October 6-7

October 6. A short jaunt today of only about 30 miles but we are traveling through 2 locks. One being the Wilson lock which is the highest lock in the Eastern states a lift of 87 feet. The picture is of Silver Foxes in the lock waiting to be raised to the top. A gentle rise we were given. It took us about 20 minutes to get to this lock from our stop at Florence the night before. At Florence we arose to a sea of bass boats. When we looked out our rear window of the boat we saw 205 bass boats waiting to blast off for the start of the third day of the bass fishing tournament. The start to the tournament was orderly. They called them to start one by one and by about 7:45 am all 205 boats had blasted off. Some upriver (the direction we were headed) and some down river. There was to be a special lockage at 8 am for the Bass boats that wanted to fish above the dam. We were traveling with Sea-Knight and we opted to leave later and lock at a later time so we wouldn't be locking with all the bass boats. We arrived at Wilson lock shortly before 9am and waited about 20 minutes before we could enter the lock to make the ascension of 87 '. A couple of hours later we arrived at Wheeler Lock. About a 25 minute wait again before we entered the lock for only a 49' lift. Almost to our planned destination, which will be the home of Silver Foxes for the next 2 weeks. A mile or so beyond Wheeler lock at MM 277 on the Tennessee River is First Creek. A short way up First Creek lies the serene Joe Wheeler State Park Marina and Lodge. It is near Rogersville Alabama on the map. Arrival time was 1pm. Our dock is not far from the Lodge and the swimming pool. There was a seafood buffet at the lodge and we participated with John & Gail from Our Time. It was okay and the price was reasonable. The lodge is very nice. Another fantastic day. The evening was concluded with drinks on the deck of Our Time. It was a Caribbean evening with the temperature in the seventies as we had drinks and then returned to our boat.

October 7--Unfortunately this is the day when Sharon & Don leave us. Their daughters are on there way to pick them up. The American Great Loop Cruisers Association Rendezvous will start October 15th. It is a gathering of loopers to get together, have fun, and learn more about the trip southward. Our planned arrival is well in advance of that date. We are going to take a sojourn to the Caribbean to attend the wedding of the daughter of our good friends Max and Judy Pasko. Nashville Tn is about 2hrs from here and we will depart from there on Tues for the Dominican Republic and return next Sunday. Another very warm but picture perfect day. I feel like the talk show host that has to describe his program each day. I am running out of adjectives to describe the weather! Don & Sharon's daughters arrived about 5 pm. They brought some needed supplies with them (again this is a dry county). In addition to the necessities they also bought a case of Soft Scrub with bleach from the True Value Store. They were puzzled as to why they brought Soft Scrub and so much! It makes a very good deck cleaner. They left shortly afterward and they were going to Nashville to spend the night before continuing on tomorrow. Judy and I had porkchops on the grill. I thought I could get the Colts game on the TV but that didn't happen. They won anyway. Here we have both cable and Direct TV. I haven't figured out how to easily move the pictures around this blog. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. The other picture is of the Lodge here at Joe Wheeler. This blog will be quiet for awhile so I will send you an email when we are up and running again.