It was only 5 miles to Green Turtle Marina on Barkley Lake - a companion to Kentucky Lake. Both were formed in the 1940's by the Tennessee Valley Authority and are the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi.
The history of these lakes is interesting as whole towns needed to be relocated because of the flooding of the area due to the building of two dams - one on the Tennessee River and one on the Cumberland River at a spot about 5 miles from each other. Click here to check it out!
Once settled into our dock at Green Turtle, we quickly hooked up the power and started air conditioning the boat. It was going to be in the 90's and humid. Definitely a good day to be inside!Either that or take a ride to Walmart in the loaner car provided by the marina.
Plus Steve found what he decided had to be a perfect breakfast place - inside a bait store! Reminded us of the Chinese place in Havelock that Wendy took us to - also inside of a bait store :-)
It was an easy decision to stay a couple of days - we ended up staying three. Labor Day was coming and it seems always a good idea to find some place to tuck away. These two lakes provide such a huge area for boating that we were really weren't concerned about it.Plus we heard the Nina and Pinta were coming to the marina for the long weekend. How often do you have a chance to see them, right?
If you are interested - check out their schedule here.These ships are not luxurious in any way - particularly the Nina which was built as a duplicate of the ship on which Columbus sailed. Very interesting to see them.
The marina had its contingent of looper boats (nine at one count) as this marina is the first marina since Hoppies - a distance of 242 miles and 3 or 4 days for most of the loopers. We said our 'see you later' to Tom and Carolyn on Su Sueno as we prepared to head out Friday morning.They are staying a week and will then take a side trip up the Tennessee River to Chattanooga. It's a beautiful trip through the mountains. We may see then down the rivers again - who knows ...
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| Kentucky Lake. |
Tons of coves line the shore. I can see why folks come here for a week at a time on the very large and very nice houseboats that are available at several of the marinas on the lakes.These are not the home-built Happy Days houseboats of the Trent - these are like homes on the water - some complete with fireplaces!
Destination today was Paris Landing State Park. About 43 miles but now at our normal speed of 8 mph and actually a little slower. The Kentucky Dam backs up the Tennessee River almost 200 miles but there is still a current in the river flowing north toward the dam. Not much of a current but still ...The breeze from the north was certainly welcome at it brought the lower humidity we've been looking for.
The park was good place to stop. Very nice grounds and they even had a Birds of Prey display with several species of owls and hawks and educational talks about these birds.Steve liked the owls the best. This is a Barred Owl - which grow to 17-24 inches tall. Seems like these two should be sleeping since it's daytime ......
Seems that water flowing over the dam would be a really bad thing ....Weirdly enough, trees seemed to sometimes be just growing in the middle of nowhere - along with an old building.
It was a grain elevator built close to the train tracks nearby.
Click here if you want to read more.
When we left Paris Landing yesterday we were headed a relatively short 35 miles to Pebble Isle Marina. This was one of our favorite stops last time around - they have hot cinnamon rolls and coffee for their transient boaters! What's not to like :-)First a stop at the fuel dock to top off the tanks (60 gallons of diesel in each tank) plus pump out the holding tank.
We'll be good now for another few miles :-)
Staying for a couple of days. There is a Walmart and a loaner car - time for another road trip to see what's around ....
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