Pigeon Forge, TN-Chattanooga, TN 10/31 140 driving miles; 7.8 walking miles

BOO! And who wouldn't like a Happy Halloween? The drive from Redneck Vegas, family style (Pigeon Forge) to Chattanooga was (thankfully) uneventful. We drove to Lookout Mountain first to both visit the Civil War battlefield monument and to take advantage of the  spectacular view of Chattanooga from the clifftop perch. Once again,the battlefield statistics made note of the great sacrifice both sides suffered during the war. In this, the so called Battle of the Clouds, the collective loss numbered nearly 13,000. From there, we found our (so called) downtown hotel (2 miles, actually). The false advertsing sent Eduardo into a kerfuffful induced tail spin. Smoke was coming out his ears for awhile, but after a  few steps, a quite good lunch, and a bit of time, he got over it. Chattanooga helped. It is a lovely and lively town. It's set where the Tennessee river snakes through a plain like a liquid lover wrapping her arms around her honey. Home of UTC, the town is full of college kids, and the city has done a quite fabulous job of creating a shopping, eating, walking space. Besides UTC, the town boasts a minor league baseball team, an aquarium, and several points of interest for visitors. I like the feel of the place. While it's a stretch (As Ed would gladly tell you) to say this Red Roof Inn is downtown, we're finding it the same very adequate quality of other Red Roofs we've stayed in lately. Ever since Deb and Judy made their visit, we've stepped up our standards, I guess so we won't be too crusty around the edges when we get home. So snuggled in we are to watch football and baseball before continuing Southward tomorrow. As usual, kerfuffuls aside, life is good, especially today.

The river wraps itself around the town.

The battle for this high ground as well as control of the river was pivotal in the war between the states.

Across the way, the battle for the "low" ground, otherwise known as Missionary Ridge was one of the bloodiest encounters of the war.

Soldiers of all sorts took time to be photographed from this perch.

Officers and gentlemen.

Confederates and Yankees.

Lone men in contemplative moods.

And grinning self snapping tourists like me.

Best human of the day, Heather Barker, a recent graduate of UTC (English). She was great. Even though I accosted her unaware, she graciusly helped me figure out how to upload photos to the cloud from my phone. Once again, I'm taken by just how gracious we humans can be. I think we should follow Hearher's example and treat everyone we meet (Even very forward strangers with kindness). It would be a nice treat in this tricky world.

And of course, we had some thin gruel.