Two Steps Forward - One Step Back

KG here - Greetings from Rogersville Alabama where we attended yet another day of our “Looper” conference.  We have been furiously taking notes about the route from here down to the Gulf, around Florida and all the way up to Norfolk, VA.  Additionally we’ve been answering lots of questions from attendees who have not started the loop yet, and are trying to figure out whether they can-or even want to-do it.  I’ve been impressed  by the wealth of knowledge of our presenters and have enjoyed helping people figure out whether this is the right adventure for them, despite the fact that a little over 2 months ago I barely understood what I was in for.  

We are enjoying this lovely park - here are some of our favorite views from today:

However, both Tony and I are eager to get underway and back to our adventure.  We miss the chance to see new vistas every day, and the teamwork that comes with relying on each other to get through a day with a sense of accomplishment sans major stress.  

This week I have had a few reminders of the lessons the universe is trying to teach me on what I like to think of as my year of transition - those being: 1. embrace the slow life 2. you have to take care of yourself in order to be useful to others and 3. be present it whatever you’re doing now - stop living in the past/future.  

I was trying to get too much packed into our conference day when luckily I spotted this snail moving slowly across the road.  It stopped me up short long enough to take its picture: 

but I was too jazzed to reflect and so the universe decided to be a little more forceful.  I started off on a run through Joe Wheeler State Park hoping to see a new section of this amazing park where they have a whole host of facilities for day use.  One of the things I’ve been really careful of in running this fall is to watch the path in front of me because often there is very uneven ground at the sides of these rural roads I’m running on and because of all of the large nuts that are littered along the roads/paths of these southern state parks.

As I was running, I was really feeling strong and celebrating the fact that as we started the loop I had a goal to be able to run a 10K by Thanksgiving (since my ACL reconstruction I have barely been able to run 3 miles). I ran my first 10K last week, ahead of schedule.  Instead of maintaining my usual vigilance I attempted to multi-task, daydreaming to try to come up with my next goal to start on tomorrow and suddenly my heel came down on a very large nut on the side of the road, twisting and spraining my ankle pretty significantly.  It’s bad enough to injure joints when you live in a “dirt home” where you can walk (or limp) on level ground but the success of our trip depends on us maintaining our health and strength so that we can clamber up onto the bow as we go through locks (we have 14 left to go through to get to the Gulf) and also to tie up the boat when docking. 

Thankfully my brilliant sister with her DPT is always available for a remote consult and as I learned with my knee surgery, the sooner you start the PT the better.  I’m also grateful to one of my new Looper friends who provided me with some amazing hands on therapy here during the conference.  I’m happy to say I’m stubbornly on the road to recovery.  We are getting underway tomorrow and we’re going to have to adapt our methods to get through the two locks that we will pass through on our way back to Florence, AL during the day. And all I have to say is:

OK UNIVERSE - MESSAGE RECEIVED.

Joe Wheeler State Park

We’re in another beautiful state park resort, complete with lodge, restaurant, marina, cottages, campground, golf course, trails and more. The scale of these southern publicly-run recreation facilities is unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the Upper Midwest.

I must admit at being unfamiliar with the park’s namesake, and found the story of Joseph Wheeler to be fascinating. Born in Georgia to parents from New England, his upbringing was split between the north and south. A diminutive young man, he barely met the minimum height requirement for admission to West Point, and earned his commission in the U.S. Army, graduating 19th out of 22 in his class.

Despite his connections to the Union, he always considered himself a Georgian, and joined the Confederate Army when the Civil War began. “Fighting Joe,” as he was nicknamed, was seemingly everywhere during the war, and he fought in almost every major engagement until he was captured and imprisoned covering the escape of Jefferson Davis when Richmond fell.

After the war, he was elected by Alabamans to the U.S. House of Representatives and served eight terms. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Wheeler volunteered for military duty at age 61, and was appointed a major general by President William McKinley. He saw combat in both Cuba and the Philippines before retiring in 1900, and is one of only two men to serve as a General in both the Confederate and United States Armies. (Bonus points if you can name the other; answer at the end of this post). 

We spent the day both indoors and out, learning more about the Loop route, and our fellow Loopers. The weather is beautiful, with highs in the low 80s and overnight lows in the upper 50s. We had drinks aboard Balclutha Too with new friends Steve, Darci, Janette and Doug before an outdoor dinner, with games and a DJ. After, we got our photo taken on the red carpet: 

Bonus question answer: Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Robert E. Lee, was the only other officer to serve as a General in both the Confederate and U.S. Armies.

