Huck Finn 2010

My new adventure!

2011-09-23T17:59:00.002-05:00

Check out my new adventure - 121 Jordanian Nights!

My newest adventure!

2011-07-09T10:28:00.000-05:00

I'm in Guatemala for the summer! Come check out Hola Guatemala!

A New Adventure!

2010-11-03T02:38:00.000-05:00

Check out the blog of my newest adventure!

Farewell

2010-07-28T13:34:00.002-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 36

The trip is officially over!

This morning we packed up everything and rode north to Indiana with Taylor and Rachael. On the way, we stopped at a Waffle House (affectionately known as Wa Ho) for Simon, since he'd never been. I don't think he appreciated it.

Our trip south on Plan C was amazing. We met some fantastic people - especially Rob and Kate who set the tone for our interactions with everyone else, and Randy and Rebecca whose hospitality (and moonshine) warmed our spirits.

We learned a lot about ourselves and each other. If you ever need a someone to travel down river with you, Simon's a good choice - he's bold, capable, not afraid to dig into a problem and get his hands dirty, and just good company. He's also a very talented photographer!

We gained confidence in our ability to just get out and have an adventure that we knew virtually nothing about.

This has been a great time of rejuvenation for me. I know I've said it before, but the freedom was amazing.

Thanks for all your prayers, emails, calls, texts, and comments! Thanks for reading along! We hope you've enjoyed it!

Farewell until our next adventure!

As promised, here are some statistics:

We traveled 725 miles down the Mississippi, 47 miles up the Ohio, and 617 miles up the Tennessee for a grand total of 1,389 miles.

We locked through 37 locks.

We spent 36 nights on the boat.

We lost 2 anchors.

We saved one life (~~Melissa~~ Melanie).

We took no prisoners.

Sold!

2010-07-26T22:56:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 35

I officially no longer own a boat!

This morning, Frank showed up with the cash and we completed the deal. Plan C is moving on.

The good news is that Frank is a great guy and knows a lot about boats. He's a captain of a stern wheel riverboat. He told us about his travels on the rivers and how he came to be a captain. Really interesting guy. Plan C is in good hands - Frank's going to giver her the tlc she deserves.

Even though we like Frank, it's bittersweet to sell her. We're spending our last night on her tonight. *Sigh* We'll miss you, Plan C. Let's have a brief moment of silence in her honor ...

...
...

After we sold her, we fed the ducks and bluegills that have been congregating near our stern. These things are like piranha! It was a feeding frenzy above and below the surface of the water! Simon was able to get one of the ducks to eat out of his hand!

Dinner was at the Lakeside Tavern again. We've actually found some good food there. The Tavern Chicken Tenders are excellent, and the Southwest Egg Rolls and Tavern Spicy Shrimp are good appetizers. The burgers are not very good - steer clear. The salads are decent. If you go with the Tavern Chicken Tenders, the spinach casserole is an excellent side, and the shiitake mushroom rice pilaf is pretty good too.

Taylor and Rachel came down to see us! They're going to give us a ride to Indiana where we'll (hopefully) relax for a few days before heading to Canada.

Tomorrow, I'll post all the grand totals for the trip - miles, locks, anchors, etc.

Third to last post?

2010-07-26T09:21:00.003-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 34

This, friends, could be the third to last entry in Huck Finn 2010.

At this point I know it may seem like it's enough already; there's not much to write about. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, "Why won't he just stop already? It's like Scrubs, man - that show should have ended after season 8 and probably after season 7. I can't even watch anymore - it's just painful and pointless! And I'd rather submerge myself in one of those Chuck E. Cheese ball pits and be trampled by snot-nosed kids with greasy pizza fingers than listen to the new lead character (Lucy Bennett) whine for 22 minutes!"

Hopefully that's not what you're thinking. But if you are, don't worry - the end is in sight!

