Joe Wheeler

Sara and Natalie departed this afternoon, after a relaxing morning with pancakes for breakfast.  We spent some time sitting in the sun near the pool and walking around the Joe Wheeler lodge and resort.   It was great to have time to visit individually with these young adults whom we have known so well all their lives.

Our Dock

Over the day most of the last Looper boats came into Joe Wheeler.  At least 15 arrived yesterday, and another 15-20 came today.  Most every slip is filled and the lodge is getting ready for the gatherings, classes, exhibitions and parties that we will take part in this week.   The docks are lined with interesting boats, each one bearing an AGLCA burgee.  The bright fresh burgees (flags) are on boats like ours that haven’t been on the loop very long.  Boats that are almost home and have been out for a year or more in the sun and spray are wearing faded and slightly tattered flags as a badge of honor.  Once the loop is completed, the boat and crew earn a gold burgee.

Reunion tied at the dock with other Loopers

Boats chosen to do the Loop tend to be 34-46 feet long, although there is a complete variety of sizes and shapes.  At the end of our dock is a catamaran, next to a Nordic Tug, and boats that are being furbished share slips with 50’ yachts with all the bells and whistles.  Each one lovingly selected to suit the needs and preferences (and pocketbooks) of the owners.   A couple that was here walking the docks to look at potential loop boats came aboard and visited with us about the various attributes of Reunion.   Everyone appreciates the wood interior and lines of Reunion, but some will go with bigger engines and faster speed.  We love her just the way she is.

This evening was the first Docktail party with most Loopers in attendance.  We have now met up with all the people we first met in Door County, and at the pizza party we attended in Chicago over labor day weekend.  

Lots of really great looking boats

Docktails at the pool start at 5:00

Shoes aboard

      

Schuh girls here! (Well 2/3 of us) Can we just say how fantastic it is to get away from the never ending cycle of work, school, sleep (unless you’re Natalie), work, work, school, project, sleep etc. etc. you get the idea.. It took us both a few hours to detox completely from our busy weeks and long drives to Joe Wheeler State Park, but we have certainly enjoyed unwinding on the boat with Dennis and Carol, and we would like to thank them for inviting us aboard!

            We started the afternoon with a lovely hike up the trails behind the marina, and then came back just in time for an early evening boat ride down the Tennessee River and into Joe Wheeler Lake. Highlights include: plenty of silly photo ops, a relaxing nap on the hull(Natalie does sleep!), fantastic conversation, and the occasional adult beverage. It’s been a lot of fun learning about the ins and outs of living on and navigating a boat through the Great Loop. Dennis and Carol are great teachers, and we even had the chance to show our skills as navigators; don’t worry, Sara didn’t crash into any other boats. We ended the day with a delicious seafood buffet at the resort and some rumchata back on the boat. Tomorrow promises to be just as wonderful: with a breezy morning sunrise, poolside chatter, and perhaps another opportunity to hone our skills as boat drivers…

            Considering how pleasant and relaxing this day has been, we are tempted to continue living the boat life. Well, almost. We have seen the size of Carol’s closet, and while we are impressed by her ability to organize and consolidate, we would hate to make any of our adorable shoes jealous by leaving them behind.

Photos by Shoe 3/3

Canon 30D and Olympus10x 

Joe Wheeler State Park, Rogersville, AL

The Lodge at Joe Wheeler State Park

The Rendezvous begins on Monday and several boats are arriving each day, 65  are expected. Today we did boat chores, after our ant attack at Florence, we cleaned. It was really strange to see a whole column of ants walking up the electrical cords and dock lines. Carol did the interior and I worked on the exterior, we sprayed for ants yesterday and today washed out the dead ants. I also rebuilt the aft head, I will spare you of any pictures, but am pleased with the results. The head seals much better, no longer gurgles and the flushing pump works smoothly. We are meeting more people all doing the same thing and sharing their inventions and experiences. 

Natalie and Sara arrive tomorrow for some fun and relaxation.

