To Knoxville and Back Nov 7 - 23

The tropical depression Ida had dropped lots of water in Eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. The Tennessee River level at Chattanooga was higher than normal and had flooded some of the downtown walkways and non-floating docks. It was the high water flowing downstream that closed the Chickamauga Lock to us for 2-1/2 days.

The dams on the Tennessee created by the TVA starting mainly in the 1930's created beautiful lakes but inundated many towns and farms. We saw evidence several places of previous farm locations evidenced by old silos sticking up out of the water.

Many of the locks on the Tennessee had lower end lock doors that were curved, such as this set on the Fort Loudoun lock.

As we reached Watts Bar Lake and further north in Lake Loudoun, we started seeing huge houses that I would have to call modern mansions. We have seen beautiful waterfront homes in Canada and along rivers, but I would have to rank these on the upper end of the Tennessee as the largest and the most unusual.

These beautiful homes also had some of the largest and most elaborate boat houses. The large houses continued all the way to Knoxville.

Not in the "mansion category" but obviously a University of Tennessee supporter was this house just as we were entering the downtown Knoxville area.

Downtown Knoxville comes into view. There are several bridges spanning the Tennessee. The first is the Southern RR bridge whose stone piers date to before the Civil War. Behind it is the concrete Henley Street Bridge used during Labor Day to serve as a launching point for a spectacular fireworks display. On the far left in this picture is a tower topped with a gold ball. This is a reminder that Knoxville is on the few U.S. cities to host a World's Fair. This one was held in 1972 and had more than 11 million visitors.

The first major landmark is Neyland Stadium, the 104,00 seat capacity stadium for the University of Tennessee Volunteers football team. During games boaters come to the game by water creating the aptly named "Volunteer Navy." I understand boats are rafted extensively off the public docks into the river at game time.

We continued past downtown four miles all the way to the start of the Tennessee River where the Holston River (on the left in this picture) and the French Broad (on the right) come together to form the Tennessee.

There is a public dock for transient boats and docking available at long time Knoxville downtown landmark, Calhoun's On the River barbecue restaurant. We tied up at the public dock and walked up to Calhoun's for lunch. Due to the delayed trip up-river from Chattanooga we only had about 2 hours to spend in Knoxville so Kendall only had time for quick walk to downtown and back before we had to shove off.

There were several statues positioned around downtown including this rower.

The city created an eight million dollar waterfront improvement. Near the public docks are these benches and artificial waterfalls. The scenic walkway extends almost three-fourths of a mile along the river to the Volunteer Landing Marina.

The waterfront walkway was clean and neat. I was amused by the fifth bullet point in these park rules. "No persons with diarrhea are permitted in the fountain." This leads to questions like "Do they have lots of problems with diarrhea in Knoxville?"

The bluffs on each side of the river leaving Knoxville are high and creates a narrow river channel. Currents were high in several spots. The water cuts through some unusual formations where rock layers are pushed up to make these patterns. This spot was at our anchorage on Poland Creek, 27 miles downriver from Knoxville.

Just upriver from the Fort Loudoun Lock we turned up the Little Tennessee River into Tellico Lake for about 8 miles before turning around. This lake has become a popular retirement destination for people from the north who come to enjoy the water, the mountains and the moderate climate.

The Tellico Lake bank on the southwest is covered with fine homes with interesting architecture and landscaping.

Further down the Tennessee is the town of Kingston. A few miles north of here the Emory River empties into the Clinch River. The Clinch begins in southwest Virginia. At Kingston the Clinch feeds into the Tennessee River.

One of Kingston's recent claim to fame is this Coal Fired Power plant and as the site of a coal fly ash retention pond spill. It was actually more like a flood of liquid ash that in December 2008, broke through retention walls of settling ponds and inundated some houses before flowing down the Emory River, into the Clinch, and out to the Tennessee. There were still some absorption booms on the sides of the Clinch River visible.

The chart shows the path of the ash slurry flow. The previous picture was the coal fired power plant producing the fly ash.

On the way downriver we stopped for a couple hours at the city dock in downtown Chattanooga to eat lunch at the Sticky Fingers Barbecue Restaurant.

This picture shows the landscape downriver from Chattanooga as we head for the area called the "Gulch." The Gulch is a narrow river valley between high cliffs and mountains on each side.

