Alabama: Goose Pond to Decatur

Day 128

NM Today: 63

NM Total: 2575 (2963 statute miles)

Locks Today: 1

Locks Total: 88

With bad weather coming over the next couple of days we decided we needed to travel as far today as possible before dark.  We set our sights on a free dock in Decatur, Alabama around 73 miles away – an ambitious goal given we had to pass through Guntersville Lock on the way.  I checked the lock queue and saw no tows at the lock and hoped it would stay that way until we could get through there.

We had clear skies and bright sun (sometimes right in our eyes) for the entire day’s ride.  We passed by familiar scenery, but where we had overcast skies going east, we had bright sunlight to enhance our photo opportunities going west.

As we approached the Guntersville lock we saw several rock formations that looked like they might be cave entrances for the gray bats I mentioned in a prior blog entry. 

Bat Cave??

When we got close to the Guntersville Lock and Dam, we called the lockmaster and found that no traffic occupied the lock and we could pass through without delay.   As we approached the lock, the doors magically began to open so we entered without delay.  Twenty minutes later we were on our way out the other side.  Shortly after we exited, we passed a tow coming upriver and were glad that we had reached the lock before he did.  Not too long after that we heard India Jayne, who was several miles behind us, call the lockmaster and be told that the lock would be ready for them also when they arrived.

Continuing west we once again passed Painted Bluff.  With the sun shining brightly the colors were much more pronounced than under cloud cover.

Painted Bluff in Sunlight

Seven hours after we left the Goose Pond marina we arrived at Decatur – home of Meow Mix!

Decatur - Homeof Meow Mix

To get to our free dock for the night we passed under two bridges – one highway bridge and one railroad bridge.  Clearance for the RR bridge is only about 9 feet, so we had to call for an opening.  As luck would have it, at the precise time we arrived, a train was going over the river.  I laughed when Clark called the bridge tender.  I told him I did not expect them to open the bridge while the tracks were in use.  The bridge tender did not respond to Clark’s call until after the train had passed and the bridge was clear; at which time, he told us that he would have the bridge up as quickly as possible for us to transit.

Bridges in Decatur, AL

Over 50 feet of clearance on the highway bridge
(not so on the railroad bridge)

Having learned about the free dock in Decatur that is used for fishing tournaments from our cruise guide, we were not quite sure where to find it.  We used the Active Captain application to find the exact spot on the river where we could find the docks.  As advertised on Active Captain, the dock is extremely long and can accommodate numerous boats.  We have no electric or water, but if we walk up into the park area nearby, we have public restrooms available for use. 

When we walked up to the restrooms, we found an historical marker explaining the origins of the area which started as Ingall’s Shipyard and is now known as Ingall’s Harbor.  Over the years it morphed from an industrial site to a fun place for festivals and fishing tournaments.

History of the Free Dock in Decatur, AL

We docked just before 6:00.  After we got the lines tied we headed up to the public restrooms.  As we exited the boat, we noticed that car after car was pulling into the parking lot near the docks.  Families emerged from the numerous vehicles with their young children dressed in costumes for Halloween.  At first I thought they were lining up for a Halloween parade, but then I realized that everyone was lined up to enter a building.  The line stretched across the parking lot and just kept growing and growing. 

After our stop at the restroom we wandered over for a look.  I asked one of the women in line with her daughter for the scoop on the event, and she filled me in.  The admission price for entry to the building was a costume and a donation of canned goods for the local food pantry.  In return the children walked through the building stopping at various stations along the way trick-or-treating for candy in a safe environment.  It was hard to tell but with the “blood donor” van out front with lights flashing requesting donations, my guess is that the event was sponsored by a first aid squad / fire department.

Two hours later, at 8:00, we walked up to the park again and found it still teaming with families of children in costume.  This time, however, the children and their parents appeared to be walking mostly in the direction of their cars.  Even so, straining to see across the parking lot, I could still see hordes of people at the Trick-or-Treat site.