I've accepted an offer on Plan C and as long as the cash arrives tomorrow morning, the trip will be officially over and we'll be headed north on Wednesday.

On Tuesday or Wednesday, I'll post some grand totals for the trip - days, miles, locks, maybe even fuel costs. May post some grand generalizations, as well :)

A brief explanation of these pictures ... I got really close to that duck! Also, that second picture is the closest I got to seeing a dead body. It was floating in the transient slip next to ours.

Air conditioning

2010-07-25T09:43:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 33

We spent all day at the marina.

They have this nice clubhouse that has a big screen with surround sound and a dvd player, leather couches, fireplace, pool tables, and a popcorn machine that Alexandria would probably trade a kidney for.

Simon and I have enjoyed the clubhouse very much - mostly because it's air conditioned. Honestly, if there was a closet with a couple of stumps in it to sit on, we'd be happy with it as long as there was air conditioning. We're in the middle of some kind of heat wave, and with the humidity, the heat index is over 100 degrees every day!

I was busy showing the boat for a good portion of the day. There's been a lot of interest, so I'm optimistic about selling her soon.

Before we were kicked out of the clubhouse (around 10pm) we got ourselves some popcorn from the machine and watched some dvds on the big screen! Tomorrow, we may try to start earlier and get ourselves a proper marathon going!

Throughout the trip, Simon's been taking photos and he's edited a few and put them in a picasa web album. They're good - check them out!

Knoxville

2010-07-24T02:08:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 32

We're in Knoxville!

If all goes according to plan, Simon pulled up his last anchor this morning. And we passed through our last lock - the Fort Loudoun Lock

A few miles before we got to our destination, we killed the engines and jumped in the river a few times just for old times sake.

The countryside near Knoxville is beautiful and it's filled with ridiculous homes! Some of these boathouses were bigger than most apartments I've seen!

We saw Predators tonight. It was pretty good - better than I expected!

We're docked at Concord Marina, and the plan is to stay here till we sell Plan C. This place is probably the classiest marina we've stayed at. There's a pretty fancy looking restaurant here, the Lakeside Tavern, but the food isn't too great. Maybe we just haven't ordered well yet.

Hopefully we'll sell the boat this weekend! Got lots of people lined up to come and look at her. I'm optimistic.

Here's a quick tidbit before I pass out from exhaustion!

Tidbit #4 - Talk to everyone. You never know who you'll meet. We've met so many interesting, helpful, and friendly people! Maybe we're talkative because it's relatively seldom that we see someone besides each other.

Ft. Loudoun Lock

2010-07-23T10:29:00.001-05:00

We're in our last lock!

Locked and loaded

2010-07-22T22:29:00.002-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 31

Another day on the river!

The humidity today was absurd. You could breathe through your mouth and not ever get thirsty. Yes, it was that humid. Fortunately, after we passed through a thunderstorm, the humidity got back to bearable levels. Much longer in that soup and we would've began to resemble the Mon Calamari.

We were buzzed by a float plane today! Before it started diving at us, it took me about 30 seconds to realize it was a remote controlled plane! The guy flying it was really good! He put on quite a show for us. Stuck the landing too!

It's a good thing our trip is nearing its end, because Simon has begun to throw our cookware into the river. We're down one pot!

Today we saw a whole bunch of fish jumping way out of the water! They were all in a very tight-knit group. Clayton warned me about these - evidently they're dangerous! Simon and I didn't take this video, but it shows what we saw:

But at least there aren't any whales!! Jumping fish aren't the only danger on the river, which leads me to our third tidbit.

Tidbit #3 - There are many dangers on the river, so keep your head on a swivel.

There are barges that take a half mile to stop. If you get caught in front of one, your boat is done. Simon and I debated whether it would be best to swim for the shore or stay on the top of the boat till the last second and try to jump onto the barge. Fortunately, we never got a chance to test these theories.

