Day 2 to You Powered, stopping at the Choo Choo Hotel in Chattanooga Tennessee

Robert’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Written 2/21/2026Day two dawned with less on our plate. He had the obligatory stop at Waffle House for breakfast. Why? Because who doesn’t want to hang out with a bunch of questionable people and have the waitress call us “darlin.” We struck up a conversation with a truck driver about Rock City. We planned on stopping there before ending up in Chattanooga. He gave us tips and advice and then we were off.We started driving towards Rock City Tennessee when GF thought to herself whether she should check to see whether the main attraction was open.It wasn’t.So we rerouted directly to Chattanooga. We didn’t have a hotel booked and on our journey, we dropped by a rest area where GF’s family used to stop on their way to Florida. It was her dad’s favorite place, surrounded by a lake. During that discussion, she mentioned that her dad always talked about the choo choo hotel in Chattanooga. It was a place where if you book far enough in advance, you could stay in an actual train car for the night. As an aside, her dad wasn’t doing well health-wise. He was 80 and a lifelong smoker who had contracted pneumonia along with a couple other conditions.He had never stayed at the hotel, so we decided to book a room there. We weren’t able to get a train car, but the hotel is classically beautiful inside and the room gave off the feel of an old time train car.As we were celebrating our anniversary, they gave us a bottle of wine.We settled in and relaxed before going out. There was a place that had line dancing which we were going to check out after dinner.Dinner was at Elsie’s Daughter, the restaurant on the campus. It was a lovely place that had heaters to keep it warm (as it was still colder here than in Chicago).I sat down and promptly broke the bench. In all fairness, it was just a metal bench that one sets out in the garden and the nut holding the bolt that secured the back was missing. We laughed and I replaced the bench with a chair so we could sit next to one another.Dinner was delicious. We ordered and shared everything. She had an espresso martini while I had a diet soda (yes, I’m such an exciting guy).From there we got ready to dance at Westbound Honky Tonk bar. They had line dancing lessons from 6 pm to 8 pm and we danced then and until the college crowd came and took over the bar. The instructors were really nice and helpful and the drinks were relatively cheap.We wandered down the strip and stopped in at STIR. A more metropolitan feel where we sat at the bar and had a drink. The bartenders and other people were really nice to chat with.After a nice stroll, we went back to our hotel and crashed for the night. In the morning, we ate at the Frothy Monkey. With a name like that, how could you NOT eat there. It was in the old train station with a soaring ceiling and exposed architecture. Very pretty. They had a multicolored flag to welcome people of all orientations. The food was delicious and servers were great.Then it was off to Savannah.Robert’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rslayton.substack.com/subscribe