Happy Birthday Kathleen!!

Today is Kathleen’s birthday, and her rich network of family and friends came through with well wishes via phone, text and social media. It’s challenging to be away from home on special occasions, especially when you’re in a new and unfamiliar place practically every day. It was our first day of programs at the AGLCA Fall Rendevous, and being with so many others who are having a similar experience is comforting. This is a very special group of people— whether they’re planning, in progress or have completed the Loop, the boaters in this community are among the friendliest and most supportive folks I’ve ever met. We’re grateful to have plugged into this association for our journey.

Kathleen took our inflatable kayak out for a late-afternoon paddle in the harbor before we went to happy hour and tonight’s dinner event. We have a full day of route briefings  tomorrow, presented by experienced Loopers who share their first-hand, local knowledge on what lies ahead of us.

Decatur to Athens to Rogersville, AL

We left Ingalls Harbor in Decatur a little after the other two Looper boats that spent the night on the free dock with us. Wheeler Lake has been very different—and much more enjoyable—than our passage upriver, where we did a fair bit of rocking and rolling on this stretch of water. Light winds and daytime highs in the 70s made conditions ideal as we traveled 17 miles to Lucy’s Branch Marina in Athens, AL, a family-run operation, easily identified by the white barges used as breakwaters. 

We were the only transient boaters, and did a little laundry and boat cleaning before enjoying dinner at Lucy’s Barge, a bar and grill located on—you guessed it—a barge. It was Saturday night and the place was full of locals watching the Alabama vs. LSU college football game. Coincidentally, I was wearing a red fleece (Alabama’s color), and Kathleen had on a yellow sweatshirt (LSU), so we fit right in with the friendly, but passionate crowd. 

This morning we went 11 miles in picture-perfect weather to Joe Wheeler State Park in Rogersville, AL, to attend the annual America’s Great Loop Cruiser’s Association Fall Rendevous. We’ll be here for five nights; there are already 34 Looper boats in the harbor with more expected tomorrow, and the lodge is full of Loop planners who traveled by car. After settling in, we took a walk around the park, and met some very tame deer. 

This evening there was a kickoff happy hour in the marina, hosted by AGLCA Sponsors and Harbor Hosts. We enjoyed seeing some familiar faces from our travels, and meeting new Loopers, including a couple from Stillwater, MN. 

Retracing our Steps

KG here - full disclosure- I was supposed to write the blog last evening but I was very much under the weather and was unable to do anything that required me to be upright.  I’m happy to report that my immune system worked overtime last night and I was able to fully support our underway trip today from Ditto Landing to the Ingalls Docks in Decatur, AL.  So this will have to cover two days of movement.

We started the day yesterday in Guntersville, AL.  Since it was still below our 40 degree F minimum for moving when we were ready to go, we borrowed our marina’s courtesy car and went out for a hot breakfast.  There we had what will likely be the first of several check-ins for our Great Loop.  We’ve learned a lot about each other so far on the trip: 1. we’re never going to be able to read each other’s minds so we’ve stopped expecting the other one to read ours and that has improved communication greatly. 2. We’ve both accepted that if one of us thinks a job sucks, the other one of us feels the same way and so we have to put on our big girl (or big boy) panties and do our fair share of of the chores/sucky tasks.  And so the vote was 2-0 in favor to keep going on the loop.  We’re looking forward to getting through the rest of the rivers portion of our trip (including 17 more locks) all the way to Mobile, AL so that we can be on the Gulf.

After returning to the boat, we got underway before lunchtime and travelled back down Guntersville Lake to the Guntersville Lock.  We arrived to the lock at the same time as another “Looper” and locked down with them.  The ride was significantly smoother going down as they let water out of the chamber; instead of the water swirling in around us as one is locking up.  We are getting closer to our Rendezvous and so we’re seeing more Loopers along the Tennessee as we are all slated to be in Rogersville, AL on Sunday.

We docked for the night (last night) at Ditto Landing Marina in Huntsville, AL We’ve described this stop previously in the blog and we didn’t learn any additional fun facts, but this time the transient slips were full of Loopers.  The cold overnight temperatures continued last night, but the days are warming up nicely and we were able to take a walk along the river and still get underway before 10:30 with temperatures already in the mid 50’s.