Tomorrow we are heading towards Florence where we stayed on the way to Chattanooga.  Clark has friends in the area that he is trying to get to see.  We may meet them at the marina in Florence or at an anchorage nearby.  Weather is supposed to have severely deteriorated by tomorrow evening, so we will have to see which venue his friends want to use as a meeting site.  We estimate five hours of drive time for tomorrow plus two locks.  Rain is expected to start by early afternoon, so we anticipate some portion of our trip will be in wet weather.  Oh joy!  

Alabama: Chattanooga, TN to Goose Pond Resort

Day 127
NM Today: 74
NM Total: 2511
Locks Today: 1
Locks Total: 88

After I published my blog last night, Clark and I headed up to the marina restroom for one last time before calling it a night.   We heard yelling coming from the street that runs by and just down the road from the marina.  As I approached the restroom facilities, I could just make out a group of people where the road runs under the bridge.  After watching and listening for a couple of minutes I realized that what we could hear was a cheer-leading squad practicing their drills.  The time for their practice?  Just before 1:00 a.m.!  We decided they must practice under the bridge because the sound echos back as it might in a stadium. I speculated that they were from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.  I doubt high-school students would be out at midnight practicing cheers!

Obviously, while on our mini vacation in Chattanooga, we slipped back into our New Jersey habits of up until midnight and sleeping in late in the morning.  Waking up early this morning to get moving again was rough, and to make it worse, after a touch of sun yesterday afternoon, we woke yet again to rain.

We left Chattanooga today to head back to the Tenn-Tom to rejoin the Great Loop.  The trip to Chattanooga is considered a side trip.  We have been "out of the loop" since before the AGLCA Rendezvous which in and of itself was part of and an incentive for this excursion to Chattanooga.

We left the docks around 9:30 under a miserable cloud cover, but thankfully as the day progressed the fog literally lifted and let the sun shine through.

Dreary Foggy Morning

Fog Going

Going

Gone!
Fall colors appeared!

Finally Blue Sky!

We are now traveling west over the same waters we traveled earlier this month heading east, so the scenery is not new.  With a touch of sun, however, it is definitely prettier.

On the Tennessee - some folks camping off their boat

Unusual to see a Marina with Cabins on the Docks 

More Fall Colors

 I have to tell the truth in that I did not spend a lot of time actually looking at the scenery today.  I played with my phone, did some reading, defrosted the boat fridge, ...

When I was touring around yesterday, I bought a cheapo book on battles of the Civil War at the Point Park gift shop and to pass the time read some of the information out loud to Clark, so he could hear about the important battles in places we have visited like Chickamauga and Chattanooga.

While I was busy eating lunch and again not paying attention to the scenery, the Nickajack Dam came up on me suddenly.  Last I heard from Clark it was three miles away and then voila there is was!  Since I have practiced the "get the fenders and line ready" drill many times now, I was ready to secure the boat to the bollard with time to spare.  Phew!

Nickajack Dam & Lock --
open when we arrived so we pulled right in!

Highway Bridge with unique design

More Fall Colors on the Tennessee River

As soon as we docked our boat at Goose Pond Marina, I jumped off with my two bags of laundry and made a B-line to the washing machines.  I specifically requested that Clark stop here so that I could take care of the accumulating laundry.   The marina has two washers and four dryers.  When I saw that I ran back to the boat for a third load of wash - all my towels.  I had all my laundry washed, dried, and folded before dinner.  Granted dinner did not get started until 8:00 but then again Clark was not around to eat it before then anyway.

He stopped over to visit with first Pam and Kit on India Jayne whom we traveled with today, and then he walked over to visit with A Bama Dream since this is their home port.  After all the boat driving he did today, he deserved a social break.  Linda and Jess showed Clark their new camper that they plan to use to tour parts of the U.S.  They invited me to come over as well, but I was still dealing with laundry and, given the time, increasing hunger.  Instead Linda and Jess walked back with Clark to our boat, so we could at least say hello / goodbye as we go our separate ways on our adventures.

