Touch of Class

There is a trail system that goes from the Chickamauga dam down to the city of Chattanooga.  Here is a map of that trail

Pretty cool that the map shows the distance and everything.  Today we went from the Fishing Park down to the River Point.  There are quite a few Magnolia trees around here

Magnolia Tree

Magnolia Flower

Apparently they flower once a year around this time.

There are lots of places to sit, picnic tables, play ground equipment, drinking fountains and even some grills so you can really enjoy a day down here.  Not to mention toilets, which us old people really appreciate :).

Some of this particular trail followed along the highway, so we passed by some industries. We did see this sculpture on the way

Bicycle built for two

Not exactly sure what the “2” means????

Once the trail led us closer to the river, we followed this other trail that was more for kids, it had little educational playthings for the kids

Dragon Fly

Explanation plaque

Each little play area had a plaque like this that explained how the particular animal fit into nature.

Butterfly and Cocoon

Spider Web

Caterpillar

Ant

Gary and I enjoyed every second on them :).

There was a nice spot to look at the Tennessee river, I do believe we drove by this with our boat.

Tennessee River

There was also this bridge that went over a creek.  Hey, that guy looks familiar 🙂

Bridge over Troubled Waters

That was a nice little walk, although it did get a little steamy closer to the end, even Smokie thought so.

Smokie

We’ll try some of the other trails later and keep you informed as to what they are like.

So back to the boat we went.  Gary had a little project he wanted to complete.  He wanted to install a fresh water wash down on the rear of the boat.  We get off and on the boat here so it gets quite dirty.  So he decided to put it on the starboard wall.  Lets make sure we have everything we need

Supplies ready, Check!

First he removed the step that helps you get up on the cat walk.

Remove the step so we can work

Then he had to attach the PVC hose to the faucet and feed it down to the engine room, I even got to help!  I so love helping the Captain with his little projects :).  He then went down in the engine room

Hose going down into engine room

and hooked the PVC pipe up the fresh water system.   More black and blue marks on his arms :(.  After he was done

All done

He put the step back, making sure he gooped it up real good, attached the hose, made sure the strap holding the hose was the same color as the knob that attached the hose to the faucet.  There, ship shape.  All ready for those dirty shoes to come aboard.

I wonder what our next project will be?

 20150520

 After much pondering and research, we have completed a list of things that we want to see and do while we are here.  Today we picked this one to do as we thought it would give us some idea of other things that we might enjoy checking out.  So we are taking a tour of Chattanooga on a double Decker bus!  We arrived an hour early so we could check the area out.  These are some pictures from in front of the aquarium.

Tennessee Aquarium, River Journey, fresh water exhibit

Another front of the museum

Here is a sculpture made of rail road ties

Made of all rail road ties

That was pretty cool.

They have this river of sorts that winds around the museum,  Children of all ages were playing in it.

Fun for all ages

This is the start of the “river”.

Start of “river”

As we followed the “river” around the museum, the place was packed with school age kids enjoying an afternoon at the museum.  I guess someone got distracted and left their sandwich by the side of the “river”.

“Thanks” who ever left me their lunch 🙂

While we were waiting for our bus to arrive we were watching the people come and go.  There was a mom with 6 little kids all playing by this section.

Start of “river” where the scene of the crime took place

The youngest kid, maybe about 5, said he had to pee, his mom told him to go in the water so the kid went to the edge and started peeing in the river!  His mom yelled at him and told him to stop and come here.  So the little boy went over by his mom and peed on the side-walk!  Man!  Just think of all those people down river!  Then his older brother took a water gun, sucked water out of the “river” and started squirting his little brothers!  Ish!  I hope they shock that “river” on occasion.

Well, after all that commotion our bus finally arrived

Our Bus, Eleanor

And wouldn’t you know it…my camera died :(.  I’ll have to take the rest of the pictures with my phone.  First of all we came to find out the bus’ was named Eleanor. We were their only customers that day so we had the whole bus to ourselves.  The bus was built in 1960.  All the seats were upstairs, they had none downstairs, good thing no rain was predicted for today.

All the seats to choose from

The other passenger

The bus could of used a few more screws to hold the seats in 🙂 but the view was great.

