October 21-24

October 21 This is Decatur country. Decatur Alabama that is. Decatur is a large town here (50,000) people and garners almost as much news as its larger neighbor Huntsville. Judy is pictured beside the bus we took to Huntsville to the Space museum. On the River recently we passed a tow named after the city. The city was destroyed during the Civil war (in the South known as the War of Northern Aggression) by the Northerners. Decatur In and Decatur Al are named after Commodore Stephen Decatur. Anyway I digress a little to bring a bit of history. The True Value market is being held in Atlanta on October 26th and 27th. What an opportunity. The Tennessee River continues northward towards Chattanooga and Knoxville. The river scenery and beauty only gets better the farther northeast you proceed. They call it the Grand Canyon of Tennessee. Our goal is to continue up River to Chattanooga and rent a car there and travel to Atlanta where we will meet up with our Son Brian and Chris from our Store. Also a dinner is planned with our fellow former members of the Board of Directors of True Value. So on Sunday we depart for our trek up River. A beautiful day. Enjoy it-- because the rest of the week rain is predicted. Ditto Landing is our goal. Right next to Huntsville, some 50 miles away. A beautiful day. We begin to see some high hills as we approach Huntsville. The marina is nice. We meet up with Graycious, a boat we last met in South Haven Mi. Chicken on the grill was a welcome relief from all of the "buffet food" we have eaten in the last 2 weeks

October 22 As predicted a rainy day. Not as much rain as the local area needs. Almost 22" below normal rainfall. The River is quite a bit below normal level. The dockmaster wanted to put us in a dock that had 4' of clearance and our boat draws 3'10" so I said that is not enough "tolerance" so he found us another dock. The day was spent making reservations in Florida and the Bahamas and securing airline tickets for our sojourns home at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is hard to plan where you will be and at what time. That is not the purpose of the adventure. But some dates must be set in stone, so we will do our best to adhere to them. Boating is sometimes all about weather and more often than not it dictates your schedule. There are some general areas where one wants to be such as the Florida Keys and the Bahamas so those dates are also set. More on that later. Cloudy, overcast and not as much rain as predicted. High about 70 degrees

October 23. Off to Goose Pond marina. Another 50 miles away upriver. Very misty. very cloudy and not much visibility. Sometimes a light rain. The boat Carol Anne, (Carol&Lee) fellow loopers, followed us out of the Marina and we led them upriver to Goose Pond. The scenery with increasing mountain heighth is becoming spectacular in our imagination but it is hard to visualize because of all of the clouds and threat of rain. Very nice marina. Off to dinner we go with Carol & Lee after cocktails on our boat. There is a very good restaurant within walking distance and the meal and the company is very good. No fancy desserts in the last few weeks so Judy and I splurge on Key lime pie and carrot cake

October 24 50 miles is a good day of travel. Our goal today is to travel through one lock and arrive at Hales Bar Marina. 50 miles from Chattanooga. No rain and really calm until we went to dock at the Marina. Just as we arrived at the dock the winds picked up to blow us off of our dock No one was available to help us dock. We struggled but we made it. We have a 2 way radio that allows us to talk to each other to help us in the process. Really neat. Mostly we talk in a calm voice and we can hear each other in the headset Hamburgers on the grill and Judy's award winning baked bean recipe concluded the evening. Cable TV was available. A little rain and quite a bit of wind, but all is calm now. The picture is of Nickajack lock as we approached. Note the mountain in the background