View From The Bridge of Miss Lauren Grace

I'm sure you haven't noticed but we love the Tennessee River. We are often asked "what was your favorite out of all the places you have visited"? That is a difficult question to answer because we have different favorites for different reasons, but for shear beauty or for ease of cruising the Tennessee is definitely a favorite. Clean, deep water, little current, no tide, no salt and beautiful scenery, what's not to love. Well, OK, maybe we don't love the little spiders that attach themselves to every little corner and line when we are at a dock.

The entire 650 miles of this river from Paducah to Knoxville is pretty, but it is above when you approach the southern end of the Cumberland Plateau near Guntersville lock that the Tennessee really begins to strut her stuff. The mountains begin to rise here and it just gets better as you go along.

I thought you might enjoy a chance to ride along and see the things we see in a typical day, starting with some of the beautiful scenery.


This is Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga.

This is Painted Bluff in Nickajack Lake.

There are neat rock formations like this "bridge" where the rock below has caved in, or has it broken out?!

And "interesting" things like bat caves. I just wonder who the fence is protecting, the boaters or the bats?

The bats I suppose because this is a sanctuary for the endangered gray bat.

There are more signs than you might imagine. The one above is on I24 near Chattanooga we have driven past it so many times on trips to South Carolina & Florida; it was a kick to see it from the water!

This one is a combination of advertising and instruction.

This one below provides important information. This info is noted on our charts as well but the potential for harm is great so the in your face reminder is a good thing.

We see birds of all kinds but I gotta' tell you that it is tough to get good photos of birds with a point 'n shoot. I am usually moving and not close enough for my little 6x zoom to do the job.

I did get reasonably close to this momma Osprey and her chicks last summer.

This Blue Heron was fishing from a little Cypress tree when I snapped this shot but I couldn't capture his beautiful markings.

We see all kinds of bridges, this railroad lift bridge is not exceptional but the scenery sure is spectacular.

The bridge below is on the Little Tennessee (or Tellico Lake) and is notable for the Smokey Mountains in the background

In Chickamauga, Watts Bar, & Tellico Lakes (named for the dams which control the river and provide electricity) we saw silos in the water. They were not destroyed when the lakes were created. As you can see many of these lakes boast significant residential development.

Then there are the navigation aids which keep us in the channel and away from those silos! Here a string of red buoys and a day mark leads us around a turn in the river.

Just one of the many lock & dams that we travel through. This shot is on the low side of Ft. Louden Dam, the last dam on the Tennessee River. At the far left of the frame is the hydro-electric power plant; then you see the actual dam, the gates are closed; at the far right is the lock chamber with the gates open. The little orange pennant is on our bow as we head toward the lock.

On the upper end of the Tennessee there are mountains everywhere. This is Signal Mountain at Chattanooga.








Here you see the Decatur, Alabama waterfront. It is a very industrial area with many grain mills.

There are industrial areas all along the river because of the opportunity for easy and inexpensive transportation. Here a barge is being filled at a big facility that seems to be in the middle of nowhere.

We pass cool city views like the art museum at Chattanooga that perches on the top of the bluff as thought it is about to take flight. Actually this is three different structures all joined together during the recent construction of the modern building on the point of the bluff. I think the architecture is part of the art here.

And also pastoral country scenes like these cows grazing on a sunny hillside.

There are power plants all up and down most rivers. The TVA provided electric to much of this section of the country in the 1900's and so you will see hydro-electric plants, steam plants, and nuclear facilities. Along with the gorgeous scenery we see the stacks of the Kingston Steam Plant where the big fly ash spill occurred last winter. Some how the picture of the Kingston Plant didn't make it to the upload!


I am fascinated with the shape of the cooling towers at most of the nuclear facilities. These are at the huge Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant.

Where they generate power they need a way to carry it to the users so we see high-tension power lines crossing the river. Some, but not all, actually have a tower in the water like you see below. The concrete pylons are there to prevent (we hope) the tower from being hit by boats or barges.