Clark pointed out that as we move along on our trip, lots of great people come into our lives only to drop out again as they arrive at the place where they started the loop so many months ago.  Many of the people we have met along the way started in the south with a heavy number starting in Florida.  It is great to keep meeting so many nice people but sad when we say farewell because they will no longer be moving along the loop with us.

We are supposed to see lots of sun tomorrow as we travel further along our path to reconnect with the Great Loop Route.  After that the prediction is for more rain.  Yech!  Betsy from Fryedaze let me know that she and Dave are currently at Ditto Landing, so Clark and I plan to stop by there tomorrow to see them.

Tennessee: Chattanooga (Day 4)

Day 126
No Boat Travel

So we woke up to more rain this morning which was disappointing as we stayed an extra day with hopes of seeing some sun.  I decided to just kick back and relax with my Kindle.  Clark on the other hand decided it was the perfect time to replace his Racor fuel filters on his engines.  Apparently neither of us felt like venturing out in the rain yet again.

At 1:00 the sun peaked out from between the clouds, and we quickly pulled ourselves together to head out for site seeing.  We had two destinations in mind - Point Park and Rock City; both are located on Lookout Mountain.  Hopeful that the cloud cover would have lifted enough to have a view from the mountain, we headed to Point Park as our first priority.  We were in luck!

View of Chattanooga from Point Park

Battle of Chattanooga Occurred Here

Entryway to Point Park
(taken from inside the grounds)

Tennessee River from Point Park

Museum at Point Park

I learned quite a bit about Chattanooga's part in the Civil War by walking around the park and reading the historical markers describing the battle grounds.  I did not realize what an important part in Sherman's march taking Chattanooga played for the Union.

After exploring Point Park, we walked to the site of the top of the Incline Railroad.  We decided not to pay the fee to ride the railroad as we had other plans that required we stay at the top of the mountain. We used the Uber app to call for a ride to Rock City.  While we waited for our ride, we climbed up to the observation deck to take a look around.

View of Incline Railroad from Top of Lookout Mountain

A couple of people recommended Rock City to me, but I had no idea what I would see when I got there.  I had the impression it was a botanical garden.  Since it is late October, I wondered what I would see and if the trip would be worth the time and money.  I am so glad that Clark talked me into going there even though it was very close to closing time.  We arrived at 4:45 and the park closes at 5:00, but closing time is when the last tourist can enter.  When we inquired they told us we had until 6:30 to view the grounds.

Rock City consists of a man-made path that winds through, over and under natural rock formations. Some displays are natural beauty, and others are clever man-made additions.

Needle's Eye Walkway went between these huge boulders
It is as tight or tighter than it looks to get through there!

Gnomes appeared in various places around the grounds
Some gnomes are 80 years old

Typical walkway through the park

Natural Beauty

Very fun swing bridge over a gorge
that bounced as we walked across.

Lover's Leap to left plus
High Falls 

Two trails weave through Rock City park - the red trail and the yellow - each with the option to listen to an audio tour via cell phone while walking the grounds.  Close to where they come together, an observation area provides a view of seven states.  Each state that can be seen from the lookout is represented by a flag and a description of when it became a state.

Looking out over SC, GA, AL

State Flags at Rock City Lookout point

After the gorgeous view of the seven states, we took the yellow trail to complete our tour of the area. Because of the size of his backpack, filled with our coats, Clark had more trouble with "Fat Man Squeeze" than I did.  As I wiggled my way between the almost touching rocks, I wondered how on earth anyone actually laid the stone walkway between them!

Fat Man Squeeze ...
and I thought the Needle's Eye was skinny!

Clark struggled to get through here
while wearing his backpack

 The rock formations came in all sorts of shapes including a balanced 1000 ton rock.

