With us doing the Loop in segments, we’ve been able to explore some of the slightly less traveled sections. On our first side trip doing Segment Two, we headed up the Cumberland towards Clarksville and visited and explored Nashville. We returned to our home base for the last year at Prizer Point in rural Western Kentucky before departing a few weeks later in earnest. We headed down the Cumberland River to our first stop at Green Turtle Bay where we encountered loopers, Dani and Bob on Fern from Westerville, Ohio, Mary and Dale on The Marydale from Illinois, Dick and Louise from South Carolina, and Barb and Jim on EddyJo from Indiana. We had fun riding our bikes back to the Thirsty Turtle that overlooks the Lock and checking out a few stops from our previous year’s visit.
We left GTB heading down stream with our first stop at Paris Landing and rode our bikes to the Lodge for dinner. Our next stop entailed traversing the very shallow and winding ~2 mile inlet to arrive at Birdsong Resort. Birdsong Marina is known for being the only fresh water Pearl Farm in the middle of the country! Yep right in good ole Tennessee. Barb and Jim joined us and we went into town via the courtesy van for dinner. Leaving Birdsong we headed for the Clifton, Tennessee Marina. Did I mention that the The Tennessee River is very winding with beautiful houses up on the hills. Our boat was docked right outside the restaurant at the marina and they were hosting a Karaoke night. We met up with some of the loopers we had met at GTB and had so much fun dancing and doing Group Karaoke (all 8 of us) to Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline – Bah, Bah, Bah! and Hang,Hang on Sloopy.
Another meandering day down the Tennessee to Aqua Yacht Safe Harbor Marina via the Pickwick Lock which was huge! We had dinner altogether with the group Friday night before everyone left except Eddy Jo. Saturday we went exploring with them to visit the Shiloh Battlefield and ate at the Catfish Restaurant on the river. Our plan was to leave with them on Sunday, but remember the big bucks/butt story? We ended up there a week. But we rented a car and chose to do some more exploring.
We headed to the town of Sheffield, Alabama to visit the Sound Studios located there. The Muscle Shoals Sound Studio was established in 1969 and Terrence our guide was a wealth of information and talked about the history and the famous artists who have gone there to record their albums! He was about our age and had actually met and been privileged to host a lot of the recording artists, e.g. Cher, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens just to name a few. Next we explored the Alabama Music Hall of Fame with the many famous artists. Our next stop was Helen Keller’s home where we saw the outside water pump where Anne Sullivan helped Helen to connect the writing in her hand to the word water! Our last stop was at the Fame Recording Studio where they were setting up to record a band the next day. We had no idea that these studios existed and that so many famous artists still come there to record their music! We then drove over to the Florence Marina to have dinner with loopers Eddy Jo and Gypsy, We drove home over the Pickwick Dam so now we could say we had gone under and over the dam.
We met a Professor from Canada at Aqua Yacht Marina who was traveling solo and invited him to join us for dinner the next night. Allen was conducting an Expedition called Weaving Waters as he traveled. We ate at the Outpost where we had Hogfries and a Baked Potato with Chicken. We knew we were in the South when Pete found this seasoning in the little General Store! Thought of you Becky and Paul with your Meat and Three Southern meals! Alan departed the next day and we waited patiently for our boat to be fixed. Finally, a week later than anticipated, we were finally able to depart.
We stayed at the Florence Marina for a couple days as the weather kicked up and we chose to stay put. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride taught us that lesson our first year of owning Spring Fling! (That will be a different post}! The MaryDale popped into the marina as well and we went to a really yummy Italian Restaurant called Ricatoni’s one night and then delicious Sushi at Yumm Thai the next night.
When we left Florence to go to Joe Wheeler Marina, we were going to go through two locks, the Wilson Lock and the Joe Wheeler Lock. Before going through a lock, you need to contact the Lock Master to determine when you will be able to enter the lock – remembering that Commercial Traffic of Tows and Barges have first priority. We got up at 4:30am – yes Cheri got up at 4:30am! We called the Wilson Lock Master who told us to come at 8:00am. We ate a quick breakfast and headed out. We were able to get right through the lock – Yeah! Next to Joe Wheeler Lock and a 3 1/2 hour wait – Boo! When we arrived at Joe Wheeler we went to the Fuel Dock to get Diesel and a Pump-out and then headed to our slip at the dock. We met Skip and Lisa from Laughs A Lot at the Fuel Dock and invited them to join The MaryDale, Rock and Roll, and us for Docktails. What fun getting to know some more loopers!
As we journeyed to Chattanooga, our next stop was Ditto Landing where we docked right next to a boat with this huge AGLCA Emblem on the side. Come to find out we were right next to The Perch! This was Michael Martin’s boat and he was traveling the loop with Kim Russo, the Director of the AGLCA. To say I was excited was an understatement.
Our next stop was Goose Pond Marina via the Guntersville Lock. The group all went to dinner at the marina restaurant on the water.
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Saturday we stopped at Hale’s Bar Marina with Skip and Lisa as we continued on to Chattanooga. Sunday dinner at Scottie’s with Skip and Lisa. Monday, Ginger and Dave McDonald picked us up and drove us to their home on Tellico Lake about an half hour from Knoxville. It was fun riding around on their boat and riding by Fort Loudoun which was an old British Fort. We enjoyed visiting, catching up, and having dinner at a Mexican Restaurant. Ginger drove us back to Chattanooga on Tuesday and we said farewell to Skip and Lisa. We moved our boat to another marina called The Bluff’s where we met Soul Mate and Little Red Fox fellow loopers who were going to attend the Fall Rendezvous like we were! Pete and I had fun exploring Chattanooga on our own as the other couples were heading out.
Heading to Chattanooga we were going upstream on the Tennessee River, but as we traveled back we were now going downstream and with the current. We left on Friday a day earlier than planned as Chattanooga was hosting the Chattajack Race on Saturday. This is a 31 mile run of Paddleboarders and Kayakers racing from Chattanooga to Hale’s Bar. We left Friday and stopped at Hales’s Bar and left early Saturday morning for Goose Pond before the racers would arrive. This part of the river from Chattanooga to Hale’s Bar is known as The Tennessee River Gorge. It has been nicknamed the Grand Canyon of Tennessee as the gorge was carved through the Cumberland Mountains by the river. The scenery and rock formations in the gorge were magnificent and with the late Fall colors, it was absolutely gorgeous!
The first week of November found us cleaning the boat up for the Looper Crawl and slowly meandering to Ditto Pond Marina and arriving on Friday at Joe Wheeler State Park for our Fall Rendezvous.