Some people have asked about our locations with respect to towns rather than marinas. In the left hand column click on the link current location. It will provide our most recent stops and a map showing our location. It only holds the locations for a few days and sometimes the map is all blue because only one location is listed, expand the blue area to see our location with respect to towns and rivers, lakes or oceans.

Guest bloggers tomorrow!

Florence to Joe Wheeler

Florence to Joe Wheeler   

Lock opening is almost square 110 x 93

The Looper Rendezvous is held this year at Joe Wheeler State Park in Rogersville, AL. So Monday thru Thursday we will be learning about doing the loop. To get to Joe Wheeler it is necessary to traverse two additional locks the Wilson lock with a 93 foot lift and the Wheeler lock with a 52 foot lift. Today we made the move through the locks and up to Joe Wheeler State park. The Wilson Lock is a sight to behold and we raised the 93 feet, almost 10 stories, in about 15 minutes, so of the locks fill slowly but to raise the water level 93 feet requires moving 50,503,464 gallons of water. Most locks on the inland rivers are 110 feet wide and most lifts are 50 or so feet high and the lock openings take on those proportions, but this lock is as high as it is wide a whole new scale. The standard lock door swings open like a barn door, the upper lock door on this lock lowers under the water to allow boats to enter or exit the upper gate, this is the second time we have seen a gate that moves vertically, interesting!!

Huge walls

Lock is full, walkway begins to descend 

Walkway submerges then the railings

Generally, on travel days we like to get an early start sometime between 7 and 8 o’clock, this morning there was a dense fog over the river and we waited until 9:00 when the fog cleared. Because of the short lock times we still arrived above the Wheeler Dam about 2:00. 

Carol and I decided to anchor out for a while to test a new to us anchoring technique, trip line anchoring. It is necessary to use trip line anchoring in those areas with fouled bottoms, in our case the fouling on the bottom is tree stumps that remained after the dam flooding. Anchors can get lodged under the roots of the stumps and are difficult to remove. Trip line anchoring provides a second line to help pull out the anchor when necessary and it is necessary to use trip line anchoring in several places on the Tombigbee. For those of you that are interested trip line anchoring is explained more fully at: http://www.discoverboating.com/resources/article.aspx?id=479

Our quiet anchorage

It was very calm and quiet in the cove we chose to anchor, I swam under the boat to check zincs, the propeller, rudder and bottom condition. The bottom is nice and slimy, zincs and propeller are in good shape, one small spot on the rudder has lost the bottom paint but everything else looks OK. After my swim, we both relaxed in the very quiet atmosphere listened to the birds calling each other and limbs falling off trees. A fishing boat joined us and caught a couple of fish, nice relaxing time with just a bit of a nap. Carol was called by the staff at Joe Wheeler State Park just as we were leaving, her mastery of the southern English language is becoming very useful.

This evening a boat with a calliope cruised past the marina and played music for all of us, really unusual and lots of fun.

See the calliope whistles on the roof?

Beautiful homes all along this part of the river 

Florence Alabama

Great Sandwiches and Florence History on the Walls

We spent the day touring Florence, we visited an Indian mound museum, the Rosenbaum House designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright, Pope’s Tavern & Museum, had lunch at Trowbridge’s Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop and did a few shopping errands.

The economic history of Florence is quite interesting. The Wilson Dam build began in 1918 and was completed in 1924, during the same period the federal government built a large munitions factory in the area. It became a boom town in the middle south. Of course the war ended and the Dam was completed and the boom quickly became a bust. Still the Wilson Dam has a lift of 93 feet and at the time it was built it was the tallest dam in the world and is still one of the tallest. When the munitions plant closed Henry Ford wanted to move his manufacturing plant to the existing buildings, however, congress could not agree with Ford on an acquisition price.

