On the way to Chattanooga we have traveled out of Tennessee, into Kentucky and Alabama, touched into Mississippi and are now back in Tennessee and have found many adventures along the way.
A few of the marinas we stayed at are actually in State Parks and have really nice facilities. Paris Landing State Park even drove us to the Lodge where there was a fancy restaurant. The Lodge maintenance man took us back to the boat, that was different.
From there we went to Birdsong Marina in Camden TN. Birdsong was definitely an “old school” marina. The docks were a little ratty and somewhat rundown, but they had a courtesy car – an old Lincoln Towncar that floated down the road and over bumps and potholes – but it got us into town for laundry and Bruce and Michael found a liquor store. Birdsong Marina is noted as the only freshwater pearl culturing farm in the US.
From Birdsong we went to Clifton Marina in Clifton TN. If Birdsong was “old school” Clifton Marina was even “older school”. The nice thing about this marina is that we were right on the outdoor cafe dock which had decent food, very friendly staff, and even karaoke that night. The really fun part is that a drunk woman knocked on our door later that night, which Michael opened and she started to chatter away. Bruce then joined in the conversation to which she asked “are you two together”. That brought laughs all around and is still the basis of many ongoing jokes. She was trying every which way to get invited on board, but failed at each attempt. I finally stuck my head out the door to stop the nonsense when she jumped back realizing she wasn’t going to get anywhere and it was suggested that she toddle on and have a good night. Jeesh!
The next morning we headed to Grand Harbor Marina in Counce, TN after going through the Pickwick Lock, one of several on this leg of the journey and all of which we will have to go through again as we travel down the Tennessee River to where we will join the Tom Bigbee River and start the journey south towards Florida.
We were at Grand Harbor over the weekend, and what a busy and bounce weekend it was with all the pontoon and fishing boats running up and down the river as fast as they could. We even had an airplane take off from the river in front of us. That’s not something we’ve seen yet.
When we left Grand Harbor we crossed over where three corners of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee come together in the middle of the river.
While in Florence Marina in Florence Alabama, another place where we had use of a courtesy car, we went to a Frank Lloyd Wright house which is now a museum. That was very interesting to see one in person as opposed to pictures or on tv.
A few days later we got into Ditto Landing in Huntsville, Alabama were we went to the US Space and Rocket Center. We had no idea that there was such an in depth space facility outside Florida and Texas as this center is. It has a huge outdoor park with all kinds of space and aircraft on exhibit as well as a giant building full of Huntsville space and rocket history. Huntsville is known as the Rocket City.
The seeds for this apple tree were flown aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour which launched on January 22, 1998 and traveled over 3.6 million miles at 18,000 MPH for 8 days, 19 hours and 48 minutes in space where it docked with the Mir Space Station. The seeds returned to Earth, landing at Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 31, 1998.
We stayed an extra night in Ditto Landing because they had their Independence Day celebration on Saturday June 29th which included fireworks.
The real fun came at the boat launch ramp after the fireworks as we watched a couple hours of boats and trailers trying to figure out how to get out of the water and onto trailers and not wreck or kill someone. That was even somewhat more entertaining than the event and fireworks!
From there we continued to travel through locks and up the Tennessee River to get into Chattanooga today. We are docked across the river to the area where there is live music and where the fireworks will be launched tomorrow night.
The weather has continued to be hot…very hot, usually into the 100’s with the hottest so far 111 and humidity in the high 60 to 70 percents. We are thankful for the availability of marinas along the way where we can plug in to run the air conditioners. Speaking of air conditioners, the one in the forward v-bunk area died about a week ago so we had to contact a marine air manufacturer in Florida and have a new one shipped to us here in Chattanooga, which Michael and Bruce just got back from picking up. The guy – Oscar – in the boat in front of us very nicely gave them a ride to the FedEx place it was shipped to to pick it up. They are now trying to figure out how to get the old one out and the new one put in it’s place under the bed of the v-bunk. That may take a while. In the meantime, Michael MacGyvered something together to keep them comfortable during these beastly hot nights.
Michael ran the vent tube to the porthole window in the 3rd bedroom to vent the excessive heat from the unit to the outside. Did I mention MacGyver?
The old one being dismantled. Note the saying on the back of Michael’s shirt. “Boats are like strippers, they only work until you quit throwing $100 bills at them”. In our case, $1000 dollar bills on this boat.
The brand new one in the box on the back deck waiting to be brought in.
And of course, not to be left out, the salon AC acted up too!!! That has been taken apart and is working…for now. We’ll see how long that lasts. At least we now have a MichaelGyver back up…
We spend our nights playing some of the many games we have on board. Stacking Chairs is one we picked up last season and although it is intended for small very young children, it really is fun. Amazingly we managed to get all the chairs stacked without tipping he tower over. We stopped after that as we didn’t want to push our luck. We seem to be pretty easy to entertain these days.
That seems to be all for now. We will be here for 2 nights then heading to Knoxville looking for the “stick in the mud” marking the headwaters of the Tennessee River. I can’t wait!! Love to all, Gina and Mike
