October 8....................A Strange Night in Chattanooga

Two girl friends from Haywood county, NC arrived late afternoon. They would be spending one night on Miss gg.  After dinner we all walked to downtown...my friend, Yvette, took some great photos as the sun was setting and later in the dark.  However, I had forgotten to bring my camera!!

It was 10p when we got back to the boat and I said I was going back to take just a couple of pictures. The Captain announced he was getting a shower and going to bed...I was okay with going alone......such a safe clean city.  But my friends would not allow me to go alone. So off the trio went to discover LATE-night life of Chattanooga.

You have to walk up a steep hill or two and many steps to get up to the Artsy Bluff area of the city where there is a good view. And we had done this already tonight....plus we had already walked across the river on the pedestrian bridge earlier with Walter, one friend, Beth, really didn't want to do it again but did tag along with us.

This bridge was the Washington Street Bridge constructed in 1890..... the first bridge built here to connect the downtown area with the north shore and the 1^st non-military bridge to cross the Tennessee River. It was closed to motor vehicles in 1978 and sat in disrepair for 10 yrs. Then some repair was made and it was reopened to pedestrians and is now on the National Register of Historical places.

There were many people even at that late hour walking and riding bikes across the bridge... on a week night!?

We walked nearly all the way across the bridge for the second time looking for that perfect view but never really found it as it had become hazy and our moon disappeared.

But I did get this night view of the Aquarium's lighted roof.

I especially like this lighted short foot bridge that crosses a street and takes you to the top of this area where the Hunter Art museum is located.  Half of this bridge is see-through... you can see the street and traffic way down below... I walked on the other side!

Just before the other two came to the end of the pedestrian bridge a police officer, who had arrived there on his police bike, was taking pictures of the overhead structure of the bridge.  I had walked past him on ahead of my friends to try to shorten their time out with me...thought I could catch a good view and we would be back at the boat soon.  When Yvette joined me on the lighted foot bridge she told me what Beth asked the officer: "Was there something wrong with the bridge structure?"  He told her nothing was wrong but that he just takes photos often of where two people were hung!!   He told her that sometimes the ghosts show up in the pictures!!!!

I gave up on taking pictures at that point and we looked for Beth to walk back home.  She was no where in sight!   When I called her name..... everyone over at the little ice cream parlor stopped eating and looked up.... guess I was really loud. Yvette knew Beth better than I did and said she would never leave us.... never just go back to the boat. Uh Oh!

We thought she might have said something about wanting ice cream so we looked in the shop.. lots of young people, no Beth!  We walked all around that area just off both bridges... calling her.  No Beth!    

We started walking down the hill wondering if she was playing a trick on us?!  Then we started putting together in our heads what she was wearing thinking we would go back to that policeman and report this...... to a ghost hunting policeman??!  Yvette was sure Beth would not be at the boat so we planned on going back to wake up Walter to help us look for her... I was not feeling good about this little adventure!!

We kept looking behind us hoping she was there..... I really didn't want to leave the last place we saw her but needed Walter's advice..... but just then Yvette prayed aloud that we would find her... we turned around and too far up the hill for us to be sure was someone that looked kinda like her...... and then....THERE she was!  Whew!  Beth was not too happy with us...she said we didn't listen to where she was going... a “short cut” with only a few steps... huh?  We were suppose to meet her??  Okay!  We were just so happy to be a threesome again!!