A Great December Weekend

The GrayStation family had such a great weekend - MAINx24, The Chattanooga Market, Inhabit, good eats around town and spending fun times with family and friends.

We arrived on Main Street Saturday morning just in time for the Main Street parade. Rigby had already started the morning earlier at TAG Gym practicing his gymnastic skills.

It was great to see so many people on Main Street enjoying a neighborhood parade in cloudy, windy, 35 degree weather. After the parade concluded, we followed Santa in his horse and carriage down Main Street. We ran into friends along the way and then crossed the street over to Bluegrass Grill. If you haven't been, get there.

After finishing a great brunch, we strolled on down Main Street to Green/Spaces and then on to Niedlov's Breadworks. They have some of the best bread in town, and our bag of cheddar pepper sourdough and a holiday Stollen proves it. And a big full-of-blueberries muffin for Lucy.

After enjoying ourselves visiting various stops along Main Street, we made our way on down the Southside to the Chattanooga Market to see Ivey Handcrafted and other folks.

After the Market, we toured some open houses in Jefferson Heights and enjoyed the Take Root tree-planting scene at the J.H. Park.

We made it home in the afternoon for a quick catnap before we took the kids to Nana and Papa's for the evening.

And so the night began. We had an awesome evening and dinner at St. John's Restaurant with the Hamakers, Stricklands and Fernandezes, not to mention some other nearby political figures and prominent citizens.

The late evening led us to Loose Cannon Studios on Rossville Ave off Main Street for a great Inhabit party, enjoying beer+wine+liquor+food+music+shenanigans. The place was flat-out packed, so much that the street outside was closed off and the loading dock area out back was loaded with fire pits to keep the 500+ people warm on a clear, chilly evening.

We met up with many friends we had not seen in a long time and others who we see and enjoy regularly. What a great time.

We made it back to a sleeping location at the Oglesby Ranch in the wee hours and then woke around sunrise. We loaded up the kids and, on the way home, we drove down Main Street surveying the post-event scene and realizing how lucky we are to live in such a great city. One last stop before we got home, Hardee's breakfast!

Sunday was great as well. We enjoyed family time and then went for an afternoon drive. We went back out to the Chattanooga Market to buy some Christmas gifts and found a great new salsa maker from Atlanta. Wow!

We had dinner back down on our local haunt, Frazier Avenue, and enjoyed a tasty new spot, Good Dog. The various hot dogs, fries and "condiment gallery" were awesome. Dessert consisted of what else? Clumpies.

We finished the day driving around North Chattanooga looking at Christmas lights and then filled up on $1.43 a gallon gas.