinner. Afterward we headed downtown to meet more friends for the Three Sisters Festival – a FREE live bluegrass concert. We saw Sierra Hull, Chatham County Line and Ricky Skaggs play. It was a fun concert with perfect weather, not too overcrowded and we even managed to score FREE parking {after I drove over a curb to get to it}.

Daniel created a sling to carry our chairs with out of webbing that was in the trunk of our car.

Sierra Hull playing. It was too dark to photograph Chatham County Line and Ricky Scaggs.

Daniel and I enjoying the music.

Thumbs up for date night: we had the winning combination of good food, good music and time spent with good friends.