On the Road (River) Again

Hello again all!
We're underway again, heading back down the Tennessee River towards the Tenn-Tom Waterway. We departed from the dock at Chattanooga about lunchtime on Friday (11-9) and immediately began hustling. The weather has turned colder than we'd like, and although the boat has heaters, we are definitely interested in getting south to warmer climates!
This first photo is from Chattanooga, taken on Doug's cell phone! There is a wonderful aquarium there, which has a Butterfly Room among its nature exhibits. It's got the best flora and butterflies of anywhere that we've been.

Among the "boat jobs" done at the dock in Chattanooga is replacing a fuel filter element. We prefer to do this before they clog and cause trouble! The filter on the left has been in use for about 3 1/2 months, and was not yet gunked up enough to restrict fuel flow. The fuel we get is usually bright & clean (marine diesel is dyed red) but still contains trace amounts of tar & other contaminants in it. Another factor is that the Winnie W's tanks are 23 years old and sat mostly idle for that time, collecting more gunk.



Here is a view of the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, abouot 20 miles or so downstream (southwesterly) from Chattanooga. This escarpment rises over 1,000 feet above the river. This area is sometimes called the 'Grand Canyon of Tennessee' and it's only a slight exaggeration. This is one of Doug's rare photos.

We've spent a long time on the Tennessee River and its tributaries, almost two months. The river itself is over 650 miles long and has so many beautiful places to stop; we could spend longer if we weren't being pushed by the advancing season. We've covered approximately 600 miles along this river system and wish we could see more of it. We have about 240 miles to go before we turn left onto the Tenn-Tom waterway, which is another 450 miles long and leads to Mobile.


We saw this along the way; not everybody takes such good care of their boat!




This is more of the Cumberland Escarpment, from a vantage point just downstream of Nickajack Lock & Dam. The fall colors are lovely. You can also see the channel markers, red on the left ("red right returning;" we are headed the opposite way) and green on the right.

Hope you all are doing well-
Doug & Kathie