An Artsy Chattanooga Christmas

The trek to Chattanooga this Christmas was complete with cats, lots of family time, and lots of rain.  Evan and I took the 3 kitties with us for a little over a week and split our time visiting the various members of our family and friends who were in town for the holiday.

I made it a point to walk around my favorite parts of downtown, so I got a few artsy or interesting pictures, including this obligatory one looking north through the Walnut Street Bridge.

The legacy of my old favorite restaurant and coffee house, The Mudpie.. replaced by Hill (sh)City pizza, and now by something else under construction.

This sign was only slightly comforting, but mostly disturbing, located at one of the shops on the North Shore by Coolidge Park.

I mentioned rain, and I'm not kidding: there was a thunderstorm on Christmas Eve, which is HIGHLY unusual, and the Tennessee River showed off that craziness with its swollen flood stage (not in itself an unusual occurrence). The above picture is looking south across the river, and it doesn't look too bad, but observe the closeup from the south shore:

All those little nubs that are separated from the stone staircase are actually 8+ foot tall lamp pillar things, and the stairs go all the way down to a sidewalk at their base. None of that is supposed to be underwater, so the river was probably close to 10 feet above where it should have been! A final more-closeup by the stairs, with ~1 foot of the pillars above water:

... And Rembrandt's in a coffee cup, mmmm.