Balanced Rock Formation

As we walked the pathways and wiggled through tight quarters, we found various displays interspersed around the park.  We saw the gnomes like those mentioned earlier, a deer feeding area, and several displays designed to please the child in each of us.

Hiding in a corner we found a
Moonshine Still with Gnomes

An entire section is dedicated to Fairy Tales

Cinderella Display in Fairy Tale Land

Snow White

Name a fairy tale and they had a display for it including all the nursery rhymes I heard as a child in a display entitled "Mother Goose Village".  A sign posted here said that the display took six years to complete.

Mother Goose Village

Jack and Jill and Wee Willie Winkie

Humpty Dumpty

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

We completed the Rock City tour by 5:45 - just one hour after we started, so we exited the park well before our 6:30 deadline.  We called for an Uber ride back to town with Publix as our target to buy some groceries before heading back to the boat.  We figured we could walk back to the boat from there.  When we left Publix, we had a full backpack and two bags full of goodies to carry back to the boat - a distance of something close to two miles.

As we walked over the Market Street bridge, Clark captured some night shots of the city.

Chattanooga at Night
Blue Lights are the Aquarium

So, after a soggy start to the day, we managed to fit in a great deal of site seeing.  My Fitbit boasted over 17,000 steps and about 8 miles traveled this afternoon and evening.  We leave here tomorrow morning, so Clark says tomorrow my step count will be a lot lower!

Tennessee: Chattanooga (Day 3)

Day 125

Rain rain - go away!!

We had another wet and soggy day in Chattanooga, so we decided that today would be our trip to see the Tennessee Aquarium that we had heard was a "not to miss" attraction.  We visited both the fresh water and the salt water exhibit buildings today.  The layout of the exhibits promotes good traffic flow of folks walking through the building which I greatly appreciated.  I am not a crowd lover at all.

The first exhibit we visited made me think of my friends on the motor vessel Sea Horse.

Sea Horse Exhibit as Tennessee Aquarium

I told Clark not to bother taking photos of the fish in the tanks as the last ones he took at the Chicago Aquarium mostly came out unusable.  Even though we do not have a lot of pictures to prove it, we really did enjoy the fresh water exhibits.  A few days back, at one of the marinas we visited, I met a woman fishing for bluegills with her aged father.  I saw several bluegills at the aquarium and was interested to see what she had been fishing for.  Besides lots of fish and some seahorses, we saw snakes, turtles and various and sundry other river-dwelling creatures like alligators. We reached the end of the fresh water exhibits around 1:30.

Since it continued to rain, we found a bench inside the aquarium and sat down to eat the lunch I had brought for us.  I do not know which felt better - eating or sitting down for ten minutes.  (The jury is still out on that one.)  Immediately after eating we walked over to the Salt Water exhibits building for our second excursion of the day.

First we walked through a tropical setup with a couple of Macaws on display.  They posed very nicely for Clark to take their picture.

Macaws at Aquarium

Near the beginning of the exhibit route in this building we found the butterfly garden full of butterflies flitting from one flower to another.  I have never experienced anything like it.  When we entered the room, we were given a colored 'cheat sheet' card showing the varieties of butterflies contained within the garden.  I had great difficulty matching the actual butterflies I saw to the pictures on the card.

Double-door room so that butterflies cannot escape

The butterflies have no fear of the people visiting them.  They swooped this way and that as they traveled from one flower to another.  Sometimes they even landed on the people in the room.

This Blue Morpho landed on a girl's finger
and she walked around the room with it.

When we exited the Butterfly Garden exhibit, we once again passed through double doors with a chamber in between where we were checked to verify we had no butterfly hitchhikers attached to our clothes or bags.

On our trip through the salt water aquarium we saw playful otters and an all-time favorite - penguins! Two varieties of penguins shared the same display area.  The macaroni variety made me think of the Yankee Doodle song -- "... stuck a feather in his cap And called it macaroni. ..."  I guess I was not far off the mark as Wikipedia says that the penguins were named macaroni due to their "excessive ornamentation" of feathery crests on their heads.

