Chattanooga Riverpark ride

This past Sunday, we drove down to Chattanooga and went for a bike ride at the Tennessee Riverpark, which stretches seven miles or so along the Tennessee River through various sections of the town.

In setting up our GPS unit to help us find our way there, I searched for "Riverwalk" near Chattanooga, since I remembered it being called that. That search found a hit in Nashville. I wound up having to set the GPS to an address on Amnicola Highway, which is the road that goes by the park.

We got going around 9:30 and rode for about two hours, not counting rest stops.

There's a spur off the trail called the "Playtrail". It has some fun children's playgrounds. There's one that is Ant-themed:

There's one about Bees:

There's one with spider webs, but the spider didn't appear to be home:

We passed a "No Trespassing sign that had been edited in an amusing way. We chose to not take its suggestion.

After a while, we stopped at a scenic spot on the trail and had our snack looking over the river. Here's the view we saw:

We passed Amnicola Marsh. We noted that the marsh and the nearby highway have the same name and wondered what "Amnicola" means.  Our guess was that it might be an Indian name. However, looking out over the marsh where I took the picture below, there was an informational sign explaining that "Amnicola" is from Latin and means "home by the river". During Civil War times, it was a plantation owned by Thomas Crutchfield, one of Chattanooga's leaders at the time. Looking for information about it just now, I also learned that "Amnicola" is also the name of some critters who live in shells.

Along the way, we encountered a group of friends from Florida, all riding recumbent trikes.

We had a good time and wound up the trip with a visit to Gollywhoppers for lunch at about 1:00, then came home.