Just a little update on this guys, we did little river canyon, it was very impressive and beautiful. As to eats, we stopped in Rainbow City on the way up and ate at a place on the river, Local joe's,
its more of a marina with food. The food wasn't really spectacular, but the setting is very nice. On the way back we did Pruett's BBQ in Gadsen with the kids, it was great. Also hit the original Dreamland in Tuscaloosa for a bathroom break, a couple brews and a half slab of ribs, if you haven't been, you should.
In Chattagnooga, we knocked out Rock City
, the incline railway
, and the ducks tour
with the kids. All big hits, although my son's highlight was cardboard hill
(free sledding on cardboard at the river levee) and daughters was the $1 carousel at the park on the north side of town
. I think my highlight in TN was the pedestrian bridge in the city
. Wife's was likely strolling downtown which was revitalized in the last ten years.
On the way back down we did Clarkco state park cabins
which are really nice and sleepy (we were only people in the park), and hit Stricks BBQ in Hattiesburg which was probably the best BBQ of the entire trip.
As to the overland report, my tundra has 180k and the sequoia has 140K, so we opted to rent a brand new rav4. Even with the 4 cyl it is a peppy little ride even in eco mode (1199 miles avg 28.9 mpg door to door). It swallowed up twin 3 yr olds, momma/me, a 65 qt yeti, a weber Q1000
, and all our stuff for the week. Drove like a mid tier sedan (read better than tundra/seq), had decent ground clearance for pull offs at the state parks, and I figure even with $2 gas it paid for itself in oil change and mpg.
