Today is Tuesday, October 14 and Charlie and I can't believe our trip has surpassed the two month mark already. Currently, we are cruising up the Tennessee River in northwest Alabama and are heading for a week's stay at Joe Wheeler State Park and Marina and then on to Chattanooga, TN. If you look on your road atlas, find the intersection of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee and go east just before Florence. We are not far from there. The park we are going to is located just east of Florence on Wheeler Lake.
Once we get to Joe Wheeler State Park, we look forward to several things planned. On Monday, October 20 through Thursday, October 23, we will be attending the annual fall rendezvous of our cruising association with an additional 60 some boats. There will be several sessions every morning and afternoon hosted by leading cruising authorities and authors of cruising guides and magazines in the park's lodge. All of our meals will be provided in the lodge but we will stay on our boat. The focus will be on navigation tips, rules and regulations from Joe Wheeler Park to Mobile, Alabama and then extensive sessions on Florida and the Bahamas. To see what is in store for us you can go to http://www.greatloop.com/ and click on the rendezvous information.
Before then, in the next day or two, we look forward to visiting our good friends Warren and Debbie who live about 20 miles from the Wheeler State Park on a farm (ranch!). Another thing planned is to drive home this coming weekend before the rendezvous to go to the Ohio State-MSU football game and tailgate with our other very good friends, Dave, Marcia, Jeff and Kathy, and then drive right back to the boat in Alabama! (Besides family, visiting with one's good friends tops all the activities a person can do, in our opinion! There is a saying that one's good friends become one's chosen family!) Did we mention that our nephew (actually second cousin) Patrick plays trumpet in "TGDBITWDL".
If I can, I'll go back to get everyone up to speed as of September 29. Freedom's Turn tied up at a transient dock that day for a one week stay at the Green Turtle Bay Marina in Grand Rivers, Kentucky; the town also known as the 'Village at the Land Between the Lakes.' This charming little tourist town is southeast about 20 driving miles from Paducah, Kentucky. It is noted for it's wonderful restaurant called Patti's 1880 Settlement Restaurant, the original landmark spot for the settlement of the area. They feature two pound pork chops so you know Charlie had to try one. I ordered the one pounder and we both had plenty to eat the next night as well. We "loopers" sure know how to spot the good food wherever we go.
The Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers run roughly parallel through western Kentucky. Both have had dams constructed near the village of Grand Rivers for flood control and power production. The Tennessee River was dammed to make Kentucky Lake and the Cumberland River to make Lake Barkley. A canal between the two lakes was dug at Grand Rivers, creating an island peninsula. The federal government purchased all of the land between the lakes from the canal on the north to US 79 in northern Tennessee to create "Land Between the Lakes," a 170,000 acre national recreation area. The entire area, both land and water is heavily used year round and offers a special beauty all it's own.
Green Turtle Bay Marina in Grand Rivers is a mecca for pleasure boaters to come to, meet up with and move on. Plentiful slips and services for boats and it's location near so many rivers and lakes makes it a very popular spot for "loopers" to come and recharge both their boats and themselves after the tough Mississippi River! There is a yacht club on the premises where they let transient boaters like us eat in their club restaurant, which we did. Boating is enjoyed year round here! The weather was beautiful the entire week and everywhere you looked you'd see the changing colors of Autumn. Every morning the ship's store up on a hill would play the National Anthem which was an inspiring way to start our day. The marina's several courtesy vans were available anytime to go into town for provisions or take a side trip to Paducah, Kentucky, which we did. Several of us had our picture taken at the marina's gazebo, in celebration of the "river rats" making it to Green Turtle. I asked the dock hand to take the picture with my camera and it is going to be published in a waterway guide magazine! After we posted it on the Great Loop web site, the publisher emailed Charlie to ask for permission to use it in his magazine! The photo of our boat in a slip is at Green Turtle also.
Other highlights of our visit to the area were going to Paducah, Kentucky, wonderful bike rides into town and I got my hair cut in Grand Rivers (very nice outcome to my delight). On our last night, a bunch of us went to the local playhouse and were wonderfully entertained with the play "Bus Stop," adapted from a movie from the 1950's starring Marilyn Monroe.
Paducah, Kentucky, was founded by General William Clark of Lewis and Clark. Legend has it that General Clark named the city in honor of the "Padouca" Indians, a subtribe of the Chicksaw, who lived and hunted in the area until Andrew Jackson purchased the lands between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers in 1818. The city prospered greatly with river commerce due to the great location at the site of the two rivers. We parked our van in the city's historical district downtown. Paducah has a wonderful long river flood wall with lovely hand painted murals to learn about the history of the area. There is the National Quilt Museum which brings hundreds of quilters and tourists alike from around the world into the city every April when they host their juried quilt show. It was Charlie's birthday that day and we, along with another couple who came with us, enjoyed a delicious dinner and free birthday dessert in a renovated 19th century warehouse restaurant called Max's.
Freedom's Turn left Green Turtle Bay on Monday, October 6 with five other boats to soon start cruising another river - the Tennessee. We eagerly awaited to tour Civil War battlegrounds at our next two marinas in New Johnsonville, Tennessee and near Savannah, Tennessee. The battlefields near Savannah are very famous. It is here where the battle of Shiloh took place; the biggest battle on the western front of the civil war in which there were 24,000 Union and Confederate casualties in just two days.
More on the Civil War history of this area in the next blog posting.
The biggest photo above is at anchorage in an area known as Panther Bay, just off of Kentucky Lake, after we left Green Turtle Bay heading up the Tennessee River. The map shows a bit of the area we have been talking about.
For now, hope all is well with you and yours.
Linda and Charlie
Go Green! Beat OSU!
