Second Christmas

We were waiting until the family was together to have our Christmas celebration. This morning we unpacked our stockings, opened presents and spent precious time together before enjoying a holiday feast, complete with homemade macaroons for dessert. 

The Greens are all together!

Today we did some some touring in Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital and second-largest city. After visiting the 1840 state house, which is no longer in use, we went to the Museum of Natural Sciences, an excellent facility in downtown Raleigh.

We passed a ramen restaurant with cool dragonfly door handles, then experienced rolled ice cream for the first time.

Our main event was picking up Amy at the airport, and our family is together at last for the first time since September 4. We took a quick family walk, then ate dinner and relaxed.

Merry Christmas!🎄🎁

We’re waiting for Amy to join us this weekend to officially celebrate Christmas, so we watched football, went to dinner and a movie. Hope all who celebrated yesterday had a wonderful day!

via GIPHY

Road Trip (cont’d)

After saying good morning and goodbye to the local elk herd, we left Cherokee, NC, and continued east. We had a hearty breakfast at Country Vittles Family Style Restaurant in nearby Maggie Valley, then drove on through the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

We stopped in Asheville to visit the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center. More gallery than museum, the center is dedicated to the private liberal arts college that became famous in the arts community. While the college only existed for 24 years (1933-1957), many of its students and faculty were or would go on to be influential artists. More importantly, it was where Kathleen’s parents, Wilma and John, met as students in the early 1950s. We had a very special moment when Kathleen discovered a photograph on display of her mother in a 1948 weaving class.

We arrived at Danielle and Jay’s house in Durham around 7:00 PM, where dinner was waiting. Also waiting was a large assortment of mail and packages that have been accumulating here for a month—one of our solutions to the challenge of being on the go for a year without regular mail delivery.

Great Smoky Mountains

This morning after breakfast we were treated to another visit by the local elk herd, who were nibbling on the grass in front of our motel, The Great Smokies Inn.

The motel is on tribal land owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee, descendants of those who avoided being forcibly removed from their homes during that sad chapter in American history, the Trail of Tears. 

There is a 1.5-mile trail from the town along the beautiful Oconaluftee River to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s southern visitor’s center. We took a chilly walk along the trail to the visitor center and Mountain Farm Museum, a recreated 19th century homestead. We learned a lot about the Appalachian way of life, including its challenges, and saw several more elk on the hike back to Cherokee.

After lunch, we drove to a couple other sections in the park, including Newfound Gap, where we hiked on the Appalachian Trail, which straddles the North Carolina-Tennessee border and reaches its highest elevation at nearby Clingman’s Dome. 

Road Trip

We left Dragonfly in Mobile yesterday and are driving to spend Christmas and New Years with Danielle and Jay in Durham, NC. Amy finishes her sailing job in New Zealand on the 29th and will join us after that. We’re so excited to be all together for the first time since Kathleen and I left Hansen’s Harbor on Labor Day.

Yesterday we did driving tours of Montgomery and Auburn, AL, before spending the night in the Atlanta suburbs. Today we traveled to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which we’re exploring for a couple of days on our way to Durham. We went for a chilly but beautiful hike on the Three Waterfalls Loop, then checked into a motel in Cherokee, NC. Bonus Question: How many waterfalls are on the Three Waterfalls Loop? (answer at end of post). 

As we were walking to dinner, we saw this bull elk crossing the street.

Bonus Question Answer: There are three waterfalls, of course: Juney Whank Falls, Tom Branch Falls, and Indian Creek Falls.

Dauphin Island, AL

Today we toured Dauphin Island, a 14 mile-long barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. Dauphin is French for dolphin, and historically was the title given to the heir apparent for the French crown. 

We first visited the Alabama Aquarium at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, a working facility  devoted to education and research for the Mobile/Tensaw River delta, Mobile Bay estuary and the Gulf of Mexico. Bonus Question: What is the difference between a swamp and a marsh? (Answer at end of post)

Next we visited the well-preserved Fort Gaines, built in the mid-1800s to protect the bay’s entrance, and a key prize in the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay.

