Thursday October 21: Ditto Landing, Huntsville AL

The timing for us to leave Florence was the best - we entered the lock 2 miles up the river just as a boat coming down was exiting. What luck! This was at one time the largest lock in the US when it was built but has been now eclipsed by locks in the Pacific Northwest. Look closely at the second picture (click twice to enlarge it) and you'll see a crane 3/4 of the way up sitting the the door. The cranes are attracted by the fish that end up getting caught when the water goes down. Talk about a free lunch! The third picture is a closeup of the crane.

On to the next lock - where we waited 5 hours :-( Guess that made up for making the first one so fast. There were only two tows through but the second one had to be split and taken into two trips through the lock. But it was a nice day and the entertainment (as we waited tied next to the wall by the lock) was the water coming out of the lock - very wild. And the guy sitting on the struts of the helicopter fixing something on the high wires as the copter hovered. Crazy job.

We spent last night at Joe Wheeler State Park. It was very similar to the park at Pleasant Hill - Steve thinks the same builder was used as it really was very much the same style. Kind of quiet except for the AGLCA (America's Great Loop Cruisers Association) Rendezvous which begins Monday. We passed a crazy number of cruisers headed downstream toward Wheeler as it seems many had visited Chattanooga prior to going to the rally.

Steve spent part of the day redoing all of the outside teak. I had warned him that I knew there would be a spot needing redone on the front port bow from the last lock. Sometimes you just have to pivot off of the bow! Sorry about that :-) We passed the nuclear power plant owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The cooling tower is definitely not what we are used to seeing on Lake Erie! Still is 600 feet tall but it is so different! And once again I had to say "you might have been right" about the sunscreen that Steve INSISTED I make for the flybridge. It was REALLY hot in the sun but very pleasant behind the screen :-)

Another good project Steve accomplished was to firm up plans for Thanksgiving/Christmas. He spent time on the internet as we went down the river as well as talking with both Terri and Julie about holiday plans.

The Tennessee River really has become a series of mostly lake-like cruising (formed by the dams built along the way) but for this part is more like a real river. This will change back to a lake when we go through the next lock - about 2 hours up the river. Two days until we arrive at Chattanooga!

By the way, the route to Chattanooga, TN is very strange. Red route is what we have done, yellow route is what we will do in the next two days! We travel most of the way on the Tennessee River through the state of Alabama before the river takes a northeast turn and goes back into Tennesee! Seems it didn't used to flow this direction ......continued later :-)