It was a little warm in the sun when the bus wasn’t moving.  According to a temperature gauge on one of the buildings, it was 91 °.  Gary poo poohed that and said it wasn’t that hot, but it sure felt like it to me when we stopped 😦 ).

The tour lasted a little over an hour and it was a nice drive around the city of Chattanooga narrated by the bus driver whose’s name was Rufus.  One of the first things we passed was a gym there called High Point.  It apparently has a very extensive climbing wall inside, and out

Close up of outside climbing wall

Outside rock climbing wall

This is the Children’s museum,

Front of Children’s museum

looks like fun :), and from what I have seen on the commercials for it, I wish a were a kid again so I could go in there and play ;).

This is a view crossing one of the overpasses

Over pass

Pretty nice retaining walls huh?

We noticed on some of the streets they had them marked as evacuation routes.  We were wondering what that was all about as Chattanooga is not in a hurricane area.  We found out it is for the nuclear power plant!  Hopefully we won’t have to use them while we are here ;).

Here’s the front entrance of the old train station which they have converted into a hotel, this is called the Chattanooga Choo Choo

Front window of hotel

This is one place we are definitely coming back to check out.  They supposedly have train cars that they have converted into hotel rooms.  Neat!

This is what the old hotel looked like back in the day.  Today it looks like no one has touched it in 50 years.  Some of the windows are open to the elements and some are boarded up.  So sad!

Old hotel, now in tough shape

After the flood they had in 1867 where the water reached 30 feet above their normal banks, the town slowly raised their street levels 3 to 15 feet so they didn’t have to worry about flooding the town again!  This is a picture of the top of a window that used to be the first floor of the building.

Fist floor window

Rufus was very informative (too bad the ride was too bumpy to get many more pictures), there were also some low hanging trees and wires we had to duck under, but that just made the ride more fun :).

They even have the International Towing and Recovery Museum here in Chattanooga. (http://internationaltowingmuseum.org/).  We may have to check that out and send big bro some pictures.

When the ride was over we received a MoonPie (remember those from Orange Beach parade?) and a Double Cola.  We had a good time and decided this was a good first thing to visit in Chattanooga, we’d highly recommend it if you’re ever in town :).

20150514

We decided to fix our Bimini that got blown off in the storm while we were at Dog River marina.  If you recall, the canvas was in tip-top shape, but one of the rails pulled out of the roof and one of the port rails was bent a little.

😦 Poor Bimini

Gary was able to fix the rail that came out of the roof and with a little pondering

Hmmmmm, lets see…..

A little bending on this wood block

Yes, we had this in the engine room

and Gary was able to fix it right up

Looks good as new

Good as new (Thank you Mark Brown for making us such a sturdy Bimini!)

We also let Smokie take a little stroll on the “cat” walks.

Smokie dusting the cat walks

Unfortunately for him, he jumped off the boat, after repeated scoldings from us.  Naughty kitty.  Now he has lost his privileges for outside strolls.

We were able to enjoy this nice sun set at our new summer place.

Pink night, sailors delight

20150518

Today is our 2 year anniversary of living on the boat.  Time sure flies when you are having fun.  I’m happy to report that we are still married, the boat is never too small and we are still enjoying our excellent adventure!

 20150520

 After much pondering and research, we have completed a list of things that we want to see and do while we are here.  Today we picked this one to do as we thought it would give us some idea of other things that we might enjoy checking out.  So we are taking a tour of Chattanooga on a double Decker bus!  We arrived an hour early so we could check the area out.  These are some pictures from in front of the aquarium.

Tennessee Aquarium, River Journey, fresh water exhibit

Another front of the museum

Here is a sculpture made of rail road ties

Made of all rail road ties

That was pretty cool.

They have this river of sorts that winds around the museum,  Children of all ages were playing in it.

Fun for all ages

This is the start of the “river”.

Start of “river”

As we followed the “river” around the museum, the place was packed with school age kids enjoying an afternoon at the museum.  I guess someone got distracted and left their sandwich by the side of the “river”.

“Thanks” who ever left me their lunch 🙂

While we were waiting for our bus to arrive we were watching the people come and go.  There was a mom with 6 little kids all playing by this section.