Then it was on to the 11-acre Indian Shell Mound Park, created by native peoples from discarded oyster shells and fish remains and believed to date back to 1,000 B.C. Today it is a bird sanctuary criss-crossed by a network of trails, with shell fragments still visible beneath the grass. The flora is tropical and magnificent, with vines, ferns, palms and moss-draped oaks. Fun fact: Spanish Moss is neither Spanish nor moss; it is in the same genetic family as pineapples.

Lastly we took an extended walk on the long public beach, returning to our car at sunset.

Bonus Question Answer: A swamp is flooded woodland while a marsh is flooded grassland.

Fairhope, AL

Yesterday was another day of sightseeing, and we spent it on the eastern side of Mobile Bay. Fairhope, AL, was founded in 1894 as a utopian experiment and remains an attractive, affluent seaside town, full of artists, intellectuals, natural and man-made beauty. We began our day at the municipal pier, where we strolled around the local outdoor craft market, then along the lovely beach. We’re still getting used to seeing flowers blooming in mid-December, and also came across a fun dragonfly teeter-totter.

We explored the main town, admiring the gardens and architecture, then took a drive along the coast, timing our return for sunset. Dinner was at McSharry’s Irish Pub, where Kathleen had scouted out a traditional music session. After our meal of shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash, Magners cider and Guiness, she broke out her fiddle, joined the group, and blew them away with her skill and repertoire depth. 

Mobile, AL

We spent the day touring Mobile (pronounced MO-beel), Alabama’s fourth-largest city and its only saltwater port. France established an outpost here in 1702 and the French cultural influence is still evident today. Fun fact: Mobile is the original home of Carnival and Mardi Gras in America, established well before the celebrated version in New Orleans.

Our first order of business was getting a rental car, and we took advantage of Enterprise’s promise to pick you up. The second task was lunch—we love mom & pop barbecue joints, and Bama Bob’s BBQ did not disappoint.

Then it was off to GulfQuest, a modern, informative maritime museum designed to resemble a container ship and focused entirely on the Gulf of Mexico. There are several balconies overlooking the river, where we could view the waterfront that we traveled past aboard Dragonfly on Friday.

It was in 1864 during the Battle of Mobile Bay when Admiral David Farragut spoke his famous (and paraphrased) words “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” while steaming through a Confederate minefield before securing victory and Union control of Mobile.

Our next stops were the History Museum of Mobile, located in the beautiful old city hall and Fort Conde, a reconstructed fortress on the site of the original French settlement. At the fort we met Brian, an off-duty volunteer, who struck up a conversation before offering us tickets to the Mobile Symphony Orchestra’s Holiday Classics concert that evening. He had two extra seats after a last-minute cancellation and we graciously accepted.

We had dinner at T.P. Crockmiers, a few doors from the Saenger Theater and full of fellow concert-goers. The food was excellent and the staff seemed well-versed in getting patrons out the door in time to see the show. We arrived at the Saenger early and found Brian, who convinced us to pose with Santa for a special holiday photo. It’s been many decades since I’ve sat on Santa’s lap, and full disclosure—we were not the only adults doing it.

The concert was delightful and featured a charming guest conductor, the Mobile Singing Children and bass vocalist Kevin Thompson, who wowed the audience with his depth and range, and a special treat of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” After the concert, we said goodbye to Brian and his friends and went back to our chilly and rolly boat, marveling at how life presents you with seemingly random encounters that turn into wonderful experiences.

Saltwater!

Yesterday we achieved another milestone and reached Mobile Bay and saltwater. The day began with a moderate north wind and current that broke loose a steady parade of weed mats that drifted past our anchored boat. Fortunately, none of them were a direct hit or fouled our anchor.

