Today we explored Chattanooga by foot, we walked down Market street which is the main road that runs from the station (our hotel) to the river. We are back on the Tennessee River now so we walked down to the river and booked onto a River boat trip for lunch time, we had originally thought that we might do one this evening but it seems to be a show rather than just a cruise so we decided to go for the lunch time one. Having brought our tickets we then went for a walk along the riverfront which has a number of markers for the Trail of Tears when the Cherokee were removed from this area they were marched across the Tennessee River at Chattanooga on the way to Oklahoma. In 1838 the US military and various state militias forced 15,000 Cherokees from their homes in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee and moved them to the Indian Territory. About a quarter of them died on route as they were forced to march in all weathers with very limited food, on the information boards it says that it was one of the darkest moments in American History but the route we have taken so far suggests there are a lot to chose from! We walked a little way along the waterfront then up to Walnut Street Bridge, this was built in 1891 but wasn’t wide enough to take todays traffic so a new one was built and this was converted to a pedestrian bridge, the sign says this is the longest pedestrian bridge in the world but I am sure that the one in Nashville said that it was the longest! We walked about half way across then turned round and headed back to the boat for the cruise. We sailed down to the base of Lookout Mountain where we had been yesterday and then came back up the opposite side of the river and under the bridge then we turned round and came back. The lunch was actually really nice although we felt like we didn’t manage to exploit the buffet as much as the Americans seem to I don’t think I have ever seen people pick so much at a buffet they picked up a couple of plates and some of them even had three no wonder they are the size they are! By the time we had finished the trip we decided we would head back to the room for a relax as the temperature had gone up 15 degrees in the time we had been out which admittedly was five hours but still it was definitely a lot hotter so we came back, had a look round the hotel then went back to our train car for a relax.
