We are finally back to civilization. We were in a rather remote area for about 10 days.  We had little to no cell service at times and no internet. I will now be catching up on the blog. Enjoy

10-31-16 – 11-9-16 The Tennesse, Tombigbee, Black Warrior trek to Mobile Bay.

10-31-16 Happy Halloween!  We were at anchor and no trick or treaters.  Imagine that.  It was a travel day so not much to report.  One odd thing happened.  We came to a Railroad bridge that had to be raised for us.  Just as we were going under it Scott heard train whistles blowing.  He had a fleeting image of a train landing on us in the water.   All was well

11-1-16 Quick stop at Grand Harbor to the usual. We had a very busy 24 hours.  Scott changed the oil, replaced all the seals on the head, Laundry from 2 weeks including sheets etc. shopping etc. We spent over 3 hours at dinner with Loopers, laughing until a tear ran down our legs. (at least for us women)  We got into the Marina at noon and were underway by noon the next day. We are ready to get to saltwater.  But we have 450 miles (at 8 miles an hour) and 12 locks dropping us 381 feet to sea level before arriving in Mobile.

We traveled through the Tennessee Tombigbee Canal section in one long day. Then we did the Tombigbee River Section, which led to the Black warrior/Tombigbee  and finally into Mobile bay. Salt water.

Our last lock was the Coffeeville Lock and Dam.

 

After that dam the water starts to get brackish and we n will now be effected by tides.  That is our next learning curve. Tides.

Overall the river system was pretty with a few particularly special areas, but after close to 9 days with no marina stops it is getting a little old. We did see wild bores running along the shore as we left an anchorage early in the morning. Boy are they fast. I could barely follow them much less get a camara out. On the days we were forced to stop early due to no good anchorages, we worked on finishing waxing the rest of the boat and putting RainX on the windows etc in preparation for the harsh salt water.  Part of our boredom is, we are ready to be off the river and get to the exciting saltwater and see dolphins play in our wake etc.

 

Mark my words….we will be cursing the salt water before the end of the trip.

As we got close to Mobile Bay there is a large swampy area. It was very interesting.  We watched for Alligators and never saw one.

 

Anchoring along the river system was challenging and a little scary sometimes.  The water levels are at winter lows so we contended with shallow water getting into the anchorages. But the most amazing thing is the tiny creeks we took our 39-foot boat up.  Some creeks were only 30 feet wide.  Our boat is 14 feet wide. I would have normally been afraid to take a fishing boat up. But, we never had any problems, but believe me, we were incredibly careful.

Our last Anchorage was at Briar creek.  It was actually nice and wide and deep.  We found out that it is a hurricane hole for boats to get away from the shore. When we were pulling out the boat in front of us contacted the tow in the river to get around him and he told us that the cut into the Creek was dug during World War II. The Military would hide ships in the cut. I can’t imagine seeing a ship in that little cut.  I love tow captains that share their local knowledge with us.

Thanks for reading

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Picture of the day:

 

 

Eureka! We found it!

If you have read our blog, there was a post where we didn’t catch any fish, didn’t see and Bats, because they were hibernating and didn’t find the carving in the cliff on our way up river.  On our way down river, we went slow and were determined to find the carving which we did.  I took pictures, but Scott was uncooperative and wouldn’t scale the sheer cliff to cut down the trees so I could get all of it in the picture. I’m dying to know what the rest of it said.

After enlarging and dissecting each photo, here is what I was able to make out:

GEN ANDREW JACKSON

1813      1914

ALA    D

General Jackson died in 1878. This carving was done in 1914 to commemorate him.  This happened before the Guntersville Dam was in place. The carving is just above the now sunken Jackson’s Cave where he stored ammunition and supplies.

General Jackson was in the Guntersville area during the War of 1812. US against the British, the second war of independence. General Jackson was recruiting Cherokee Indians to help fight the Creek Indians who were helping the British. This was also known as the Creek Indian War.  Wow that is more history than what I learned in High School.  Or rather paid attention to in High School.  You do know there was Cheerleading, Football games, boys etc. that was way important than history.

