A new ice cream shop has just opened right where we start. The Ice Cream Show is also supposed to sell various teas and coffee drinks.

After the tour, try City Cafe, whose sample cake (several layers in one cake, each a different type of cake) is the best dessert in town, plus huge portions on all their food. 

Try checking out Raccoon Mountain Caverns, ranked as one of the top five caves in the country. The cave comes with its own ghost, "Willie," a watchman who is thought to have fallen asleep while smoking back in the 50's, and perished in the resulting fire at the gift shop there. You can hear more about him on our CD. http://www.raccoonmountain.com/html/caverns.html

For those with children, the Chattanooga Zoo, billed as "the best little zoo in America," is a delightful stop without being too long. They have recently opened their Endangered Animal Carousel, with some of the most amazing carousel animals you have ever seen, all carved by the folks at Horsin' Around, Chattanooga's own carousel carving school.  Also, the Creative Discovery Museum, right off our tour route at Chestnut and Fourth, is a wonder for children ages 2-12!  The kids will spot the large ship, built to be accessible for all to play on, in the front glass.

For something truly unique to Chattanooga, check out the International Tow Truck Museum, at 3315 Broad Street. Visit their website at http://www.internationaltowingmuseum.org/ for more information about their fascinating museum and hall of fame.

If you're looking for some free fun or places unique to Chattanooga, we'd suggest checking out the following:
The Spaceship House. This is a unique private home that is worth the trip to drive by. Simply take I-27 N to the Signal Mountain exit, and follow that road up the mountain. The Spaceship House is on the left of the curves before you reach the town. Thanks to a sharp turn, you can see it from both front and back.
Watch the hang gliders at Lookout Mountain Flight Park, which boasts that it has 5 times more pilots than any other school in the country. If you're REALLY brave, you can take a tandem flight there for around $200. Their website is http://www.hanglide.com/ .
Check out the beautiful outdoor Virgin of the Poor shrine in nearby New Hope, TN. The phone number is 423-837-7068. It is worth the trip.

For those travelling elsewhere in the state, if you are in Nashville, you might check out Nashville Ghost Tours, nashvilleghosttours.com (NOT to be confused with Ghost and Haunt tours, a chain operation); we liked it alot. And if you are in Memphis, the folks who operate the walking ghost tour there, Backbeat Tours, also have a bus tour called The Mojo Tour, where musicians take you (with plenty of audience participation) on a musical trip of the highlights of the city. It was unique and VERY fun; check it out! In Georgia, Dalton Ghost Tours seasonally operates a reinactment-type ghost tour. Also, for those of you who have been waiting for a walking ghost tour in downtown Atlanta, you are finally in luck. We just went on a tour with the owner of Dark Side Tours, which has only been operating since summer 2009, and really enjoyed it. Appalachian Ghost Walks (http://www.appalachianghostwalks.com/) operates tours in various places in NE TN and Virginia.

Read Chattanooga Chills by Mark Fults or Ghosts of the Tennessee Valley by Georgiana Kotarski for more ghost stories around the area.  The website for the latter, www.georgianakotarski.com, has some interesting orb photos, and an excerpt as well as table of contents from her book.

Haunted Places to Stay in Chattanooga

For those adventurous souls who want to stay in a haunted place while here, there are at least 2 options of which we are aware. The Delta Queen riverboat is now docked in Chattanooga as a hotel, and they do rent out their haunted cabin. I believe the rack rate for that room is $179.00 per night, but not certain. Or for the budget ghosthunter, many internet sites say the Super 8 Motel in Ooltewah has a haunted room. However, due to the nature of the motel, they have had alot of turnover, and their employees may not even be aware of this particular feature. : )
We originally also listed room 311 of the Read House (whose rack rate is $500/night) on this list; however, we have just discovered that when Sheraton took over the Read House, they actually CHANGED room 311 to a different, unhaunted room down the hall, and converted the REAL room 311 to a storage room (which we believe is the room numbered 313, although if you ask at the desk, they will tell you they do not have a room 313.) From what I understand, when people book room 311, thinking they are going to get to stay in a haunted room, the hotel does not reveal that the high-priced room they will be in is not, in fact, the TRUE room 311. : ( So save your money, and stay one of the other places.

LINKS TO OTHER GHOST SITES

Here are a few links to other ghost sites in cyberspace:

Tennessee Paranormal Investigative Team http://www.myspace.com/tnpit
Angels and Ghosts http://www.angelsghosts.com
Paranormal Directory (which lists a LOT of ghost tours) paranormal.boomja.com
Ghost to Coast www.ghosttocoast.us

Many many thanks to the folks at the Hamilton County Bicentennial Downtown Library for their patience with me as I researched the stories for the tour and got the website ready.