Aquaholic: 7/2/18 - Monday - Hiwasee River (anchorage) to Erwin Marina Chattanooga Tn

We both slept well at our peaceful anchorage after our loooong day of cruising yesterday. We slept in just a bit (Erik to a whopping 6am! 😂) and awoke to a cloudy and calm morning. Erik fished for a little while during our morning coffee and planning for the days adventures. He caught a healthy sized catfish (5-6 lbs).
We planned for a reasonably short (40 miles and 1 Lock) cruising day but we decided to pull anchor early anyhow to get it out of the way prior to forecasted afternoon rain again. We also wanted to get back to Chattanooga to do some more exploring of the city. We pulled anchor at about 730am and slowly made our way downriver. We decided to top off the gas tanks at Lakeshore Marina (reasonable prices) and Renee bought a sun dress and a new boat bumper rope adjuster (we lost one earlier this week). Lakeshore was just above the Chickamauga lock and we were fortunate to hale them on the radio just as we were leaving and they were preparing to open the doors to lock another pleasure craft down....good timing 😋. It was just another 7 miles or so downriver to Chattanooga and our slip for the next two days. We got just a brief light shower of rain as we were coming into Chattanooga...that was it for the day (yay!).
We got settled in at our slip, ate lunch and took a brief walk up to the riverfront and downtown to orientate ourselves to where we were. To this point boating fatigue set in and we both decided that a good nap was in order 😴
We awoke about 4pm, showered and headed across the pedestrian bridge to explore "The North Shore" area which is across the river from downtown. It is a nice little area with a couple nice parks, shops, and restaurants. We made a quick stop into Julie Darling Donuts for a pre dinner treat 🍩 😂. We split a delicious grandma's apple pie donut. We walked through a few shops and then through Coolidge Park where we rode the restored 1800’s carousel. Renee rode the fish who’s colors matched her new dress. Erik rode the donkey which matched his personality 😂.
We then walked backed across the pedestrian bridge and through downtown to the "City Cafe Diner" which came highly recommended by several people we had met. It had one of the largest menus we had ever seen. Also HUGE portions. We split a Greek combo platter which was yummy and still didn’t have room for desert.... Stuffed! Ok, well we did get a desert to go for later (as it turns out for tomorrow because we are still too stuffed to enjoy it. Looks like breakfast tomorrow will have to be baklava cheese cake 🤭
We’re spending time time tonight catching up on several days of blogs and off to bed we’ll go.