Start of “river” where the scene of the crime took place

The youngest kid, maybe about 5, said he had to pee, his mom told him to go in the water so the kid went to the edge and started peeing in the river!  His mom yelled at him and told him to stop and come here.  So the little boy went over by his mom and peed on the side-walk!  Man!  Just think of all those people down river!  Then his older brother took a water gun, sucked water out of the “river” and started squirting his little brothers!  Ish!  I hope they shock that “river” on occasion.

Well, after all that commotion our bus finally arrived

Our Bus, Eleanor

And wouldn’t you know it…my camera died :(.  I’ll have to take the rest of the pictures with my phone.  First of all we came to find out the bus’ was named Eleanor. We were their only customers that day so we had the whole bus to ourselves.  The bus was built in 1960.  All the seats were upstairs, they had none downstairs, good thing no rain was predicted for today.

All the seats to choose from

The other passenger

The bus could of used a few more screws to hold the seats in 🙂 but the view was great.

It was a little warm in the sun when the bus wasn’t moving.  According to a temperature gauge on one of the buildings, it was 91 °.  Gary poo poohed that and said it wasn’t that hot, but it sure felt like it to me when we stopped 😦 ).

The tour lasted a little over an hour and it was a nice drive around the city of Chattanooga narrated by the bus driver whose’s name was Rufus.  One of the first things we passed was a gym there called High Point.  It apparently has a very extensive climbing wall inside, and out

Close up of outside climbing wall

Outside rock climbing wall

This is the Children’s museum,

Front of Children’s museum

looks like fun :), and from what I have seen on the commercials for it, I wish a were a kid again so I could go in there and play ;).

This is a view crossing one of the overpasses

Over pass

Pretty nice retaining walls huh?

We noticed on some of the streets they had them marked as evacuation routes.  We were wondering what that was all about as Chattanooga is not in a hurricane area.  We found out it is for the nuclear power plant!  Hopefully we won’t have to use them while we are here ;).

Here’s the front entrance of the old train station which they have converted into a hotel, this is called the Chattanooga Choo Choo

Front window of hotel

This is one place we are definitely coming back to check out.  They supposedly have train cars that they have converted into hotel rooms.  Neat!

This is what the old hotel looked like back in the day.  Today it looks like no one has touched it in 50 years.  Some of the windows are open to the elements and some are boarded up.  So sad!

Old hotel, now in tough shape

After the flood they had in 1867 where the water reached 30 feet above their normal banks, the town slowly raised their street levels 3 to 15 feet so they didn’t have to worry about flooding the town again!  This is a picture of the top of a window that used to be the first floor of the building.

Fist floor window

Rufus was very informative (too bad the ride was too bumpy to get many more pictures), there were also some low hanging trees and wires we had to duck under, but that just made the ride more fun :).

They even have the International Towing and Recovery Museum here in Chattanooga. (http://internationaltowingmuseum.org/).  We may have to check that out and send big bro some pictures.

When the ride was over we received a MoonPie (remember those from Orange Beach parade?) and a Double Cola.  We had a good time and decided this was a good first thing to visit in Chattanooga, we’d highly recommend it if you’re ever in town :).

We left on this our final day of travel at 7:00 A.M..  It was 60 degrees.  The cat is like

Are we there yet????

The Admiral took over the driving in the morning 

so she could take lots of pictures when we get to Chattanooga!

So as we drove we saw some more bird nests

boy these birds are lucky there are so many measuring things around for them to build nest on ;).  We have never seen so many of these measuring things before.  I guess I have to do some research to find out what they are all about.

The river is starting to narrow down some  so we can’t use the auto pilot as much.  We are still seeing some fantastic boat houses

and homes to die for

Ooh La La

one with a spiral staircase 

one with an English phone booth 

We even saw this old Chris on shore.  They must be restoring it.

Old Chris on shore

Plus we saw 3, I repeat 3, sunken boats in a relatively short period of time

Sunken boat 1

Sunken boat 2

Sunken boat 3

Keep in mind that the river is very deep, like 50 feet, so you wonder, what the heck???

There was one section where the shore was very rocky.  Every home’s yard had big boulders in them.  This house had this cool rock formation in their front yard

This rock formation is in someone’s front yard

We eventually reached the downtown area of Chattanooga.  We knew we were close to our new home.  We saw a paddle wheel boat

Show boat

The Aquarium, which we are very excited to see

Aquarium

Another museum that is on the edge of a cliff

Museum

And a cool wall by the water front

Wall

There is a bunch of stuff to explore around here and you can bet we’ll be taking lots of pictures and putting them here where you can see them.  You lucky people you :).

