Fall Rendezvous and Chattanooga Side Trip

The AGLCA (America's Great Loop Cruiser's Association), has a four-day rendezvous spring and fall each year. The fall one, is always in Rogersville, Alabama at Joe Wheeler State Park which is on Wheeler Lake, which in turn, is part of the Tennessee River. We were one of 57 boats currently doing the loop, that gathered there along with 59 "wanna-be-loopers" (those planning to do the loop someday), and 59 Gold Loopers (those who have completed the loop), some of whom were on boats and others not. Also in attendance, were many vendors interested in our business.

 

Some of the looper boats at the rendezvous

One of the rendezvous sessions

While at Joe Wheeler, for the third time on this trip, we were the univited guests a a wedding. The first was a military wedding at West Point, the second was a gay wedding in Saugatuck, MI and this, the third, was a "country" wedding. The groom and groomsmen wore vests and jeans and the bridesmaids wore cowboy boots. We heard there was line dancing at the reception and the bride also wore cowboy boots.

Country wedding

 After the rendezvous, needing to kill some time before our insurance company will allow our boat to get within 100 miles of the Gulf of Mexico, we took a side trip up the Tennessee River  to Chattanooga. It was a 380-mile, 10-day, beautiful fall trip which took us through the Tennessee River Gorge, locally known as "The Grand Canyon of Tennessee."

TN River Gorge

Painted Bluff in TN River Gorge

Camps along the TN Gorge

Just before we arrived in Chattanooga,
we passed a floating stage on a barge.
It was the  Coca-Cola floating stage, the
centerpiece for Chattanooga"s annual River

Departing a marina on a foggy morning on the way to Chattanooga

Bend Festival.

Chattanooga has done a fabulous job of tying it's waterfront to its downtown and offers loopers discounted dockage right in the heart of downtown in front of the Tennessee Aquarium.

Coca-Cola Floating Stage

Chattanooga Waterfront

Chattanooga Waterfront

Docktails Chattanooga

 We had a great time exploring this nice, small city, visiting the amazing Tennessee salt water and fresh water Aquariums, the Chattanooga  Cho Cho building (now a luxury hotel) and ate at two, New York City class restaurants.

Pete in front of one of the TN Aquarium buildings

At Aquarium

Diver at Aquarium

Aquarium Tunnel

Penguin at Aquarium

Chattanooga Cho Cho Building

We're now heading back down the Tennessee River to join the Ten Tom Waterway which will lead us eventually to Mobile.
While underway today, I carved our jack o'lantern.

Departing Chattanooga's Waterfront

Happy Holloween!

Florence, Alabama and Nashville, Tennessee

Florence, Alabama turned out to be a big surprise. It's just across the Tennessee River from the famous, Muscle Shoals, where Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Willie Nelson, the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon and many more, recorded hits. It"s also the home of Northern Alabama University, has the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in the state of Alabama and is just a few miles from Tuscumbia, Alabama, where Helen Keller was born and grew up.

Because there was so much to do there, we stayed in Florence for seven nights. The town marina had a loaner van (we had to keep putting water in the radiator, but what the heck - it was wheels!), so one day we visited the local ancient indian mound and museum, the Frank Lloyd Wright House and "Ivy Green," the house where Helen Keller was born and where Annie Sullivan taught her to read and write in braille (remember  Patty Duke and Ann Bancroft and the well?).

Indian Mound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wright House

Wright House Living Room

Helen Keller House

The Famous Well

Florence is only a 2 hour and 45 minute drive from Nashville, TN, so we, and our friends Loretta, Bob and dog, Shayna from "Carol Anne," rented a car and drove up to Nashville for a spectacular dinner at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel (which is a kind of combo Disneyland and giant conference center), followed by a show at the Grand Ole Opry. That night's show included Clint Black, Diamond Rio and Charlie Daniels.

Loretta from "Carol Anne" during our Gaylord Opryland Hotel Dinner (we hadn't had a white table cloth/candle lit dinner in a LONG time)

Inside Gigantic Gaylord Opryland Hotel

Inside Gaylord Opryland Hotel

Us in Grand Ole Opry-Appropriate Blue Jeans

4,000-Seat Grand Ole Opry Packed On a Tuesday Night

Charlie Daniels bringing down the house

While waiting for the shuttle from the restaurant to the show, I got a BIG surprise! Jack Mishler, a friend and colleague from Aetrna, whom I had not seen or talked to since 1999, walked up to me and asked if I was having a nice evening. What fun it was to catch up. He lives in Colorado now. Small world, huh?

Old Friend, Jack Mishler and Me

The next morning, after leaving the nice, dog-friendly, boutique hotel we'd found so Shayna the dog could come with us, we drove through honky tonk downtown Nashville, then onto The Natchez Trace Parkway. The Natchez race Parkway, is a 444 mile long, 80 foot wide National Park. It stretches from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, TN with no billboards, no commercial vehicles and a 50-mile per hour speed limit. It is an ancient pathway (now paved) that was first used by animals, then indians, then fur traders, then Confederate and Union soldiers and now tourists. It's a National Scenic Byway and an All-American Road (it's similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline/Drive).

Natchez Trace View

Unfortunately, because it's National Park, the Natchez Trace welcome center, the rest rooms and the Meriwether Lewis monument, were all closed (just like Shiloh ...just.love our government these days). The closed signs on all the restrooms had amusing graffiti written on them.

Look closely for the comment: "I'd like to pee in John Boehner's pocket"

The Tennessee section of the Natchez Trace Parkway, is 102 miles long and pretty much took us directly back to Florence and our boats.

