Joe Wheeler State Park

Welcome to the AGLCA Fall Rendezvous at Joe Wheeler State Park in Rogersville, Alabama.

We spent four fabulous days meeting new cruisers, reconnecting with old friends and having wonderful meals in a setting that is right out of a magazine. What a terrific time of year to appreciate nature in all her glory.

Joe Wheeler State Park, located on Wheeler Lake, offers something for everyone; a resort lodge, a restaurant, cabins, camping, fishing, golf, tennis, swimming, convention/banquet facilities, transient slips and a marina.

We pulled into the marina on Saturday with 60 other boats that are doing the Great Loop.

Many of us started on the east coast and have been traveling for many months. I was surprised at how many new loopers there were that recently started anywhere from Canada, Lake Michigan, and cities south of Chicago.

This was the group at the Spring Rendezvous 7 months ago in Norfolk.

 

The group now looks as if it has doubled in size.

We had seminars each day, covering future routes and places to visit along the way. There were life raft demonstrations, information on marine electronics and even cooking aboard your boat.

We ate huge buffet meals with our friends, Mike, Gay, Anita, and Don.

And had many evening get-togethers on the dock.

 

 

 We finished the weekend with a long walk around the park.

 

As Sammy discovered the ducks.

Who me?
 

 

The rendezvous ended on Wednesday and many loopers left this morning towards Chattanooga or Mobile.

 

 

But our thoughts are with our friends and family in Miami, as a hurricane bears down on Florida and the beautiful east coast of the U.S. that we just traveled through.

The Tennessee River

The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River.

From Knoxville, it flows southwest through East Tennessee toward Chattanooga before crossing into Alabama.

It loops through northern Alabama and eventually forms a small part of the state's border with Mississippi, before returning to Tennessee.

The final part of the Tennessee's run is in Kentucky. It then flows into the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky.

Just past Paducah, we enter the Florence Harbor Marina. Florence and the Shoals has a population of over 140,000 and offers the experience of a small Southern town, including a generous helping of Southern hospitality, with all the amenities of a large city.

 

We wake up in the morning, and to our surprise, there are over 140 bass boats waiting for a fishing tournament to start on the river.

It was an amazing sight as they headed out into the dawn for a day of excitement and hopes of the grand prize: a truck, a trailer, and a boat. What a great place!

This is a photo of the Wilson Lock and Dam, our next destination on the Tennessee River. The main Lock at Wilson Dam is 110 feet wide by 600 feet  long. The lock lift is 94 feet. It is the highest single lift lock east of the Rocky Mountains. The cost to build the dam was almost $47 million in 1924. Over 3,700 vessels pass through Wilson Dam's locks each year.  The dam was declared a National Historic Landmark on November 13, 1966. This picture was taken from the top of the Marriot 360 rotating restaurant in Florence.

The steaks were great and the view spectacular!

 

 

Going up 94 feet!

 

 

Just another day for Sammy.

 

 

As we enter Wilson Lake, the high price of real estate is apparent.

 

 

 

 

Wilson Lake, on the Tennessee River, in Alabama.

 

 

Grand Rivers, Kentucky

Welcome to Grand Rivers, Kentucky "The Village Between the Lakes."
 

Grand Rivers is West Kentucky ’s premier waterfront resort community and the heart of the lakes area. With two of Kentucky Lake region's finest resort marinas – one on each lake – Grand Rivers’ resorts offer waterfront cottages and condos and unlimited access to water recreation. We pulled into Green Turtle Bay Marina in grand style.

 

 

Green Turtle Bay has a health and fitness center, heated swimming pool, and spa. There are playgrounds, tennis courts, walking trails, beach, rentable golf carts and courtesy vans at our disposal. 

 

 

Green Turtle Bay has a private yacht club that welcomes visiting boaters to an excellent restaurant and live entertainment.

 

 

We had a memorable dinner overlooking the marina and lake with our friends, Sue and Jeff. There is also a bayside grill open for breakfast and lunch. I think I'm in Heaven.

 

 

Much more than just a summer lake destination, Grand Rivers offers radiant spring color, gorgeous fall foliage, special events throughout the year.

 

 

Try to catch four running deer on a camera. You can't see them in this picture, but they made my day.

 

Connecting the two lakes and the two marinas is the heart of Grand Rivers with the nostalgic Main Street feel of simpler times. Grand Rivers offers shopping from antiques to boutiques and small eateries.

Grand Rivers is made complete with the award winning Patti’s 1880’s Settlement and Restaurant. There is truly a homegrown family history, which started with Patti's Ice Cream Parlor in the spring of 1977. It was housed in a small motel that the family bought and added a livingroom to, which was the first and only diningroom the first year.

The restaurant named "Mr. Bill's" expanded into multiple rooms with wood and brick and twinkling lights. It offers a family experience with an old fashioned feel, beautiful gardens, and good food.