We passed this marina, it has this huge rock in the middle of it, how would you like to have the slip in front of it.  Kind of tricky getting out of that slip

Rock in Hale’s Bar marina

Everyone says it is not a very nice marina.  Needless to say, we didn’t stop to check it out.

We did pass this old abandoned factory, right on the water’s edge, that was right before that marina

Old Factory

And we saw an old demolished bridge where just the legs were left

Old demolished bridge

We still saw plenty of beautiful scenery before we got to our final destination

More Tennessee

Beautiful Tennessee

Plus we saw a Whitcraft which is near and dear to a few people’s hearts

Whitcraft

Then we reached our last lock, Chickamauga.  I couldn’t believe the cracks in the wall and door as we entered the lock.  And the bollard was very low and had no ears on it

Bollard at Chickamauga Lock

Gary had to make sure we didn’t move much so the rope didn’t slide off.  We hope the next time we go thru here is when we leave!  It was scary!

But we finally reached our destination of Island Cove Marina.  Closer

Island Cove 1

Closer

Island Cove 2

Closer

Island Cove 3

And here is our slip, Sanabelle #6

Our new home

It was a little warm when we landed

Hot Kitty

so warm, the cat had to lie in front of the fan.  Poor kitty!

Now we are all tied in and ready to get the boat all ship shape again.  We have met more new friendly people in just a few hours than we did at Aqua Marina for a full year.  Ooooh, we like this place :).

So, as we explore the marina and the area around here, we’ll be sure to keep you up to date.  For now, it is time for a cocktail and a good long rest :).  We hope you have enjoyed our trip from Orange Beach to Island Cove Marina.

Only 48 miles today and then we are staying at an anchorage tonight.  The river has narrowed down some and it is a little more windy (windy like wind up the watch, not windy like the wind blew my hat off 🙂 ).  We saw a tow ferry at one spot

Dirt road ferry

It was literally in the middle of no where.  Only dirt roads.  I bet his job is pretty boring, waiting for cars to come so he can ferry them across.  I wonder what he charges?  I suppose if you are in the middle of nothing, what ever he charges is worth the price.

Pretty slow day today….saw a bridge

Blue bridge

another nice view of the Tennessee 

I did see some ripples in the water at one spot, which usually means some kind of underwater obstruction, so I steered the boat around the ripples.  As I looked overboard to see what it was, it looked like a big oil slick on the bottom of the river, about the size of our boat (and no!  It wasn’t a shadow this time cause Gary saw it too 😛 ).  He was in back and noticed the disturbance in the water.  Again…..weird.

We made it to our anchorage pretty early, like about 1:00.  The cat was all, is it time to eat mom?

Got my favorite toy

So after we fed the cat, we enjoyed the view from the anchorage and had a few brews

Because we were anchoring out, Gary slept in the watch berth, and as I have complete faith in my anchor and because there were no storms, I was able to sleep in our bed.  Around midnight though I did hear a roar.  I thought it might be a tug so I got up to check it out.  It was just the trains across the river going by but as I was heading down to bed I saw this green light.  A fishing boat had put green rope lighting on the side of its hull and they were fishing with a red lighted bobber.  Cool!  I’ve never seen that before, of course I’m not usually up this late either.  Oh well.  Back to bed, daylight will come soon enough.  Nighty night!

We had another short day today, only 44 miles and one lock.  We seem to be doing a lot of short days.  That’s all right with us because we find that we’d rather get up and leave early and arrive early than to run into problems with a lock or something and have to travel at night.  We have heard nothing but horror stories about traveling at night, besides, you can’t see anything :), so what’s the fun in that?

The weather we have had so far on the trip has been super.  Low 80’s during the day, high 50’s at night and no wind.  Look at how smooth the water is

Smooth water

You can see the reflection of the shore

Water is like a mirror

Or a buoy

There is definitely some pretty scenery on the Tennessee. 

We have also noticed that people’s boat houses are very impressive

Here is a boat house 

And its house 

And of course the houses are nothing to sneeze at either.  I take pictures of what I think is a cool house 

And then down the river there is another one 

And another one

Nice light house

This Light House house was just featured on HGtv.  Apparently the owner of the home is an architect and he added the light house to his home.  The story about it was pretty cool.  And now I have a picture of it!