Of course we see BOATS! All kinds of boats. The beautiful stern wheeler the "Delta Queen" has just been permanently moored on the Chattanooga waterfront where she is slated to become a luxury hotel and restaurant. Chattanooga is a city that really makes the most of their riverfront.

This jon boat has a diver down in the water. We know this because of the red flag which has a white band running diagonally across it that is not visible in the photo.

This strange workboat on a powered barge is one of the more unusual vessels we have seen.

Always there are towboats and barges. Just this Spring Larry began keeping a list of the names of towboats we see, since April 20, 2009 he has recorded over 139 different towboats and many of them we have seen more than once.

I like the little pontoon boat because of the big flag they are flying!

At the end of the day we enjoy quiet moments observing the wildlife and watching the sunset in peaceful anchorages. This spot is on Tellico Lake and the water really is that beautiful color.

On The Road Again........

It feels great to finally be underway again. Our stop on the Cumberland River this Spring proved to take much longer than we expected. We arrived at Eddy Creek Marina in late April just in time to catch a flight for a visit with the Idaho contingent of our family.

In most of the central part of the Country it was a rainy Spring and Kentucky was no exception. We had planned to take a short trip up the Cumberland when we returned from Boise and before the canvas maker was ready to start on our top, however those plans had to be put on hold due to flooding on the Cumberland River.

As with most "home improvement" project, the work on our new fly bridge enclosure took longer than anticipated. The end result being that we ended up staying at Eddy Creek for six weeks instead of a month. Normally this time of the year is prime cruising weather but the rainy Spring made us sort of glad to have a roof over our head, so to speak. The new fly bridge enclosure is great and we are nice and dry and have windows we can actually see out of as we continue our odyssey.



The "gowrong" fairy visited the day we departed Eddy Creek. What, you ask, is a gowrong fairy? She is the standard bearer of the old adage "Anything that can go wrong will." We were excited and ready to be underway again but the longer you are at a dock the more completely you "move in" and so we had a lot of "stuff" to put back in place aboard Lauren Grace. The morning of any departure you must unhook the electric power cords and the TV cable (if you have it) and stow those as well. Of course we are unplugging the electricity just when we want that morning coffee and tea, because our boat does not have an inverter this means we must start the generator in order to keep the coffee hot. Also about this time we shorten up the lines so that we have just the bare minimum of one or two lines holding us to the dock. Of course, if you are lucky, a couple of the local dock residents stop by the say good-bye. Sometime during this process Larry got distracted, or maybe the gowrong fairy sprinkled invisible pixie dust over them, and the power cords never got put aboard. We motored out, fat dumb and happy to have a gorgeous day ahead of us. Looking forward to a new anchorage in the Land Between the Lakes. We have about one week to get to Joe Wheeler State Park where we plan a vacation rendezvous with my sister Christina and her family, our travel time is an easy 5 days so we have two days to use for delays from weather or to play with.

About 3 1/2 hours and 30 miles later we noticed a message on Larry's phone (which was down below so we never heard ring), it was to tell us that we had left the power cords lying on the dock at the marina! To say the captain was not happy would be a colossal understatement. We turned around and made our way back about 15 miles to Green Turtle Bay, took a slip for the night, borrowed their courtesy car and drove back to Eddy Creek to retrieve the cords. The really annoying thing was that the call had come less than 20 minutes after we left the dock and we were hardly out of the creek! Trying to make lemonade, I phoned Patti's restaurant to see if we could get in for dinner - not a chance (was I really expecting any other answer)!

The next day we really did get underway and made it to Pebble Isle Marina in New Johnsonville, TN. We have been there before and really like Pebble Isle, this time we went over to check out Johnsonville State Historic Park . This is the site of a small but unique military victory for the Confederacy. In November of 1864, in an effort to disrupt Union supply lines, General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry attacked and destroyed the river port depot of Johnsonville which had been seized by Union Forces. Forrest was successful and Union losses included three gunboats, eleven transports, 18 barges and over $8 million dollars in lost supplies. The most unique thing about this battle is that it is the only record of a naval force being engaged and defeated by a cavalry force!

