Tennessee: Chattanooga (Day 3)

Day 125

Rain rain - go away!!

We had another wet and soggy day in Chattanooga, so we decided that today would be our trip to see the Tennessee Aquarium that we had heard was a "not to miss" attraction.  We visited both the fresh water and the salt water exhibit buildings today.  The layout of the exhibits promotes good traffic flow of folks walking through the building which I greatly appreciated.  I am not a crowd lover at all.

The first exhibit we visited made me think of my friends on the motor vessel Sea Horse.

Sea Horse Exhibit as Tennessee Aquarium

I told Clark not to bother taking photos of the fish in the tanks as the last ones he took at the Chicago Aquarium mostly came out unusable.  Even though we do not have a lot of pictures to prove it, we really did enjoy the fresh water exhibits.  A few days back, at one of the marinas we visited, I met a woman fishing for bluegills with her aged father.  I saw several bluegills at the aquarium and was interested to see what she had been fishing for.  Besides lots of fish and some seahorses, we saw snakes, turtles and various and sundry other river-dwelling creatures like alligators. We reached the end of the fresh water exhibits around 1:30.

Since it continued to rain, we found a bench inside the aquarium and sat down to eat the lunch I had brought for us.  I do not know which felt better - eating or sitting down for ten minutes.  (The jury is still out on that one.)  Immediately after eating we walked over to the Salt Water exhibits building for our second excursion of the day.

First we walked through a tropical setup with a couple of Macaws on display.  They posed very nicely for Clark to take their picture.

Macaws at Aquarium

Near the beginning of the exhibit route in this building we found the butterfly garden full of butterflies flitting from one flower to another.  I have never experienced anything like it.  When we entered the room, we were given a colored 'cheat sheet' card showing the varieties of butterflies contained within the garden.  I had great difficulty matching the actual butterflies I saw to the pictures on the card.

Double-door room so that butterflies cannot escape

The butterflies have no fear of the people visiting them.  They swooped this way and that as they traveled from one flower to another.  Sometimes they even landed on the people in the room.

This Blue Morpho landed on a girl's finger
and she walked around the room with it.

When we exited the Butterfly Garden exhibit, we once again passed through double doors with a chamber in between where we were checked to verify we had no butterfly hitchhikers attached to our clothes or bags.

On our trip through the salt water aquarium we saw playful otters and an all-time favorite - penguins! Two varieties of penguins shared the same display area.  The macaroni variety made me think of the Yankee Doodle song -- "... stuck a feather in his cap And called it macaroni. ..."  I guess I was not far off the mark as Wikipedia says that the penguins were named macaroni due to their "excessive ornamentation" of feathery crests on their heads.

During our time at the penguin exhibit, a presentation provided various interesting facts about these penguins.  For example, even though the natural habitat for the penguins is salt water, the tank for this exhibit contained fresh water as penguins happily survive in either.

Gentoo Penguins

Macaroni Penguin

Since I told Clark not to bother trying to photograph the creatures floating in the water-filled glass display cases, we do not have pictures of another display I found fascinating.  An entire room was dedicated to jellyfish.  Now I hate swimming with jellyfish, but when contained in display cases with glass between me and them, they are quite amazing creatures to observe.  The gorgeous display of hand-blown glass blown to resemble jellyfish made me interested in visiting the Hunter Museum of American Art located just down the street from the Aquarium since that museum had provided the glass jellyfish on display.

Following our visit to the aquarium, we decided to look for a way to keep me dry.  My all-weather jacket seems to have lost its ability to repel water.  We asked in a surf and snow shop near the aquarium where we might buy water-proofing spray and were directed across the Market Street bridge to Rock City outfitters.  We trekked over there and found the store and bought the spray.  It is a procedure to treat the jacket, so it will not help me tomorrow (yes, more rain forecast).  I will treat it outdoors on the next sunny day when I can hang it outside to dry.

When we received the recommendation for Rock City, we were told to visit the antique store next door.  I have no need for antiques on the boat, but the building itself was interesting from a historical point of view.  The antique store building was once upon a time a knitting mill.

Knitting Mill Antiques

The building still showed signs of its prior use with pulley wheels running along the ceiling obviously left over from when it was used as a knitting mill.

Remnants from the Knitting Mill

The size of the store was impressive.  Several aisles of antique stalls ran the length of the building.

Looking down the length of the building
to see antique booth after booth

After our quick inspection of the antique store, we decided to walk back to the boat via the Walnut Street pedestrian bridge.  On our way we passed by this guy busy fiddling by the sidewalk.

Fiddler Statue on the North Shore

 Before crossing the bridge I spotted the Clumpies ice cream store and jumped at the opportunity to get a treat, a drink, and most importantly a seat for a few minutes.

We walked across the pedestrian bridge as planned and saw some folks who seemed to not care in the least that the weather was dismal.  A runner ran past us dressed in nothing but his running shorts.  I found this rather amazing since I felt chilly with layers of shirts and jackets.  We also saw three sculling boats as they passed under the bridge.

Sculling Boats out in the rainy weather

As we crossed the bridge we looked down on the boats along the shore.  Way back behind the big, big boat named the Southern Belle we could just manage to see our own boat.  Closer to the Walnut Street bridge we could easily see three looper boats - Yolo, rPad, and India Jayne.  We have never met the owners of Yolo but their home port is shown on the boat as Virginia.

Boats on the Chattanooga shoreline 

With the walk to the aquarium, then through all the displays in the aquarium, then over the Market Street bridge to shop in the North Shore, then back towards the boat, and all the stops in between, my Fitbit said I had walked some 15000 steps and around 7 miles so far today.  The ice cream break had helped, but my feet hurt and I was definitely dragging my body.

On our travels we found a Publix and bought some fresh vegetables, so before we could meet our friends on rPAD for dinner tonight as planned, we had to walk back to our boat to put the veggies away and then walk back to the aquarium to meet them.  Connie and I both quickly vetoed Clark's suggestion for a restaurant that required a long walk to get there, so we found something more local. Someone at the Erwin Marina where we are staying recommended the Bluewater Grille.  We ate there and found it to be a lovely seafood restaurant where we all found yummy selections for dinner.

When I checked my Fitbit at the end of the day, I had a count of over 19,000 steps for today's count. That is almost two-days goals met in just one day.  I wish I could save up 9000 of those for some other day when my step count will be low from being on the boat all day.