We left Goose Pond Colony Marina on Thursday August 29th and headed to Alred Marina in Guntersville, Alabama, where we stayed over the Labor Day weekend. Alred Marina is on Guntersville Lake which is part of the Tennessee River. The Tennessee, and even the Cumberland for that matter, have lakes that are formed between the dams. So every time you go through a lock you are in a different lake, but within the same river, I know, bizarre huh.

After the long holiday weekend of hanging by the pool and enjoying sunny days and cool evening and nights in Alred, we continued down river to a free dock in Decatur, Alabama.

Remember from last post about there being a lot of nuclear power plants along this river. Well, we passed a whole different looking nuclear power plant. It kind of looks like Lego blocks instead of the towers that usually represent nuclear plants.

The free dock in Decatur was a very nice dock that has no amenities, but it was next to a giant park that even had a self contained ice making machine. That was great as our drink cooler was getting low.

From the dock we Ubered into town, it was just toooooo hot to walk there that afternoon, though we did walk the historic downtown area.

We stopped across the street from a giant radio tower on a building in front of us. This was the original site of WMSL radio that started in 1935 and continued until 1987 when it was sold and became WAVD. In 1954 WMSL also became the Tennessee Valley’s first TV station.

While we were looking at the tower a guy came out of a store and was getting into his truck when he stopped and gave us a little insight into that radio tower. He claims that this tower was one of 4 that transmitted the first emergency call from someone to the White House to report the aliens landing as was reported from the War of the Worlds broadcast on October 30, 1938. I have no way of verifying that claim.

With a recommendation from that same guy on the street, we then proceeded to the Morgan County Archives. What a find especially since the history museum, The Old State Bank building, was closed for renovation. The Archives is rich in local history which is housed in the original Tennessee Valley Bank building. Although not primarily a museum, The Morgan County Archives was created in 1995 as a permanent repository for records pertaining to county and court records, books documenting histories of local churches, communities and schools, biographies, maps, school annuals, old directories, indexes for searching public records, cemeteries, and special historical donated collections. I love history and this place was choke-full of that.

From there we traveled to the site of the Old State Bank building which was built in 1833 as the Decatur Branch of The Bank of the State of Alabama. The bank was only profitable until 1837 and then had it’s charter revoked in 1842 and was permanently closed. In 1842 to 1901 the building was a private residence (how cool would that be), a Union Army supply depot, and the First National Bank. In 1901 it was purchased by a Doctor and in 1934 it was renovated as a museum and civic hall. It is currently closed to the public undergoing another renovation.

We are currently back at Joe Wheeler State Park Marina and this time the pool is open every day we are here so we have been taking advantage of it. We actually stayed here an extra day as the weather is still not cooperating for anchoring. Tomorrow we will be heading through the Wheeler and the Wilson Locks both of whom have the possibility of long delays due to barge traffic. In fact, another boat here with us is going through the Wheeler Lock and have spoken to the Lockmaster who told them he has a large barge packet going through and expects them to be through around 3 ish…4 hours from now.

Even more fun, we are expecting high winds with gusts 20-30 MPH tomorrow which could make locking and maybe even docking a challenge for us. The last lock was quite windy too and it took a little bit to get in, stay straight, and a couple of tries for Michael to grab a bollard to tie off on for the travel down. We were essentially bouncing around like a cork in a hot tub. Oh joy!

Tomorrow we are heading to Florence Marina in Florence, Alabama for a couple of days. From there Michael has more tourist destinations on his list, and the marina has a loaner car so that makes traveling around these cities easier.

Welp, that’s it for now as the pool is calling me. Thanks for following ‘THIS is what’ and check back in a little while. Love to all, Gina and Mike