In Tennessee there are many things named for General Forrest, a legendary cavalry officer who joined the Confederate Army in 1861 as a 40 year old private with no military training. Promoted to brigadier general in July 1862, he showed himself a cavalry leader of genius. Forrest ravaged Grant's communications in the winter of 1862/3 and did such damage in Sherman's rear during 1864 that Sherman announced that he ‘must be hunted down and killed if it costs ten thousand lives and bankrupts the Federal treasury’.



Of all the dams that we have transited Pickwick Dam near Pickwick Tennessee has always been the one that causes us the biggest delays, we have learned to allow extra time in our day when we are traveling through here. But this trip the forces of the universe smiled on us and we actually got through with no waiting! Good thing to because it was hot as hades that day and a long hot wait would not have been fun, actually waiting is never fun but here it is particularly bad because the channel is narrow, the current is often strong, and there is very little place to get out of the way of tow traffic and the turbulence from the discharge. The picture below shows the discharge from the lock that comes out on the lower end when they are lowering the chamber.






On Pickwick Lake there is a great pizza joint close to the marina, and the marina has a courtesy car. We had planned to anchor out because last night on the hook was just beautiful, however today is bloomin' hot and we needed to stop for fuel so we decided to stay at the marina and treat ourselves to pizza. I suppose it's no comparison to Patti's but it is really great pizza and we love that too. This place is great and I wanted to include a link in case you ever find yourself in Counce, TN with a hankerin' for something other than catfish but, alas, they have no website!

Joe Wheeler Park was a familiar stop for us, we have found it is nice to return to familiar marinas because we know what to expect in the docking situation and we already have the "lay of the land" - Wheeler is no exception. In fact we choose this as the rendezvous spot because we were familiar with the amenities available there. Christina's family arranged for one of the nice new lakeside cottages where they had room to spread out. My nieces and nephew enjoyed swimming & fishing off of the cottage dock. Once again we discovered that a ride on the big boat is boring for kids but they love anchoring and swimming off of the back.

Now we are underway again and traveled with three other boats from Wheeler up to Goose Pond Colony Marina on beautiful Guntersville Lake where we holed up for the big Fourth of July weekend. When local boaters are out enjoying their weekends on the water the wake can be excessive and we usually like to stay put during that time. The bonus here was that Goose Pond Colony is owned by the city of Scottsboro, AL and they had a great municipal fireworks display that we could see (and smell) right from our dock. We hope you all had a terrific & patriotic Fourth of July where ever you celebrated.

Whew, have we been busy!

If you read the recent update you know we have been working all Spring. Some have asked to see the results of all those projects so here is a peek. Of course I can't, (or don't want to) photograph the wiring and other stuff that consumed so much of Larry's time so I'm showing off the pretty stuff that I contributed to!

New Curtains in the salon, that's boat speak for living room.

New Cushions!

Probably the most time consuming project for Theresa was the varnish work which doesn't photograph well. There isn't all that much wood; just the bottom rail that the door rests and slides on, the u-shaped top rail that holds it in place, and the vertical piece (also u-shaped) that stops and seals it. Lots of corners for varnish to run in, poor light, and a b**** to sand!

The white strip that is screwed to the newly finished wood is the glide runner that Larry fabricated out of starboard (a kind of plastic that is about the texture of a kitchen cutting board) what you don't see are the roller devices that he also fabricated that glide on the white strip and now the door, which used to bind, now opens as smooth as silk. Hooray!

The big ticket item was a new bimini top and enclosure for the fly bridge. Our bimini was very mildewed and was nearing the end of its useful life. The plastic window enclosures were way past their useful life and we are thrilled to have new windows we can see out of. This project was not much work on our part as it is beyond the scope of my sewing abilities or interests, all we had to do for this one was write a check.

The old top was cream colored and showed dirt and mildew very easily, this time we opted to go darker. Burgundy would have been nice, but with the sun beating down dark colors are very hot so we compromised and used beige Sunbrella with burgundy trim. We like the look but have already discovered that it is indeed hotter than the cream was, the good news is that the dirt does not show as easily.