I saw this cave with a fence around it

Cave

Turns out it is a bat cave

Bat sanctuary

Never saw anything like that before.  There is so much to see on this river, we are really enjoying our trip.

Next thing you know we have arrived at our destination, Goose Pond Colony Marina.  This one is owed by a municipal.

Goose Pond

The women here don’t seem to friendly though, everyone we said “Hi” to just ignores us.  Well, pooh on them.  They are missing out on meeting two interesting and handsome people!  Their loss I guess, hee hee.

We have another short day today, only 57 miles and no locks.  Gary let me pull away from the dock this morning.  Bow thrust off, wheel to the right, power off.  Easy smeazy.  I did pretty good ;).  No wind or current helped too haha.

As we are traveling along we saw this big honkin ball in someone’s yard

What???

A bird’s nest

Floating nest, lucky birds

We saw a few of these as we traveled.  We figured they were some kind of measuring things and the birds just took advantage and built their nest there.

Saw another cool cave

Big cave

Another cool house

Nice house

We saw this clean up barge that we saw when we were on the Mississippi

and we saw where Meow Mix was made

An outhouse in the middle of no where

Peek-A-Boo outhouse

A tractor very close to the water’s edge and no fields in sight

Go John Deer!

Another weird measurement thing

A nuclear power plant

Power plant

With a weird thing on their chimney.  Do you think this is to keep the birds from sitting on top?  Hee hee.

Bird deterrent?

New way of fishing?

We saw these fishermen with little floaties around their boat.  The floaties are like a cut up beach noodle.  We have seen quite a few fishermen using these.  We first thought they had fishing nets hanging from them but we saw someone throw each colored foam thing out, one at a time, we think they had individual hooks on them.  I suppose with more hooks in the water it increases your chance to catch something.

We were even passed by a tow today!  We were traveling at 6.7 knots and he was traveling at 8.8 knots.  That has to be a first :).

Passed by a tow, how disgraceful!

As we were traveling by Huntsville, we heard these big sonic booms.  Gary thought it was coming from the boat, I could tell it was from shore but it reverberated through the boat.  There were 4 of them.  Scared the shit out of us every time they went off.  Turns out we were driving by an US Army Artillery installation.  That was an experience I don’t care to relive anytime soon :).

We are staying at Ditto Landing Marina tonight.  When we were checking out marinas before, this is one we looked at but no one was around to talk to.  It turned out to be a pretty nice marina.  We had 3 guys come and help us tie up.  It was a little windy but the Captain got her backed in no problem.  Later that night a small pocket trawler came in for the night

They are from WBL

Turns out they are from White Bear Lake!  Needless to say we invited them over for a couple of drinks and some dock tails.  Their boat is trailerable so they take it to certain areas of the country, drop it in the water and then take it out somewhere else.  They were heading for Nashville, opposite direction from us.  It was fun talking to them.  Their pocket boat is much too small of a pocket for me though :).  I think I may be spoiled.

So now it is off to bed, early day tomorrow.  TTFN.

We called the Wilson lock this morning by phone to see when they could get us thru, they said we should mosey on over and it should only be about 45 minutes so we left the marina and slowly made our way to the lock.  They are closing this lock from May 5^th thru June 11^th so we wanted to make it thru before the rush.   Although the lock does have an auxiliary lock, it would take a lot longer to ferry the boats thru it.  The Wilson lock has a 94 foot lift, their auxiliary one is broken down into two 60 feet locks right next to one another.

Auxiliary lock at Wilson

The way the auxiliary lock works is you go in the first one, they raise you some, then the other lock door opens, you drive into the next chamber and they raise you the rest of the way.  Sounds kind of cool actually but I wouldn’t want to be fighting the tows for the lift time.

Anyway, we started our slow approach to the lock.  Oh oh, there is a tug waiting to go thru too

Double Tow, here is last half

After we floated in front of the lock for ½ hour,

No current or wind while we floated, no engines, waiting for lock

the Lock Master told us to tie up to the auxiliary wall.

Tied to auxiliary wall to wait our turn

At 11:15 we were finally able to lock thru.  Wow!  This is big!

Entering Wilson Lock

Once we were tied up to the lock wall we were looking at the doors we’d be exiting out of

Hmmmm, no seam in this wall….

