The Ruby Falls Tower in Chattanooga

While Ruby Falls itself is a waterfall deep underground in Chattanooga, Tennessee, its entrance is a tall stone tower rising high from Lookout Mountain. The stone that the tower was made from was taken from the shaft that was dug down to the cave where the waterfall is found when they were digging for the elevator. Pretty cool that they found a good use for the stone. While people think that reusing something for some other purpose is a relatively new phenomenon, they were already doing that way back in the 1920s.

Our scheduled time to visit Ruby Falls was first thing in the morning. The sun was still just starting to come up, and the clouds had been pretty thick overnight. All of that made for some nice lighting on the tower and an interesting sky as a background as we were waiting to go inside. So while the view of the waterfall itself was pretty spectacular, the tower outside wasn’t all that bad, either.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go up inside the tower. But I imagine the view from its roof looking out over the valley below was pretty good, too. Lots of good views to be found around there, it seems. But we were pretty rushed to get from one place to the next, and we didn’t have very much time to take in many of those natural views.

Life itself has been that way lately, too. Too much rushing around, not enough time to just enjoy the view that is there in front of us. So take some time to stop, look around, and appreciate what is around you. That’s what I am trying to do.

About the Photo

A single RAW exposure, processed in Photomatix and Photoshop. Read more about the photo software and gear I use at the camera gear page.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Olympus 14-42mm IIR