Signal Mountain looks over the Tennessee River.

Numerous TVA Power Plants are situated on the Tennessee utilizing abundant water supply and generally rural settings. Also coal fired plants can be easily supplied by barge.

This is the cooling towers of TVA's Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant the first of two nuclear plants we will see on that day.

Painted Bluff is more than 350 feet high which makes it one of the highest bluffs on the river between Puducah and here (mile 344.8). The bluff gets its name from the yellow and brown rock.

As we came into the Decatur one distinctive industry on the waterfront was this silo with the "Home of Meow Mix" painted on the side.

At Decatur, we steered the boat to the Riverwalk Marina which is in the center of the Tennessee River. This was where we left the boat to fly to Seattle to spend Thanksgiving week with our daughter, Stacy and boyfriend Nate in Seattle.

To Chattanooga Nov 7 - 14

Another example of the rock formations on the Tennessee is this bluff several miles south of Chattanooga.

We stayed at a floating city dock right on the Chattanooga waterfront. We had enough time the first day to go through the Tennessee Aquarium. This is a modern first class aquarium. It has many walk through exhibits and the largest fresh water aquarium tank in the US.

Along with the fish tanks were displays of other animals that live on the water. The alligator exhibit had these little ones.

There was a variety of beautiful ducks.

The next day we took the free downtown electric shuttle bus out to the Chattanooga Choo Choo. This is name for the the 1908 Southern RR Terminal Station that has been converted into a hotel and entertainment facility. The railroad station had its last passenger train in 1970.

The inside of the terminal has a domed ceiling. Built of steel and concrete and buttressed by huge brick arches, the dome rested on four steel supports 75 feet apart. Inside this waiting area passengers waited for the 50 different trains at the peak of train travel.

Inside one of the old railway freight buildings was an HO scale model railroad covering 174 feet long 33 feet wide. It depicted Chattanooga and the surrounding Cumberland mountain area. It includes over 3,000 feet of track, 320 structures, 150 switches, 120 locomotives of all types, 1,000 freight cars and 80 passenger cars.

The Chattanooga Choo Choo was a Southern Railway passenger train that ran from Cincinnati through Chattanooga which first began in 1880. This wood burning steam locomotive was similar to the type used in 1880.

The electric bus took us back downtown. The city has a variety of unusual benches set up around the downtown. This one had ceramic insets set up with an animal scene.

We took a walk up the hill to the Hunter Art Museum. It is a modern building adjoining a 1904 Victorian mansion owned by the first Coca-Cola bottler in the nation. Art is displayed in both buildings.

There is a walking bridge over to the museum. It has glass floors so you can look down and see the cars on the street about 100 feet below. Its a weird feeling.

Some of the tourist locations required that we take a city bus out several miles. We caught the bus for Route 15 and the driver dropped us off at the International Towing and Recovery Museum.

Inside were examples of tow trucks .

Then we boarded the Route 15 bus an hour later and took it to the Incline Railway stop. This car pictured makes the climb up the side of Lookout Mountain. It climbs a grade of up to a 70% incline.

As the car reaches the top the slope is steep enough that you have to look out the top of the car to see the valley below.

This is the Point Park at the top of Lookout Mountain. During the Civil War the Confederates held this ground overlooking the Union troops that were trapped in Chattanooga. As part of the campaign by U.S. Grant to relieve the siege of Chattanooga, he ordered an attack on Lookout Mountain. In the famous "Battle Above the Clouds", Union units captured the Confederate positions below the summit forcing the Confederates to withdraw. This NY Regiment monument at the top commemorates this successful assault.

The view that the Confederates had of Chattanooga from Lookout Mountain. The Tennessee River curves around a peninsula (on the left) called Moccasin Point.

The rock formations on top of Lookout Mountain are distinctive. There are Civil War photos of troops arrayed around many of the formations near the top.

The Delta Queen steernwheeler no longer travels the rivers but is anchored to the bank and serves as a hotel. Chatanooga has a "Duck" tour of the downtown and waterfront. It shows in the foreground.

We left the city dock after three nights to head upriver. Unfortunately, as we reached the Chickamauga Lock we were told by the lockmaster that the lock was closed due to high water. So we turned around and headed back to the city dock for 2-1/2 more days.