Front with cantilevered carport

Dining area from the great room

 The Rosenbaum House is the only Frank Lloyd House in Alabama and is one of the Usonian designs created by Frank. He never visited Alabama during the construction but sent a member of his staff to the build site. The family lived in the house from 1940 until 1998 when the City of Florence negotiated with Mrs. Rosenbaum to take over and preserve the house. In 1939, the estimate to build the house was $6500 after negotiations the agreed upon price was $7500, however, the actual build price was double that. When the City rebuilt the house in 1999-2000 the total rebuild price was $750,000. A wonderful tour, the feel of the house is incredible, the scale fits so well and the colors and ingenuity that went into both the design and construction is incredible.

Back of the house window doors on the Great Room

Side Entrance Landscaping

Garden Area

Pope’s Tavern was a stagecoach stop on the road from Nashville to New Orleans, it was used as a hospital during the Civil War, it houses artifacts and is one of the oldest buildings in Florence.

Grand Harbor to Florence Harbor

  

The owner of Grand Harbor lives here 

Cool morning, north wind, sunny a fine day to travel not much traffic on the river. The Tennessee River at this point has some commercial traffic but mostly recreational boating and we are learning that even though the weather is much warmer than home the summer season ends with Labor Day. I find that a bit unusual since at home the weather gets bad for boating after Labor Day and it seems to be a natural shift. Lots of Islands, inlets and bays to explore if time permits.

Florence is located just below the Wilson Lock and Dam so we are still on the Pickwick Pool and we noticed as we approached the dam the current increased again just as it did before the Pickwick Dam. Today the current was about 2 mph against us for the last 4 or so miles it had increased from almost no current earlier in the day.

I especially like the elevator down to the river

Nice houses and I can imagine this is a great place to live overlooking the river. 

I made some changes to the 12 volt electrical system on the boat separating the house batteries from the starting batteries as they should be and making sure each set of batteries was being charged in an appropriate manner. So far it looks good, I will continue to monitor for the next several days. This separation is important when we anchor out, so the starting batteries are not affected when we use 12 volt electricity for lighting, TV, music, charging computers and cell phones or instruments. Without the separation we could drain all the batteries and be unable to start the engine. So currently we have bank #1 our starting batteries, bank #2 our house batteries, and a third separate system for starting the generator. It will be necessary to anchor out several nights once we continue down the Tombigbee and Tenn-Tom Waterway.

Patio above that shades the boat in storage, Nice!

This tow appeared to be changing staff

Grand Harbor Marina, MS

Early Morning Fog

We are at the corner of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee – If you go for a drive you can go from state to state in a matter of minutes.  On the water at the marina, we are in Mississippi, but the shore across the way is Alabama, and up the hill its Tennessee.  Despite the possibility for geographic complication we decided to go sight-seeing today.  It has cooled off considerably and early in the morning there was a fog rising from the water.

We drove through Pickwick Landing State Park and found some one-lane gravel roads through the beautiful forest.  We thought it looked like Wisconsin, the people with us thought it looked like Pennsylvania.  We stopped to explore a very old cemetery, and then went on to Savannah, where there was a nice little museum.  The museum people were letting everyone in for free to make up for the fact that the Shiloh Battlefield was closed.  The museum actually had a lot of stories about the civil war battle and we learned a lot about what we didn’t get to see.

All National Parks are Closed

Just down the road was the Hickory Pit BBQ place and it was packed with locals.  Of course they ran out of everything we hoped to order, but we had a good lunch anyway.  Then we drove near the Shiloh Battlefield, and saw what we could see within 100 yds of the road.  Quite a few other tourists were there, and one gentleman was giving an informal Civil War History lesson.   Did you know that all confederate armies were named after states – such as the Army of Northern Virginia, or the Army of North Carolina – and Union Armies were named after rivers; the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Ohio.  Over the three-day battle at Shiloh over 23,000 soldiers died.  20 or 30 years later, veterans from both sides met for reunions and helped re-enact and define the battle lines before the land was purchased from private owners and made into a park.  Every state that had soldiers fighting at Shiloh has erected a monument in the area where their men were fighting.