We were so excited to find the carving.  Never been a history buff, you can’t help but learn something in these areas that are so rich in history.

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random picture of the day:

 

10-28  10-29 Friday and Saturday:  Tow Truck Museum, Breakfast with friends

I slept until 11. I couldn’t believe it. But It felt sooooo good. We hopped on our bikes and up the hill we go once again to get to the roads. We rode our bikes across the river on the foot bridge. It was surprising how many people walk and bike it.  We were dodging people all over the place.  The other side of the river had a small strip with unique shops. We were at the end of our budget so I didn’t even go in to get temped.  We found the Publix and packed our bike trailer with our provisions and headed back to the boat.

I needed some down time, so Scott took off on his bike to the Tow Truck Museum.  I wished I had gone, but needed to chill and not talk to anyone.  Those of you who know me, will find that unbelievable. 😉 He found the museum very interesting. Fun Fact: The tow truck was invented in Chattanooga.

It was time to start packing up for our departure in the morning.

We woke up early to meet Angela and Bob Carroll for breakfast.  We met them at the Rendezvous. They keep their boat in Chattanooga, but haven’t started their Loop yet.  We are so glad we could get together. They are really nice people and we enjoy their company. As I have said in the past, it is the people we meet that makes this trip so amazing.

We left right after breakfast and put in a long 8 hour day on the river as we head back to the TenTom (Tennessee Tombridge Waterway) to start our trek toward Mobile Alabama. The scenery has more color than on our trip to Chattanooga.

Thanks for reading. We always love to hear from you, feel free to comment. Your comments may not show up sometime for a week.   We aren’t ignoring you. It is because we don’t have internet to accept it.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Pic of the Day:

I have no idea what these are. They look like they are cement.

 

Thursday 10-27-17 The Incline Railway. We rode our legs off today.

No, we didn’t ride up the mountain, that’s just silly.  But we did decide to ride our bikes from the marina to the Incline Railway.

Chattanooga just competed the bike path to the Incline railway.  It is well done with bathrooms along the way.  All along the path there are lights and it is all professionally landscaped. They fenced in along the industrial areas.  You didn’t even realize the factories were there because they did such a nice job on the path.

 

The Incline Railway is a cable driven rail car that goes to the top of Lookout mountain.  It is the steepest railway in the US.

We were able to take our bikes on the train.

The scenery was beautiful as we climbed the mountain. At the top, we rode our bikes to see some of the old, beautiful homes.

Talk about a house with a view.  We then went to the National Park “Point Park.”

It was walking trails only. We learned more about the civil war. We were amazed that the men could get cannons up this mountain. The point is so high that they had trouble with the cannon balls rolling out when aiming down at the enemy.

 

 

This area is rich in Civil War history which is both interesting and disturbing. There was nothing “Civil” about that war.

We had lunch at yet another great restaurant.  Good thing we rode our bikes there to wear some of it off.

We had a pleasant ride back. We heard that the Hunter Museum of Art was free from 4-7 so that was next on the list. It was a long climb up the stairs to the Art District.  We got to the museum only to find out it is only every first Thursday that it was free.  We paid and did the tour.

Although it had a lot of paintings and few glass and sculpture works, we would probably not go again.  Here is the thing, our home town Grand Rapids has a city wide art show called Art Prize. It last for 2 weeks with 1500+ pieces of art.  So once again we are spoiled with the best.

As long as we made the climb to the art district, we went to dinner at Back Inn Café. Reported as the most romantic restaurant in Chattanooga. It had a beautiful view, the weather was perfect and the food amazing.  It was too dark by the time we left to view the unique architecture of the buildings in the area.  I got one picture.

Once again we were exhausted when we got back, but very fulfilled with a great day.

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Pic of the Day: