Katy Reviews Chattanooga: In a Very Detailed Way

It seems to be a theme that I tag along wherever Ben goes. Happily, he goes to lots of neat places. This time, it was time for a big deal climbing competition in Chattanooga. Trying to spare a few $$, we decided to leave super early in the morning on Saturday instead of a leisurely Chattanooga arrival on Friday night. Quite frankly, I wasn't up for the traffic, a late-night arrival, and I just wanted to hang out at home and have some time to do errands & jenk.

At exactly 5:45am on Saturday, I darted out of bed, afraid he would yell at me if I dilly-dallied. Thankfully, he had made chai for us in to-go cups. It was a shock to both of us, but I stayed awake the whole ride to Chatta-hoochee (I realize that Chattahoochee is a real place, but I can't say Chattanooga without wanting to say Chattahooche).

Getting into town super early was nice, in that after I dropped Ben off, I made my way directly to Greyfriar's Coffee and Tea to learn more about this lil' city of 150,000. With a cafe latte in hand, and snuggled up in the corner of the cafe armed with two [albeit pretty rotten] Tennessee guidebooks and a more useful NYTimes' 36 Hours in Chattanooga and some friends' recommendations, I set myself up a great day.

Heading out of the cute (and just a tad rundown) downtown area, I walked in the 32 degree weather (who said the South is warm?!) to the African American Museum and saw an exhibit on Bessie Smith. The museum was small, but had an interesting, though bland and relatively unsightful, version of the African American experience in the US. The most interesting cases dealt with local history and tracked some of the local prominent Af-Am families in Chattanooga.

About 60 minutes later I was outside again walking, this time heading due North towards the River Bluff Arts District. This area really surprised me, with its gorgeous sculpture garden and bocce ball court, even if I couldn't take advantage. As you might imagine, it was lined by the Tenn. river bluffs, and is where lots of museums, beautiful inns, and good (if overpriced) restaurants are located. I walked around the little streets, admiring the public art work and over to the museums like the Hunter nearby with Calder and other neat sculptures outside.

I crossed over to the other side of the city via the lovely pedestrian bridge, where benches and (currently dead) flowers in pots side every few yards. Lots of others joined me crossing over. Once over, I made my way to Coolidge Park, a very wide open space on the riverbanks with lots of comfy metal chairs to sit in and admire the world going by.

But it was too cold to dawdle and I made my way to a place I heard was special--Clumpies Ice Cream. Yes, it was way too cold for ice cream, and Clumpies is the weirdest sounding name. However, I am always up for tasting homemade all natural ingredients ice cream. The chirpy teenage girl let me try pumpkin, chai, mango sorbet, and a few others, before I settled on coffee toffee--with bits of coffee beans in it! They sell it by weight, and my thoroughly round plop of ice cream came to $2. This place is great!

By now it was getting to be late afternoon and I crossed over on a different bridge and stopped by Ross' landing, where the Trail of Tears officially started. I was glad to see the city had created a nice space for this tragic history. I walked my way over to the hotel, where they told me we were not under any computer system. But it's no problem, said the kind and pimply young man, we're not full. I'll give you the same rate. Done and done. Though the outside of this motel reminded me a bit of that tragic scene in "No Country for Old Men" and the exercise machines in the exercise room refused to work, our room itself was quite nice.

Ben called me to come get him around 5. Little did we know there was a major (and EXTREMELY lame) holiday parade going on, and almost all streets downtown had been blocked off. So by the time I was well on my way to Nashville on the highway, Ben had crossed the bridge himself and had gotten pretty far down to the hotel.

We ate dinner at our favorite place, Lupi's. There is no comparing this extremely special pizza joint. They make crusty on the outside, fluffy on the inside white or wheat "loaves" served with olive oil or garlic-tomato sauce. Their pizza slices and calzones, both only a few dollars each, are huge and made with very fresh ingredients. The place itself is decorated in very bright colors.

Next, we wound back across the bridge to Green Life Grocery, a great local alternative to Whole Foods to get some snacks, and then to Ben's climbing party. By the way, he had an extremely successful day climbing, "sending" the hardest problem he had ever done. He was quite worried his cold this week would have put him behind this goal, but he made it! And of course, to celebrate, we went BACK to Clumpies Ice Cream.

Today we got to check out Aretha Frankensteins, a TEENY tiny breakfast shop decorated with the most odd oddities and cuteness like you would not believe. [Click on that link to see the nautical head that spouted beer, a similar crazy spacey/underwater apparatus was their espresso machine!] Although the bad coffee put Ben in a foul mood (we had earlier been to Rembrants Coffee Roasters and picked up garlic ciabatta and a beautiful chocolate/praline truffle for later, but he had resisted coffee), when our orders arrived, everything was different. The "slim stack" of 2 gigantic pancakes with Maine blueberries were those amazing griddle cakes that are fluffy and buttery and insanely addictive. Ben's "Dave Scramble" had eggs, cheese, grilled potatoes, combined into a delight of a mess, and accompanied by a hot biscuit.

To work it all off (supposedly), we drove to Cloudland Canyon and did a 5 mile canyon rim loop. Although we didn't QUITE agree with the brochure, that stated this was one of the most scenic hikes in the US, we did have a great time winding in and out of the sun, layering off and on the whole time.

What a special, special weekend! Chattanooga is a super green/eco city, too, which is neat. Lots of arts and culture and incredible food. Next time I really want to try Bea's, Sportsman's BBQ, and the Good Dog hotdog place. And congrats to my dear Ben for making this tremendous bouldering goal!