Soon, J will be flying back to Polska. K and I wanted to take her on some kind of semi-extended semi-vacation before she left, but where to go?

Our trip had several constraints from the beginning

• relatively inexpensive (we are, after all, buying a house),
• relatively close (we don’t, after all, have a lot of vacation time), and
• relatively interesting for J.

So we did the logical thing: we went kitsch.

America is filled with kitsch, and the common view from Polska is that “Americans like kitsch.” There was only one place that fulfilled all our criteria: Gatlinburg.

But we knew that it would be relatively expensive to do much there, so we sandwiched it with a half-day in Chattanooga and a day in Cherokee.

Our stops in Chattanooga were about as kitsch as could be, in some ways: Rock City

and Ruby Falls.

Very American: take nature, and improve it with sidewalks, elevators, and safety barriers. And above all, make it auto-accessible.

We had fun, though. Rock City brings out the little boy in everyone, and Ruby Falls, while overly theatrical (not to mention amazingly crowded in the summer), is a fairly impressive sight.

Photos of our adventure are available here.