Chattanooga River walk

Tuesday 22 October
Roger and I had a relaxing morning at the apartment, while waiting for Jen to arrive, driving up from Atlanta. She had suggested we could meet up somewhere, but we thought since neither of us really know the city, it was simpler to stay put and wait at the apartment. She arrived late morning, and once she had brought her bags in, we set of to explore. It had been a pretty cool start, but soon began to warm up under blue sunny skies. We were walking distance to the river, so we walked down there to the River walk, which stretches for a total of 16 miles along the Tennessee River. We walked along to the Bluffs Art District, passing the historic replicas the Niña and the Pinta. The Niña is a replica of the ship on which Columbus sailed across the Atlantic on his voyages of discovery to the New World beginning in 1492. The Pinta is a more recently built larger version. They both serve as a floating, traveling museum, and they visit ports all over the Western hemisphere. We have previously encountered them on the Ohio River,, and down in Florida! My thumbnail photo and the two photos below is the Hunter Museum of American art, showing the original Faxon Thomas mansion, the latest extension to it, and one of the sculptures outside. The museum is named after George Hunter, who inherited the Coca Cola Bottling empire from his uncle Benjamin Thomas. From there, we crossed the river on the pedestrian Walnut Street Bridge to Northside, and found a brew pub to have some lunch out in the very warm sunshine. After our lunch we walked to Coolidge Park, still on the north side, with its fountain and restored antique carousel. At this point, we returned to our AirBnb to pick up our car, and drove a couple of miles to Sculpture Fields at Montague Park, where my remaining two photos were taken.
After dinner at the apartment, we had a game of Scrabble, which through some fluke I managed to win! Jen usually thrashes us, and I was trailing most of the game, but by virtue of going out first, and acquiring points from their leftover tiles, I slipped into the lead!