Lunch at Ms Hazelbea's just off the Nachez Trace

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CHANGING THE SUBJECT

Herbs :
This is my 3rd herb garden. #1 was taken by Canadian Customs and #2 was taken by US Customs. #3 seems to be enjoying this endless summer.


Opportunistic Herons:
The Great Blue Herons at Wilson Lake Lock, are smart. They've learned to hunt when the lock is full of trapped fish. They put on a fun show for us while we were locking trough.

Look carefully and you'll see 5 hunting Herons on the lock wall

"Carol Anne" and Heron waiting to spot a trapped fish

Green Turtle Bay To Pickwick Lake

Green Turtle Bay was just what we needed after those long stressful days on the Mississippi. We stayed there five days and had a wonderful time.  Every evening, the loopers (there were about 15 of us there) all convened at the gazebo above our boats and one night, we all went to a crab and shrimp boil hosted by the resort's Yacht Club.

Gazebo "Docktails"

Crab & Shrimp Boil

One afternoon, we celebrated the renaming of one of the loopers' boats. It was a very intricate ceremony designed to please Neptune and thus ensure the boat's good fortune.

Champagne for Neptune

New Name Unveiled

Quiet evening on "Carol Anne" with Shayna the dog

Pete at bottom of Barkley Lock  near Green Turtle

Me at top of Barkley Lock

"Carol Anne" in Barkley Lock from our boat

After Green Turtle, we left the Cumberland River and made our way to the Tennessee River. Due to the fluctuation of the water level on the river, most of the houses are on stilts and the marinas float.

Marina floats up those blue poles as river rises (Humbug in background)

Stilt houses

Humbug on a "diamond day" in Tennessee \

Tennessee and the Tennessee River are really beautiful - rolling hills, lush woodlands, many large lakes. We now understand why so many people settle here after they finish the loop.

We followed the Tennessee River to Pickwick Lock and Dam which created Pickwick Lake by flooding the Tennessee River. Pickwick Dam is just one of the many TVA dams along the length of the Tennessee River.

Beautiful Pickwick Lake

A few miles down the lake, we arrived at Grand Harbor Marina where we stayed for four nights.  The dock we tied to, was in Mississippi. The end of the dock walkway where we picked up the marina loaner van, was in Tennessee and just across the channel, was Alabama.

Dinner with Hiromi and Mike at Grand Harbor

When we arrived, our friends from "Off Leash,"
Hiromi, Mike and dog, Sydney had drinks and dinner waiting for us - how nice! The next day they left and our friends on "Carol Anne," Loretta, Bob and dog Shayna, arrived to play tourist with us for the next couple of days. It's nice to have made some new pals.

Grand Harbor Marina is only about 20 miles from Shiloh Battlefield National Park, so we and "Carol Anne" had planned to spend an afternoon there. Of course, the day we were to go, our wonderful government shut down and there were barricades across all the access roads to the park.

Bob and Loretta scowling at park barricade

Fortunately for us, a ranger (who was embarrassed to be considered an "essential person" and therefore still getting paid by the government even during the shutdown), found us angrily staring at the barricade and took pity on us. He gave us a wonderful,45-minute synopsis of the battle which, he stressed, was not about Shiloh, but Corinth, a town 20 miles away where two major rail lines intersected. The Union Army wanted to advance from Shiloh to take Corinth in order to protect their supply lines.The Confederates wanted to catch the Union Army off guard in Shiloh before they got to Corinth, and drive them into the nearby swamp. They too, wanted to protect Corinth for the same supply-line reasons. During the 2-day battle, the ranger told us there were 50,000 Union soldiers and 35,000 Confederate soldiers at Shiloh.  At the end of the second day, there were more than 23,000 wounded, missing or dead. Incredible.

Our ranger angel, John

That same day, we ate lunch at the "Catfish Hotel," a local institution a few miles from the battlefield, that featured, what else? Catfish. Catfish cooked 10 different ways - whole, filet, Cajun, lemon pepper, etc., but all covered in cornmeal and deep fried. Of course, the fish was accompanied by fried green tomatoes, deep fried onion rings or fries and last but not least, hush puppies which are deep fried blobs of dough. Our digestive systems will never be the same.

 

 

 

 

Catfish Hotel and loaner van

After that light lunch, we continued our Shiloh history lesson at the Tennessee River Museum.
There we learned that the Union Navy played a big part in the battle. From steel-clad, mortor-launching barges pulled up against the Tennessee River bank at the edge of the battlefield, they  bombarded the confederate positions.  Probably the most interesting thing we learned about Shiloh, however, was the active participation of the survivors of both sides, to bring the park into existence and erect the many monuments.

In front of Tennessee River Museum

Changing the subject entirely - ASIAN CARP

In case anyone has been wondering, we saw a lot of Asian Carp jumping around us while on the Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio and Cumberland Rivers (haven't seen any on the Tennessee). One night, while anchored, there were literally, hundreds of them surfacing around our boat and while underway, we heard them continually thumping against our hull. We heard one loud thump at our bow and looked back to see that we had sliced one right in half! We didn't have any jump into our boat, but several jumped into the back of "Carol Anne" and, while taking Sydney ashore, one jumped into "Off Leash's" dingy. They make a mess - bleed all over the place, stink and can weigh up to 100 lbs. (most were about 2 ft long). One chatty tow captain told us that one of his engineers was knocked cold and had his collar bone broken by a carp. I'm glad we're out of carpland now.

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