Everybody talks about it...

..no one does a thing about it. About what? The weather! This was an old jingle that a TV station used to market their weather segment when I was a teenager. Sort of like death & taxes the weather is an issue everyone is required to deal with on a fairly regular basis. It is just when things are going well, the sky is blue and the sun shining we tend to forget that it is "weather" and take it for granted, or at least I do. On those days I tend to take an attitude that is something like "yes, this is the way things were meant to be"! I love the sunshine and the rain that we have been experiencing the last month is getting me down, not to mention slowing us down.

As you might expect, given our lifestyle, the weather governs our day to day life in a fairly big way. For one thing we are outdoors quite a lot; I mean taking the trash out is not just a trip to the garage to drop the bag in the trash can it may mean a half-block walk, or at the extreme a half mile dinghy ride, to put the bag in a dumpster. It's no fun to schlep dirty cloths to the laundry room in the rain, and it is even worse to have it rain on nice freshly laundered sheets & towels.

Then there is the schedule. As you may have surmised we don't usually have a very rigid schedule but even our loose timing is affected by a month of rain, and it is not fun traveling in rain. Yes when we are operating the boat we are inside a covered enclosure but then there is the matter of transiting locks, at which time I have to leave that nice dry enclosure and go out into the rain and catch the bollard and tend the line. Generally on the river there is at least one lock each day and sometimes as many as 4 or five. There is also the matter of docking or anchoring, the big difference between the two is whether it's Larry or I who gets wet; if we are docking I am out handling the lines, if we are anchoring he is out setting the hook or raising it. Not only are thunderstorms no fun they are also potentially dangerous so we do our best to avoid them.

Our plan, such as it was, anticipated the customary nice warm mid-South September with generally clear dry days and cool evenings (good sleeping weather). It was our intent to use this lovely month to sample the beautiful anchorages On Watt's Bar and Guntersville Lake, if you have been checking in you already know how the September plan failed. We had also decided that if the hurricane situation allowed we would plan to arrive in Mobile on Halloween, thus avoiding the potential for frosty weather that can occur by mid-November in lower Mississippi & Alabama. This schedule would allow us time to spend a week in early October anchoring on Bay Springs Lake with a stop to check out the "waterfall anchorage" on Pickwick Lake as we went by.

We have wanted to try this anchorage for a couple of years and every time we go past there has been a reason that we can't/don't stop, this trip was no different. We had run in overcast weather through two locks that day and the forecast was for thunderstorms overnight, feeling that the waterfall anchorage would not afford adequate protection from the expected thunderstorms we found a different anchorage and hunkered down. It did indeed storm but we were protected on three sides by rock cliffs covered with trees so all we got was rain and a spectacular light show courtesy of Mother Nature.

The next day was bright and sunny as we left the Tennessee River astern and pointed our bow Southward on the Tenn-Tom Waterway to Bay Springs Lake. The forecast was for rain the following day and then a glorious stretch of fall weather. That forecast lasted for about a day. The rain arrived, on schedule, the day after we did it just never left. We stayed at Bay Springs 5 days and it rained 4 of them. We finally left and went to a marina near Fulton to visit friends who have bought a home there. We were lucky to make it through all 3 locks and get docked before the skies opened up and it poured rain for 12 hours.

As you might expect given the amount of rain the region has experienced in the past six weeks the ground is saturated so now the Tombigbee part of the Tenn-Tom is flooding (which you expect in the Spring but not in the fall). After 3 days in Fulton we made our way as far as Columbus where we will wait for the water to recede and the debris and trash to float on downstream and watch for a good opportunity to continue down to Mobile. We spent part of last winter here and coming back reminded us how much we missed the people here, the marina manager & staff just can't do enough for you.

Today the sun finally came out, first time we have seen it in over a week. The downside to that is that the strong and windy cold front which pushed out the rain also brought a chance of frost here tomorrow - so much for avoiding frosty weather!