Gatlinburg, Gout & Chattanooga

We left Gatlinburg en-route for Chattanooga, & all the time John complained that his left foot was painful & swollen. Now I'm a trained a nurse, & he knows better than to look for sympathy from me; I always tell him I've seen much worse than whatever it is he's got, & he shouldn't be such a wuss. But as we traipsed around Dollywood the previous day, he did mention that his big toe was sore, & I had joked that it might be gout, caused by over-indulgence & rich living!

As his foot worsened, I was more & more sure that it was indeed gout, & we went to a medical centre where the diagnosis was confirmed. We collected his prescription from Wallgreens, & he sat in the back of the car with his sore foot elevated on the passenger seat, lording it up while I chauffered him & doled out carefully measured doses of sympathy along the highway.

We stopped for a late lunch at at very quirky place called Piggy Hill, where Colonel Poole has a BBQ restaurant. Apparrantly, the local authorities wouldn't let him put a sign up on the highway to advertise his place & show where it was, so he hit on the idea of putting little piggy shaped signs on the hill behind it, & letting folks write their names & messages on them to draw people in. It was a great success, & now the place is famous for miles around, & he can charge for the piggies which are all around the car park & hillside. Apart from all that, the BBQ ribs are quite delicious, so that consoled John & took his mind off his poorly foot while he ate. Aahhh.

More lovely biking roads took us in to Chattanooga, as we headed straight for the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel - & what a fabulous place that is! Chattanooga Railway Station was in it's heyday in the early half of the last century, & immortalised by the Glenn Miller song in the early 1940's. This beautiful building has been lovingly restored, & now houses the front of the huge hotel complex. We ate that night in the Singing Servers restaurant, & were well entertained by the waiters & waitresses who one minute served our food, & the next were up on the stage, sounding polished & professional, & making great music that had the whole place calling for more. And the icing on the cake for John was the iconic Chattenooga Choo Choo itself; the majestic steam engine of a bygone era, & as he stood on the footplate & imagined himself as driver, all thoughts of gout were banished from his mind, & a huge grin was fixed upon his face.