During our time at the penguin exhibit, a presentation provided various interesting facts about these penguins.  For example, even though the natural habitat for the penguins is salt water, the tank for this exhibit contained fresh water as penguins happily survive in either.

Gentoo Penguins

Macaroni Penguin

Since I told Clark not to bother trying to photograph the creatures floating in the water-filled glass display cases, we do not have pictures of another display I found fascinating.  An entire room was dedicated to jellyfish.  Now I hate swimming with jellyfish, but when contained in display cases with glass between me and them, they are quite amazing creatures to observe.  The gorgeous display of hand-blown glass blown to resemble jellyfish made me interested in visiting the Hunter Museum of American Art located just down the street from the Aquarium since that museum had provided the glass jellyfish on display.

Following our visit to the aquarium, we decided to look for a way to keep me dry.  My all-weather jacket seems to have lost its ability to repel water.  We asked in a surf and snow shop near the aquarium where we might buy water-proofing spray and were directed across the Market Street bridge to Rock City outfitters.  We trekked over there and found the store and bought the spray.  It is a procedure to treat the jacket, so it will not help me tomorrow (yes, more rain forecast).  I will treat it outdoors on the next sunny day when I can hang it outside to dry.

When we received the recommendation for Rock City, we were told to visit the antique store next door.  I have no need for antiques on the boat, but the building itself was interesting from a historical point of view.  The antique store building was once upon a time a knitting mill.

Knitting Mill Antiques

The building still showed signs of its prior use with pulley wheels running along the ceiling obviously left over from when it was used as a knitting mill.

Remnants from the Knitting Mill

The size of the store was impressive.  Several aisles of antique stalls ran the length of the building.

Looking down the length of the building
to see antique booth after booth

After our quick inspection of the antique store, we decided to walk back to the boat via the Walnut Street pedestrian bridge.  On our way we passed by this guy busy fiddling by the sidewalk.

Fiddler Statue on the North Shore

 Before crossing the bridge I spotted the Clumpies ice cream store and jumped at the opportunity to get a treat, a drink, and most importantly a seat for a few minutes.

We walked across the pedestrian bridge as planned and saw some folks who seemed to not care in the least that the weather was dismal.  A runner ran past us dressed in nothing but his running shorts.  I found this rather amazing since I felt chilly with layers of shirts and jackets.  We also saw three sculling boats as they passed under the bridge.

Sculling Boats out in the rainy weather

As we crossed the bridge we looked down on the boats along the shore.  Way back behind the big, big boat named the Southern Belle we could just manage to see our own boat.  Closer to the Walnut Street bridge we could easily see three looper boats - Yolo, rPad, and India Jayne.  We have never met the owners of Yolo but their home port is shown on the boat as Virginia.

Boats on the Chattanooga shoreline 

With the walk to the aquarium, then through all the displays in the aquarium, then over the Market Street bridge to shop in the North Shore, then back towards the boat, and all the stops in between, my Fitbit said I had walked some 15000 steps and around 7 miles so far today.  The ice cream break had helped, but my feet hurt and I was definitely dragging my body.

On our travels we found a Publix and bought some fresh vegetables, so before we could meet our friends on rPAD for dinner tonight as planned, we had to walk back to our boat to put the veggies away and then walk back to the aquarium to meet them.  Connie and I both quickly vetoed Clark's suggestion for a restaurant that required a long walk to get there, so we found something more local. Someone at the Erwin Marina where we are staying recommended the Bluewater Grille.  We ate there and found it to be a lovely seafood restaurant where we all found yummy selections for dinner.

When I checked my Fitbit at the end of the day, I had a count of over 19,000 steps for today's count. That is almost two-days goals met in just one day.  I wish I could save up 9000 of those for some other day when my step count will be low from being on the boat all day.