October 29-31,2017
Wayne stayed the night and we took him on a short boat ride the next day
around the Pickwick Lake. We watched the
golf tournament that afternoon and then after Wayne headed home we went to
dinner at the restaurant at Aqua Yacht Harbor with some of the other Loopers
who were at the marina.
Monday morning I did chores, laundry and grocery shopping, and John met
with a mechanic to check out a vibration he had been feeling in one of the
engines. Mechanic diagnosed some simple
shaft realignment and was able to take care of the problem. Unfortunately not many of the marinas and
roads around them, along the Tennessee, have been very bicycle friendly so we
depend on the curtesy cars at the marinas for running errands. But I get plenty of exercise walking up and
down the docks in some of these marinas where it can be a half a mile to the
dockmaster’s office or to the bathroom.
It had turned really cold, nights in the 30’s so we were eager to head
south. We can stay pretty warm at night
under three layers of blankets, but even with the boats heaters, which are
really reverse AC it can be pretty cold on the boat.
Tuesday we started on the Ten Tom Canal.
It was completed in 1985 to link the Tennessee river and the Tombigbee
River to shorten the distance to the gulf.
The route down the Mississippi that comes out in New Orleans is much
longer and congress was finally convinced to make the short cut. These were the newest and best locks we have
had to deal with, but still a lot of locks! We made it through three locks and
fifty miles to Midway marina in Fulton, TN.
We got in early enough and it looked promising for a bike ride so I
headed out. It was steep getting up off
the river but there was a nice bike path that I took for a couple of
miles. It is part of the Underground
Railroad Bicycle Trail. Hadn’t heard of
that before but it looked like it headed up through Tennessee and Kentucky to
the Ohio.
Cool.
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