Huh, no seam in the middle, I wonder how we are going to get out of here?  They have lifted us as high as we are going to go.  Looks like the wall is going

 Going

 Gone!

A huh!  That is how we get out this.  Whew, I was getting a little worried :).  And I must say, that was the smoothest ride we have had yet in a lock.  Well done Gentlemen!

As we proceed out in the bay

Above the Damn

to the next lock we saw two boats beatin feet to the lock.  Gary and I chucked to ourselves because there were two tows waiting to go down.  Na Na Nabooboo, you’ll be sitting there for ever suckers! Haha!  Well we  were in for a surprise when the Lock Master told them to keep coming and he’d lock them right down.  Man, were they ever lucky!

As we made our way east we saw another cool house

Another cool house

A cave

Small Cave

And then this weird thing

A dog house….out here?

A dog house?  Weird, must be some kind of measuring thing or someone is really mad at their dog.

We have another lock to go thru before we stop for the day.  The Joe Wheeler lock.  We got there at 1:15 and find out we’ll have to wait 1 ½ hours before we can go thru, darn tows :(.  Luckily Gary can go on the www.activecaptain.com website thru our Garmin Blue Charts that we downloaded on our I-pad, and find us a nice place to anchor while we wait for our turn at the lock

Nice anchorage

A couple of hours later we were on our way to our next marina, Joe Wheeler State Park.

Hotel and docks

Joe Wheeler State Park

This Garmin boat followed us in,

Garmin Survey Crew boat

Kind of like the Google car I saw while we were down at Orange Beach.

This is the first place we went to where we had to remember our slip number and then go into the hotel to register.  Then the girl at the front desk handed us a kind of thick piece of paper that listed our name and the days we paid for.  She told me to put it on the clip board that was on the electric pedestal.  Clip board?  I told here there wasn’t any clip board on the electric pedestal.  She said that if there wasn’t, we could just find some place to put it so anyone who checked would see it.  So….who here knows what a clip board looks like?Clip board right?  That is what I though.  So we get back to the slip and ON the pedestal there are two clips, and that is where you are supposed to put your piece of paper.   I guess that is the southern version of a clip board.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the hotel at night

Pretty

Plus look at that moon!  You can even see the stars!

See the Man in the moon?

So after we kick some kids off the dock it is time to kick back, enjoy the evening and have some wine :).

We were able to sleep in today, we have another short day, only 43 miles and no locks.  The next lock we have to go thru, the Wilson lock, is being shut down on the 5^th so we are trying to get thru it before then.

Now that we are on the Tennessee River there will be lots of new and fun things to see.  One thing about the Tennessee river, is it is so wide and straight, we can use our auto pilot a lot while traveling east

Our old but trusty Auto Pilot

In cause you don’t know how the auto pilot works, you point your boat in a certain direction or degrees and then, in our case, you hit the “auto” button.  The auto pilot will keep you going in that direction for ever.  If the river turns or if a boat or land jumps in front of you, the auto pilot doesn’t care, it just keeps going.  So PAY ATTENTION!  And be sure to adjust your direction when the river changes course.  Plus if debris or another obstruction get in your way, you have to put the auto pilot on “standby” and drive the boat around whatever is in your way then re-position the boat again and hit the “auto” button again.  There is a “resume” button we could use which would put us back on the same course but our auto pilot is a little more temperamental.  Age does that to you ya know ;).  So, in the long run,  the auto pilot does help considerably, especially when we are driving on only one engine.

We saw a few more tows today

Tows

And yes I know that black spot is STILL on my camera.  I am going to have to get that fixed when we visit this summer :).

We also saw  this partial building in the middle of the river

Full View

One side

Steps even….someone’s house?

And the other

Gosh darn it!  It looks like I have a couple more spots on my camera lens!  Now I’ll definitely have to get this taken care of.  Can’t have shotty pictures on the Touch of Class blog.

Well back to sight-seeing.  The homes along here are crazy stupid big and beautiful

Wow! More like a castle and look at that sea wall

You can see how clean the water is

Clean water behind the boat

And the views!

View

view

view

View

We saw this bolder building

Boulder building at park

We wondered what the heck was in it

Looks like a bunch of junk

Just a bunch of junk and old trailers.  I just can’t imagine why they built that type of building here.  Pretty cool looking but just think of the man or machine power!