For the first hour we were still in relative wilderness, until we hit Mobile, AL. Then the pucker factor increase significantly as we cruised through the large, busy seaport, with both river and ocean-going vessels doing business. Here’s a photo journal of some of the things we saw:

Mobile Convention Center and paddlewheel tour boat

Ocean freighter

Massive container ship, loading even more cargo

Offshore oil rigs

U.S. Naval Service fleet oiler and hospital ship Comfort

After passing through the city of Mobile, we entered Mobile Bay, a 31-by-24 mile expanse of open water. The wind was 12 mph with a two-foot chop that was right on our beam, rocking our little boat enough to dump the contents of our galley and dinette on the floor and generate a few choice curse words. We met a large freighter from Singapore in the channel, which had a half-dozen dolphins frolicking in its bow wave. We were worried about getting rolled further  by this enormous boat’s wake, but it was upwind of us and actually created a slick of calmer water in its lee. 

The channel markers are very large, and they all had birds on them; these are cormorants. 

We finally made the turn to the west towards Dog River, and the seas were on our stern, making the ride much more comfortable. We docked without incident at Grand Mariner Marina, which was expecting us. After settling in, relaxing and napping, we went for a walk, our first time off the boat since leaving Demopolis early Monday morning. 

To close out an eventful day, we had an outstanding seafood dinner at the marina restaurant, complete with Christmas-themed cocktails.

Mobile River

We’re getting closer to Mobile Bay and plan to arrive tomorrow. While we’ll be finished with the river portion of the Loop for this season, we won’t be done with rivers for good—we still have about 300 miles on the Illinois River to complete next fall.

The Mobile River is wider and shallower than the Tombigbee/BlackWarrior, with sloping shorelines that are more lush. It is mostly wild, interrupted by the occasional cabin or industrial facility, such as this large power plant with candy-striped smokestacks.

We also saw this UFO (unidentified floating object), which turned out to be a research buoy.

And we had one obstacle to get past today; this railroad bridge has only five feet of clearance when closed, and our mini-mast is ten feet above the water. We had to wait for a train to pass, then call the bridge to have it lifted just a bit so we could get under.

We’re anchored in Big Briar Creek, a beautiful side channel which we have all to ourselves, except for a brown pelican fishing nearby. We love watching pelicans catch their food, as they awkwardly dive-bomb out of the air, making a huge splash.

Bonus Question: There is a decorative knot on our steering wheel that indicates when our rudders and outboard are centered. Can you name it? (Answer below).

Answer: The Turk’s Head dates back to at least the 15th century, and is so named for its resemblance to a turban.

2,000 Miles and 100 Days

Today we passed the 2,000 mile and 100 day marks on our voyage, about one-third of the total that we expect to travel. We’re almost done with the Inland Rivers portion of the Loop, and are more than ready to reach saltwater, which we plan to enter in two days. 

It was 36F when we arose at 7:00 AM. We were awoken earlier at 3:00 AM by a passing tow, which cleared our anchored vessel by about 150 feet. I watched the tug and barges approach, then cruise by at close range in the dark, and instead of being terrified of being run down and never seen again, I was thinking how amazing it was to be watching this scene from the deck of our own boat—exactly the type of once-in-a-lifetime adventure I was hoping for on the Greet Loop.

After two days of early departures with frozen fingers and toes, we cooked a hot breakfast and let the sun warm up the world before a civilized 9:15 AM underway. We passed two frolicking otters on shore, the first we’ve seen. The river is still extremely serpentine, and I was begging for a cutoff at one point, when it took four water miles to cover about 3/4 of a mile as the crow flies.

We counted at least a dozen navigation buoys that were washed up on shore, and another dozen that were indicated on our chart and nowhere to be found. Navigating wasn’t terribly difficult with our instruments and eyes, but we were beginning to think that the Army Corps of Engineers was neglecting their duties, although we did come upon one of their survey vessels, hopefully taking notes.

We cruised 41 miles in six hours and are anchored in the Tensaw River, a tributary of the Mobile River that is wide, wild and very beautiful. One other Looper boat arrived after us, but is not one of our buddy boats from Demopolis. We are within 50 miles of Mobile Bay, our portal to the Gulf of Mexico and the scenery is changing. We’re seeing more Spanish moss on the trees and grass and leaves that are still green—good omens that we will eventually get to the warm weather that we’ve traveled 2,000 miles and 100 days for.