A Rock City Christmas

Today we drove up to Rock City to get our annual family pass and to see Rock City during the day, and again at night for their seasonal "Enchanted Garden of Lights."

We headed out around 9:30 and made decent time, especially for us (we tend to be slow travelers), stopping at the Tennessee Welcome Center a little before noon:

(Elyse isn't checking Twitter or Facebook, she's looking at a picture she just took.) 

The girls were fascinated by the decorative lettuce--or is that cabbage?--in the planters outside the Welcome Center:

By 1:00 we were finishing up our lunch in the Big Rock Grill inside Rock City:

And then we went on the trail:

(Elyse is pretending to be asleep, possibly at Jessica's request.)

This is the gift shop at the end of the trail. I've always loved gift shops, so I'm including a picture of it for future posterity:

This is me inside Woodland Wonders:

Here's all of us in the car, heading to our hotel to check in before returning for the evening lights:

These are from a couple hours later:

Elyse decorating her gingerbread man in the Lodge:

As you can see, she took full advantage of all that frosting:

Some of that frosting made it's way onto the front of her jacket:

While Anna and Elyse were going back through the trail and having the above encounter, Jessica and I were waiting for them outside the grill and freezing:

(We eventually did move inside the grill; even though it was closed, the doors were unlocked and we sat on one of the benches just inside the entrance and waited.)