So we had a great time at the AGLCA Fall Rendezvous. Met so many other couples both underway and in the planning mode. There were about 70 boats at the marina and a total of 260 participants in the rendezvous. Sum Escape front and center...
An evening sing along.....
On Wed we visited Rogersville on a free shuttle arranged by the Chamber of Commerce to get folks into town. A great way to get a few groceries and the lay of the land there. One knows they are in the South Bible Belt when the 10 Commandments are on a marker in the city park!
On Thursday night Shaun McKenna drove over to have dinner with us in town. It was fun to spend some time with Shaun and learn about his jobs/business, house and activities in general. Thanks for sharing some time with us Shaun.
We also got to tour a lot of cool boats at the rendezvous. There are so many different kinds of boats doing the Loop! It was fun to see all the variety. Kind of a free boat show without the sales pitches!
A number of boats are doing the 500 mile plus side trip up the Tennessee as we are. We left early Sunday morning and went through one lock to Ditto Landing Marina which also had a campground on site. It was a very nice stop and we got in early enough to watch the Lions and Bears game with Carey and Nancy (bears fans) from LeeLoo. About time the Lions won a game...sorry about that Jim K. Oh and sorry about the Cubs too...
The river gets more and more beautiful the further upstream we get. Monday night we stayed at Goose Pond Marina in Scottsboro, AL. AJ from Gimme Time was our courtesy van driver and took 3 trips shuttling 16 of us to and from the marina to an Italian restaurant , Stevarino's, where they even had Yeungling on tap! Thanks AJ!! Goose Pond had $2.25 diesel and if you bought 200 gallons the slip was free. So we took advantage of that great deal. Also got a couple loads of laundry done after dinner as the laundry room was open...go figure!
Leaving Goose Pond...
Tuesday brought one more lock and a beautiful anchorage at Cedar Creek. We shared the anchorage with Carey and Nancy from LeeLoo. Took a nice dinghy ride around the anchorage. We think we found the famous bat cave but Julie's research on them suggested that they move on in early Oct. so we must have been a week or two late to see the show. We then grilled and shared dinner aboard Sum Escape. The Hearts game after was a great night cap.
Wednesday we travelled to the docks right downtown Chattanooga in front of the aquarium. Went out for dinner with Ralph and Linda (Mazel Tug) and Carey and Nancy at Hennen's steakhouse.... what a great meal!
On Thursday we went to the Chattanooga aquarium. Wow! It is a fantastic place. They have a fresh water (mostly river fish and wildlife) and a salt water building. They have some of the largest species of fresh water fish in captivity...sturgeon and huge river fish from S America, Africa and Australia among others. Unbelievable exhibit. They even have numerous large shark swimming around with divers in one exhibit. As I understand it, all the money for all this came from the families that started Coca-Cola bottling in Chattanooga. It is a very, very impressive downtown area.
We also got haircuts/styling etc today. We miss you Nancy L!!!
Hal the AGLCA harbor host was awesome. He took me to buy oil for an oil change and was successful in convincing the marina to extend our stay a day until Sat. He is also coming to pick up the drain oil from Tom's oil change activity on Thurs night. Tom could not stand paying over $600 in labor for 3 hours of work so Thursday night was spent in the engine room.
Friday we broke out the folding bikes and travelled along the river to the Chickamauga dam and Lock.
This was a round trip of about 15 miles and we also had lunch along the way at the Boathouse restaurant...very good!! We were originally planning to continue upstream through this lock and others to the Little Tennessee but time is growing slim to make Tampa by Dec 13 with a trip home for a week or so for Thanksgiving. So we intend to turn back downstream on Sat. Additionally, we walked to Walgreens and Publix and it was just too much for me combined with the "yoga" in the engine room on Thurs. night. I had ice on the knee for a while before dinner Fri night...
We went to dinner with Richard and Kat from Katt in the Hat. We had first met them in S Haven the first day of our adventure! We have seen them off and on as we travelled but this is the first time we had a chance to spend time with them over a great dinner. And we should mention they are Gold Loopers, having completed the Loop recently. Congrats!! We went to 212 Market restaurant. They had oodles of choices for GF, vegetarian as well as a great menu overall. A wonderful dinner.
We are very impressed with Chattanooga. Their downtown, outdoor green spaces, restaurants, condos, cost of living, availability of awesome boating destinations and cruising grounds, etc all suggest we may have to further check it out in a couple years. And the Looper rate of 75 cents a foot was the cheapest dock fees yet!
Our only regret was that we missed our Gold Looper friends Susie and Jeff Parker from Idyll Time as they were on IT cruising the East coast down toward Florida for the winter. They were coming home in a few days but as we said earlier, we had to turn back downstream so we missed them. They were a big influence on our decision to do the Loop after we met them in Grand Haven when they were on the Loop about 5 years ago. They graciously gave us a wonderful tour of their Kadey Krogen 49 and shared their thoughts on the Loop and retirement and cruising in general. Oh, and I should mention they are divers for the aquarium...too bad they were not in the tank when we went to the exhibit.
On Sat we left first light to get ahead of 300+ paddle boarders that were going to race downstream from Chattanooga to the Nickajack dam starting at 8AM. With a 7:54 AM sunrise we just beat them out of town. A beautiful morning to cruise though.
And you too can take a cruise on the Tennessee...
We stopped an the Raccoon Creek anchorage. It was about 3/4 of a mile back through a narrow but well marked channel to a very large body of water. We found some 5' depths partway in (as the Active Captain posting suggested) but then anchored in about 10' of water. A beautiful spot with lots of wildlife. There was a huge mansion with a gazebo far atop the hill that was lit up like a Christmas tree after dark. Wow, they must have quite the view of things from up there! No cell service down at the anchorage, but satellite TV worked fine to watch the Michigan State football game!
Sunday we travelled back to Ditto Landing marina. We decided that with a couple days of rain expected, we could rent a car and go to the Huntsville space and rocket exhibit. So that is the plan for Mon, Tues will likely be boat chores and laundry and we'll hit the water again on Wed. So we should be back to our starting point at the head of the Tenn-Tom (mile 215 on the Tennessee....Chattanooga was 464 so our little side trip was over 500 miles) and getting ready to head south by Thurs or Friday.
Probably won't be posting for a few days again. Thanks for following our adventure! We are really settling in to the travelling and site seeing. This is an awesome way to see our great country!
2 comments:
Wow you have a busy life. Safe travels!!
Keith
Really enjoying the travel updates. Seems like busy schedules especially when you toss in a repair here and there. Wishing you good weather, ahead of schedule progress and safe travels. Jeff
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