Down the Tenn River to Muscle Shoals Nov 1-6

We came down the Tennessee River and stayed at the Clifton Marina at Clifton, TN. A couple days earlier I had determined that the boat house batteries were failing and would not supply enough current to supply the load overnight (mainly the refrigerator and anchor light.) So I located a marina on our route that could get replacement AGM batteries and I had them order the 4 batteries I needed. So we were locked into staying at marinas until we reached Muscle Shoals. We did borrow a courtesy car at Clifton to see the city. One highlight was this old ferry crossing location that Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forest used to move his troops back and forth across the Tennessee River during the Civil War. On one operation in 1863 he moved across on a ferry and then had it sunk to allow his troops to come back later and use it for movement back across.










At some point in the Civil War the Federal troops occupied the town. They used this Presbyterian Church to stable horses. They knocked out some of the bricks at the front door to widen the opening. Evidence of the damage is still visible.













More of the layered limestone formations along the Tennessee.









Shiloh, Tennessee was one of the bloodier battles of the Civil War. A near defeat of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Union Army was turned into a Federal victory with the help of reinforcements and gunboats brought down the Tennessee River. When the Confederate surprise attack started on April 6, 1862 Grant was eating breakfast in this house, the Cherry Mansion, in Savannah, Tennessee. This house is about 9 miles up river from Pittsburg landing which was a steamboat landing used by the Federals to land troops and supplies. Leaving breakfast quickly Grant took a steamboat to the battlefield and help lead a defense and eventual victory.




This is Pittsburg Landing the Civil War era steamboat landing. Grant stepped ashore here to lead his troops. The Confederates overran the Union troops to within a few hundred yards of this spot. On the second day April 7, Union counterattacks drove the Confederates from the field of battle.










Right in downtown Florence, Alabama is the location of the Wilson Lock and Dam. The old lock completed in 1918 is on the left. The current lock when built in the 1950's was the worlds highest single lift lock. At 93' of lift, it is now the sixth highest.














After reaching the J's Landing Marina at Muscle Shoals and getting our new house batteries, we rented a car for two days to see the cities in the area. We headed East to Decatur, AL and passed the home of General Joseph Wheeler. A famous Calvary General of the Civil War, he also lived to lead US Troops against the Spanish in the Spanish American War in Cuba in 1898. The other sign tells of his daughter Anne's service in the Red Cross in the Spanish-American War and WWI.

We toured some of the Civil War sites in old Decatur. Then we drove up to Huntsville, Alabama where we toured the historic train station and this hardware store that is over 100 years old although now just a museum and gift shop.

The Twickenham Historic District is a wonderful area of Federal and Greek Revival homes. Many in the area close to downtown were pre-Civil War.

The significance of this house is that is was the birthplace of famous Civil War Calvary General John Hunt Morgan.

This McDowell home was owned by a Union sympathizer during the Civil War. Apparently, he passed on intelligence to the Union and often flew the Union flag.

Our first stop the next day was at Hellen Keller's birthplace in Tuscumbia, AL. This was her parents' house and where she lost her sight and hearing after and early childhood illness.

If you saw the movie or play "The Miracle Worker" you will be familiar with the scene at the water pump where Anne Sullivan, puts Helen's hand in the pump water to get her to understand the word water. This was her first word association and clicked something that led to her future successes as a world renown author and

lecturer. Of interest to Lion's Club members would be the display they had erected. The Lion's Club took on the plight of the sightless as their fundraising project.

Another highlight we visited in Muscle Shoals was the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. We learned that several Muscle Shoals recording studies developed a sound that created top hits starting in the 60's and reaching a peak in the 70's and 80's.

This display claimed that Rocket 88 was the first Rock & Roll hit.

Moving over to Florence, AL we visited the Pope's Tavern. This Inn was on a main road north and south created by Andrew Jackson to move supplies between Nashville and New Orleans.

Another landmark in Florence was the birthplace of W.C. Handy. Handy is credited with being the Father of the Blues.

Handy composed the St. Louis Blues on this piano.

I couldn't leave the area without a little more Civil War, so we drove 45 minutes west to Corinth, Mississippi to an excellent Interpretive and Visitor Center for the Shiloh Battle and the battles and occupations of Corinth.