On today’s transit, we got another chance to pass by the Painted Bluffs which marks the end of Merrill Mountain in the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachians. The cliffs seemed to be more spectacular on our way down river. 

That was about the only landmark of note all the way to Decatur, AL. We did arrive here earlier this go around so had a walk into town enjoying parts of one of the three walking tours they have set up and available for download to your phone. Here I am at the tracks of the original railway station. 

And also the street view of the station.

If you’ve been following for some time, you might remember that we stopped at the Ingalls City Docks on our way to Chattanooga also, and were roused out of a sound sleep on that Saturday morning by the sounds of a fishing tournament getting underway.  We didn’t see anything online about a fishing tournament tomorrow (we couldn’t find anything last time after we left) so we thought we’d risk another Saturday morning here. This is a city dock that is free to use but doesn’t have any power or water to hook up to.

More than just the possibility of an early busy harbor, it also looks like we’ll have another cold overnight with temperatures in the 30’s and since we don’t carry a generator, we can only use our electric heater when we are plugged into shore power.  However, we have one last piece of equipment that Tony brought that we haven’t tested - a Little Buddy propane powered heater that he got from an ice-fisherman colleague.  Somehow the idea of using a compressed gas to run a heat source in a boat that can get tossed by wakes from other boats passing quickly seems a bit fraught with peril - so if this is the last blog post to this site, you might want to ask Mrs Google about a “McGregor boat explosion” in Decatur AL.  Just Sayin’

Scottsboro to Guntersville, AL

Last night was the first time we plugged in our electric cabin heater, due to the 32F overnight low temperature and brisk north wind. The inside of the boat never got colder than 60F and we slept well. We waited until it warmed up to 40F outside—which took until 10:00 AM—before  departing on the 23-mile run to Guntersville. As we headed out the now-familiar channel cut through the hydrilla weeds, we had to slow briefly for a swimming deer to cross in front of us!

The wind was at our backs and the cockpit enclosure up, and we stayed comfortable during the 3-hour journey. We chose to stay at the family-run Alred Marina on the north side of the river, rather than return to the free City Harbor docks on the south side, as the latter will be open to the forecasted wind and waves, and does not have electrical power to run our heater during another expected cold night. Our plan is to continue with shorter legs while the temperature is below average, until we get to the AGLCA Fall Rendevous on Sunday.

Hales Bar, TN to Scottsboro, AL

We went to bed on Saturday night to loud music and screaming from the Hales Bar Dam haunted house, and woke up the next morning to ducks and coots looking for food.

The entrance to Hales Bar Marina is a little tricky, and we had to call the harbor master for instructions when we came in. There is an old railroad bed that is submerged just below the surface, and only the shallowest of drafts can go directly over it. We took the safe route and went around, but it added almost two miles to our approach. Hales Bar also has some cool-looking floating cabins that we would love to visit someday on another adventure. 

We’re backtracking down the Tennessee River after leaving Chattanooga. It’s fun to see the same scenery from the opposite direction, and the 1 mph current is now in our favor. We had a 7-hour, 53-mile day on Sunday, with one lock (Nickajack), where we went down 40 feet instead of going up. 

We passed the Coca-Cola Stage, a converted barge that was used for many years at Chattanooga’s annual Riverbend Music Festival. The stage was severely damaged in 2020 when the tugboat moving it collided with the I-24 highway bridge.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has some pretty impressive projects, but nobody’s perfect. Below are the cooling towers from the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Hollywood, AL. After 40 years and $4 billion, it never produced a single watt of power and remains unfinished. A private outfit offered to buy the site and complete the project, but the deal fell through, and the property sits idle.

We stopped at Goose Pond Colony Marina in Scottsboro, AL again, and scheduled another in-port day to do laundry and buy groceries. We couldn’t resist, and visited the Unclaimed Baggage Center to check it out. It’s basically a huge thrift store, with lost airline luggage, and their contents, for sale at a discount. There is also a small museum, with some of the strange, rare and valuable items that have come through their doors, including a diving helmet, bagpipes and a suit of armor.

We were invited over for drinks with Steve & Darci, Loopers we met in Chattanooga, then had dinner at The Docks restaurant, where I enjoyed their signature entree, shrimp and grits.