Week 15

 

Week 15

Oct 20-26

Monday

We spent another beautiful fall day in green turtle bay, Kentucky. The temperatures were in the low 70s. It gets colder at night. We took a long scooter ride with Eddie and Karen and rode over the bridge to the island called the land between the lakes. It's a national recreation area between Barkley lake and Kentucky lake. There's lots of paths to ride around. We saw a baby bobcat. It ran and stopped right in the middle of our path. We were looking around for the momma but didn't see her. It was so nice and rejuvenating to spend several hours out in nature.



I had another kinked neck. It's so darn painful. I think I got it from jumping in the middle of the night. Our smoke detector went off. It's so loud! Kathy from Avontour lent me a cold pack. It worked wonders!

We had another fun laughter filled dinner with Pat, Liz, Kathy, and Brian.



Tuesday

We left this morning to head down the river to París landing State Park, Tennessee. We went down the Kentucky lake. About half way we crossed into Tennessee our 13th state. Kentucky lake is absolutely beautiful!! We traveled 40 nautical miles today.


After docking in a high wind, I scrubbed the port side of the boat.


We went to the lodge that is built right on the lake shore with gorgeous views for dinner. Ed had a crunch burger: bacon onion jam, Burger patty, pimiento cheese, potato chips and peanut butter, all on a bun. It sounds awful, but it's really quite good. They had many fire pits out back on a tiered terrace. We sat out there and watched the sunset.






Wednesday

We went on a hike in the Tennessee hills on a raptor trail in the state park. We wound our way around to another side of the lake. It was a beautiful hike.



We then cast off from the marina and cruised 33 nautical miles down the Tennessee river to an anchorage. We had trouble getting the anchor to catch and kept dragging. The anchor alarm kept going off but when we checked we weren't moving. Ed finally figured out the wrong GPS location for the anchor was entered. It's so disconcerting when the alarm goes off! It is a loud siren to wake and warn you of danger. Especially in these rivers with current.







Thursday

We got a late start this morning. Ed figured out we had a leak somewhere in our fresh water pipes, but it was really hard to find it. He finally located the leak in our hot water heater. We needed a hose clamp to tighten a hose on a fitting. Ed looked everywhere and couldn't find one. Since we were at anchor we didn't have a marina nearby. I just happened to text Liz because they had the same leak 2 days ago. They just happened to be 2 miles from us coming up the river and had an extra clamp. Liz tossed us a bag with several different parts in case we needed something else. We call them the floating home depot and Costco! Ed was able to get everything fixed and strainers cleaned out and we pulled up anchor at noon.




We went about 25 nautical miles to an anchorage up Lick creek, TN. We were able to set the anchor on the first try. Woot woot. We love this Tennessee river. It's absolutely beautiful. This was a great anchorage that was fairy shallow. The people who live nearby that were on their boats offered to help us in any way. They are so kind and thoughtful. We made some beautiful YouTube videos of the river and these anchorages. Be sure to watch those for much more detail. Just search @LoveMeFender on YouTube.



Friday

We continued down the Tennessee river today. While cruising I decided to try out my little hand held sewing machine. It's very small about 12" long. It's just for very small projects. I'm working on a patrioric wall hanging. For what I need it for, it worked great! It takes up little space and it's very light.




We traveled 37 nautical miles today and dropped anchor at Swallow bluff island, TN, for the night. We set the anchor and the current then dragged us about 30 feet and alarms went off and we got nervous because it was pitch dark. However, the anchor caught again and we didn't drag anymore all night. Unfortunately, Ed woke up 5 times to check the anchor position. Dragging free in a moving river would be dangerous.





Saturday

We pulled up anchor and cruised 35 nautical miles to the Pickwick Landing state park marina in Tennessee. We had to get through one lock. There were about 15 other loop boats in the lock with us. We went up more than 60 feet.


I was able to get the laundry done and we walked to the lodge and had dinner with Harald and Kathy from the cheeky Warbler.

After dinner we took a wagon ride to the scary story halloween walk in the state Park put on by the rangers. It's a cute activity the park does for kids. They had a fire going that they provided the fixings for s'mores. We then followed the lanterns on a trail to solve some mysteries. They gave each person a little baggy of candy at the end. It was really cute. Wonderful, warm fall evening stroll.








Sunday

It has been raining since 9 last night. We couldn't go to church. The only Uber driver around here is in the hospital! We are at a state park not at a town marina.

We spent the morning doing some boat projects. We've never tested the hide-a-bed so we opened it and put sheets on it. It's a really nice design. It is also comfortable!


In the afternoon a man here in Pickwick offers tours of the Shiloh Battlefield, national military park. He picked us and Harald and Kathy up at the marina in his truck and drove us all through the historic site telling us the whole history of this battle that lasted 2 days. It was imperative for the union to win because they would then have control of pittsburg landing waterways and then the railroad in Corinth Mississippi. We were right down on the border of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. This man's forefathers had fought in this war. He was just a wealth of information. He took us to his personally owned museum. He's found many objects from the war in the surrounding woods.











The tour was over 3 hours long. Then he was kind enough to offer to stop at the grocery on the way back. That was heaven sent as the grocery is pretty far away and it rained on and off all day. It would've been miserable to do it on our scooters. We were getting pretty low on food. It was a very small store, but we got enough to get by for a few days.

We watched a documentary on YouTube called Shiloh Fiery Trial. It was well done. Worth a watch. 100,000 soldiers fought for 2 days with 23746 casualties! Horrendous battle. Changed the war. "After Shiloh the south never smiled again".

See you next week.


YouTube Links:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

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