There was this really cool trail right along the river bank

Looks like beginning of trail

Part of trail along stone shore

I’d love to follow that trail, it looks so cool!

As we were just pulling into our destination for the night, Florence Marina,

Florence Marina

we were being followed in by

Jiggers! It’s the cops!

I thought, Oh No!  They are going to pull us over and board us, quick, hide the booze 🙂 . But really, a State Trooper boat?  Now I’ve seen everything.  All the cops have to have boats on the waterways.  I bet they fight over that job 🙂

After we tied up the boat we did some sight-seeing around the marina.  This marina is owned by the city so anybody and everybody comes over and fishes on the docks.  There is a nice park across the way and a couple of launching ramps.  We saw this boat at the gas dock.  See the addition he made to his swim platform?

Weird addition to swim platform

I guess he really wanted a boat with a cockpit :).

We had passed on going out at some of our previous stops because we wanted to eat at our new favorite Mexican restaurant, Rosies.  So after we paid for dockage we reserved the courtesy car so we could drive there.  We waited all day and finally we jumped in the car to go to dinner.  We drove to Rosies….there were no card in the log, we hoped it was because they weren’t open yet…boo hoo!  They aren’t’ open on Mondays!  Waaaaaa.  Good think they have a restaurant at the marina.  We ate there instead, was actually pretty good food but would have preferred a nice Mexican dinner :).

Then I was sitting on the boat when I saw this building go by on the river

Building floating by???

Big Honkin Building!

What the heck?  See the guy standing on the second floor?

Do they know they have a passenger?

I wonder where that is going.  That is a first for me, now I’ve seen everything.

After our lookie lu trek around the marina we have decided it is off to an early bed tonight in hopes we can get thru the Wilson lock without too much trouble tomorrow.

We left Midway marina  at 6:15 today.  It was 46°.  It keeps getting colder and colder but it certainly makes for nice sleeping weather.  We had pretty heavy fog this morning

Ooooh, spooky ooky

And had to use our radar

It didn’t last too long and we were able to move along despite it.  We blew our horn a few times incase there were some fishermen out there.  Didn’t want to accidentally run over anybody 🙂

Smokie, our good first mate, helped us watch for debris in the river

Always on watch, Mr. Smokey.  Watch out for that log Mom

Not too much debris again but we did see a dead turtle, belly up, legs spread eagle when we came out of one of the locks.  I wasn’t quick enough with the camera though, darn, what a photo-op :).

We have a short day today, only 55 miles back to where we spent last summer, the Pickwick area.   We found out the locks have special hours on the weekends, different locks ran at odd hours and the others ran at even hours.  I don’t think we have run into this before.  Luckily, the Lock Master who told us this let us thru at the wrong time.

When we neared our final destination, there were a lot more boats speeding around and you could tell the weekend was in full swing.  I did spot this truck on an island

Truck on island

Can you see him?  I wonder how he got there????

We decided to stay at a marina very close to Aqua, it is called Grand Harbor

Grand Harbor gas dock

They gave Gary crap cause he had his Aqua cap on.  I of course had on my Port of Sunnyside hat on.  I always remain true to MY roots :).

This marina is right on the channel.  Lots of actions there.  We arrived at about 2:00 so we had plenty of time to take in the fun.  Our traveling buddies from Admiral’s Choice were there too.  Apparently they arrived yesterday.  The guy in charge of the gas dock must have been bored, he kept coming over and talking to us.  Or maybe it was because we are such interesting people ;0.

We saw this UFO close to dusk

UFO

Do you see the two red lights?  It swung out real close to our boat.  By the time I got the camera it was heading back.

Owners of UFO

There is the balcony were it came from.  There is a large condo building on the shore right by the marina.  Apparently they have condos you can rent for a day, week or longer.  We did have our name in at this marina at one time, too bad they didn’t call us until 1 1/2 years later and we were heading back down to Orange Beach.  We would have loved a slip overlooking the channel, just like at Sunnyside.  We’d be able to see all the boats go by.

Of course we had to take a picture of the Touch of Class :), lookin good girl!

Tied up at Grand Harbor

We had a nice pizza for dinner and enjoyed the night.  A perfect ending to a perfect day.