 As we wait to be seated, I was surprised to find such a kitchy, famous restaurant in a very small town. This was the big deal in town!

Patti's Restaurant offers Award Winning Casually Elegant Dining.

Patti's menu includes their famous two inch thick pork chop, flower pot bread and heavenly deserts; as well as wonderful steaks, chicken and seafood dishes.

The flower pot bread is really baked in a flower pot and it was soft and fluffy inside. It was very good.

And of course Patti's is know for their pecan and mile-high meringue pies. Did we eat everything? You betcha.

Always, expect the unexpected.

The Mississippi

A clear channel is needed for the barges and other vessels that make the  Mississippi one of the great commercial waterways of the world. The task of maintaining a navigation channel is the responsibility of the the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which was established in 1802. Earlier projects began as early as 1829 to remove snags, close off secondary channels and excavate rocks and sandbars.

The towboats run day and night on the Mississippi and we definitely want to stay out of their way.

Steamboats entered trade in the 1820s, so the period 1830 – 1850 became the golden age of steamboats. As there were few roads or rails in the lands of the Louisiana Purchase, river traffic was an ideal solution. Cotton, timber and food came down the river, as did Appalachian coal. The port of New Orleans boomed as it was the trans-shipment point to deep sea ocean vessels. As a result, the image of the twin stacked, wedding cake Mississippi steamer entered into American mythology.

Unfortunately, now there are many cheap imitations of true paddle boats used today for tourists.

The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi was built in 1856. It spanned the river between the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois and Davenport, Iowa. Steamboat captains of the day, fearful of competition from the railroads, considered the new bridge "a hazard to navigation". Two weeks after the bridge opened, the steamboat Effie Afton rammed part of the bridge, catching it on fire. Legal proceedings ensued, with Abraham Lincoln defending the railroad. The lawsuit went to the United States Supreme Court and was eventually ruled in favor of the railroad.
 

Mississippi bridges have notable engineering and landmark significance. No highway or railroad tunnels cross under the Mississippi River.

A series of 29 locks and dams on the upper Mississippi, most of which were built in the 1930s, is designed primarily to maintain a 9 foot deep channel for commercial barge traffic. The lakes formed are also used for recreational boating and fishing. The dams make the river deeper and wider but do not stop it. No flood control is intended. During periods of high flow, the gates, some of which are submersible, are completely opened and the dams simply cease to function. Below St. Louis, the Mississippi is relatively free-flowing, although it is constrained by numerous levees and directed by numerous wing dams.

A draught this year on the Mississippi, has the river level 8-10 feet lower than normal. Barges go aground and boats like us can't get into marinas.
Sedimentation and erosion patterns can quickly change the Mississippi, including development of a new river channel and delta, as well as a new pattern of floodplains, natural levees, and back swamps. Changes to salinity of coastal waters would affect marine life, fisheries, beaches, and coastal marshes. The abandoned river channel would eventually fill and re-vegetate, probably with a major influx of invasive non-native species. On the other hand, the low-lying outer parts of the present delta, lacking replenishment, would mostly soon erode away. On the other hand, if the country has a cold winter with plenty of snow, it will eventually get to the Mississippi.

Hoppies Marina, at Mile Marker 158.5 on the Mississippi River in Kimmswick, Missouri, is an important, strategic and essential stop for us and all boaters heading South, because it is the last marina and the last consistently available fuel stop on the Upper Mississippi River. It is another 250 miles and 3 locks to Green Turtle Bay Marina, in Grand Rivers, Kentucky.

 

The owners of Hoppies Marina, Charles "Hoppie" and Fern Hopkins. We refer to them as the "Guardians" of the River, because they have helped us and numerous other boaters make the trip safely down the rivers. Fern's sessions on the latest River information and conditions are well known and extremely valuable. Her knowledge of the River after 50 years of experience is remarkable and extensive. Hoppies has been in business for 77 years; it may even be the oldest marina still operating on the rivers. It was started by Hoppies' Father, who along with his son, was a lamplighter on the Mississippi River. Hoppie and Fern have operated the marina for 38 years, and they are both in their 70's.

 

 

We were tied up fixing dinner, after having talked with Fern outside with our friends Jeff and Sue on the boat Idyll Time, and all of a sudden, Fern comes over yelling, get off the the docks. A towboat going up the river had lost 3 barges full of coal heading straight for us. We started the engines, dropped the lines and pushed out into the river. Hoppie comes running down the hill and jumps into a john boat to push the barges away from the marina. It was pretty exciting. The barges missed the marina and went sliding south down the river by themselves, eventually being picked up by towboats later in the night. We left in the morning.

We had three day of anchoring with our friends. We weathered a storm at Rockwood Island Towhead.

We are barely off the side of the river at Angelo Towhead.

 

 

This is Cumberland Towhead and we weathered another storm there.

 

 

Needless to say, we have made it through the Mississippi safely and we are on Kentucky Lake.