There are thunderstorms that will sneak up on you, cut your visibility to 10 feet in a matter of seconds, and blow you towards the shore with 40 plus mile an hour winds (which makes running into barges easier).

There are locks, dams, wingdams, buoys and trees to hit. Also, watch out for those trees, because sometimes you'll be minding your own business and they will hit you (and take your anchor)!

There are also poisonous snakes, but fortunately we didn't find any. Although ... I'm still very curious to know if I'm immune to copperhead venom now!

Despite these dangers and more, the most dangerous thing on the river, is Simon.

Tonight, we're on the hook about 30 miles from our destination in Knoxville.

CCR

2010-07-21T22:41:00.001-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 30

Another day of smooth sailing!

Simon downloaded a CCR greatest hits album today (that's Creedence Clearwater Revival if you're not American, or you are American but you've just never listened to music). Creedence is so goood (you know what the extra "o" is for)! After a few listens through the album, Simon and I agreed that we love all but one song, and even that song is pretty good!

I grew up believing that "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" was a California Raisins song. I figured they didn't write their own songs, but I never suspected they were covering a Creedence song! A part of my innocence was stripped away the day I learned that.

We passed two nuclear power plants today! (Click here for Homer Simpson's pronunciation guide.) I think this may have been the first time I've seen one in person. They're pretty impressive - completely silent, billowing steam out enormous exhaust chimneys. The steam coming out of these plants looked like clouds only a bit darker; maybe because they were lower or denser?

As we drove under the clouds, I half hoped that they would start raining on us. See where I'm going with this? Maybe the rain would be just radioactive enough to bestow super powers on me! Then I could take my rightful place as a member of the B.P.R.D.. My backup would be the Mutant Academy or maybe S.H.I.E.L.D.. No thanks, JLA ... unless Batman comes back ... but then only maybe.

We locked through our second to last lock today. That'll be a bittersweet moment when we pass through our last lock ...

Tidbit #3 - Don't overpack. You're probably gonna wear your swim trunks everyday. Not only do they allow you to hop into the water at a moment's notice, you don't have any underwear - an unnecessary layer that only heats you up! Shirts are a luxury reserved for the occasional foray onto land - two or three should do you just fine. You're going to want some shorts and underwear to go with those t-shirts so bring one or two pairs (and in Simon's case a needle and thread for repairs). Gotta have boat shoes - flip flops will only trip you up and send you overboard. That's really about all you need!

We're on the hook now where the Piney River meets the Tennessee.

Southern hospitality

2010-07-20T23:32:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 29

We spent today at the Island Cove Marina.

I cut my hair this morning. This was the first, and hopefully last, time that I've cut my own hair. I started out with the beard trimmer, but that didn't work too well because the mohawk was too long. Then Simon whipped out some scissors that I was able to use. I was cutting my hair on the swimdeck, and without the benefit of a mirror, it turned out a little rough. I didn't take a picture, but imagine if a barber was blind in one eye and tipsy ... he would've given me about the same cut I gave myself.

We cleaned and showed the boat and then had lunch. (If you go to the Fox Cay, get the Thibodaux Chicken Sandwich! The waitress recommended it, and it was amazing! Also, her grandmother said that we were supposed to give her a kiss after the meal ... unfortunately, she didn't seem up for it.) After lunch, I went to the marina's restroom and tried to salvage the haircut. It's not half bad, but I miss the mohawk already!

Quick aside - Mom, I have to apologize. Nealy borrowed your Dirt Devil for me. It wasn't working, so I opened it up and was holding over the side of the boat knocking out the caked on dirt and the brush roller thingy and belt fell out - sank like a rock. Looks like I owe you a Dirt Devil - but you've got a birthday coming up, right?

After a fairly relaxing afternoon of researching cars while Simon chatted with Will down the dock, we joined Randy and Rebecca for dinner aboard the Toes in the Water. Toes in the Water is a beautiful new 50 foot Gibson houseboat.

Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and potato salad. Rebecca makes some mean meatballs! She puts green peppers in them! (Sorry, Rebecca, if I'm giving away a secret ingredient.) I've never had green peppers in meatballs, but it's really tasty.

After dinner, we toured the Toes in the Water and then visited with Randy and Rebecca for about 4 or 5 hours! Here's something I learned today - moonshine still exists!

I used to think that moonshine was a product of prohibition that faded out soon afterwards. Turns out it's still a going concern! Randy was nice enough to share with us his apple cinnamon moonshine! Having never tasted moonshine, I expected it to taste about like rubbing alcohol - turns out it's actually pretty delicious! It's also pretty strong medicine - in Randy's words, "it'll make you take back stuff you never stole."

They also shared with us that Popcorn Sutton used to make the best moonshine ever. Unfortunately, he committed suicide to avoid prison after being arrested one too many times for making moonshine.

We had a great visit and learned a lot about their adventures and their aspirations to island hop in the Caribbean on a motor cat (a catamaran that's driven by engines, not sails). Sounds like a blast!

After a lovely visit, they gave us "Toes in the Water" t-shirts and we bid them goodnight!

Thanks again for everything, Randy and Rebecca! Maybe we'll see you in Knoxville.

We're quitting Chattanooga tomorrow morning and heading for Knoxville and the end of our journey. Hard to believe it's almost over. Oh! I almost forgot todays' tidbit!

Tidbit #3 - Flexibility is key. Whether you're contorting to squeeze through a hatch, jumping the five feet from the bow to the dock to catch the boat, reading and fishing for hours while waiting for a barge to clear a lock, or changing your destination from New Orleans to Mobile to Knoxville because of fuel scarcity, closed locks and unreliable boat transporters, you've got to be able to go with the flow (pun intended). The river is going to take your plans, and your anchors, and bend them all out of shape. Part of the thrill is seeing where the river takes you!

Chattanooga

2010-07-20T00:26:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 28

We're made it through the Chickamauga Lock with 10 hours to spare!

At about 4pm (which turned out to be 5pm - we're evidently in eastern time now) we passed through the lock with another boat - Toes in the Water. (For those of you who are not film fans/buffs, this is called foreshadowing.) She had a bit of trouble getting tied off; understandable since the currents in this lock were pretty crazy, which is probably why they're closing it down for repairs for a month!

Chattanoooga ("I put the extra 'o' in because it's so good") is quite an impressive city from the river. Very beautiful. From the river you can see several museums, the aquarium, a fountain, public docks, several attractive bridges, and a bunch of marinas.

We're docked now at the Island Cove Marina. It's a nice marina with a restaurant called the Fox Cay. Turns out they have good fried chicken! Will (just down the dock from us) recommended it, along with the coconut shrimp appetizer, which is also very good.

I know you've been waiting with bated breath for my next piece of boating advice, so here it its:

Tidbit #2 - Mosquitoes can smell fear. You have to go on the offensive, keeping in mind that chemical warfare against these savages is almost ineffectual. Get physical. Your best strategy is going to be to seal yourself in with them and then battle it out - cage match! Hunt them down, because if you don't, they will feast on you during your sleep.

After dinner at the Fox Cay, Simon and I spied the crew of the Toes in the Water! The were wearing Toes in the Water t-shirts and similarly branded koozies! We stopped and chatted for awhile.

Randy and Rebecca (captain and first mate, respectively) are delightful! They're natives of Chattanooga and have traveled the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers extensively. We were envious of their themed apparel, and they were generous enough to give us some koozies!

Their boat name was inspired by a Zac Brown Band song, "Toes". I'd never heard of Zac Brown and his band before tonight, but Randy and Rebecca told us he's Jimmy Buffet's musical heir. That song's being added to the Huck Finn 2010 soundtrack!

Also currently on the soundtrack are Sweet Home Alabama, Southern Man, Styx's Come Sail Away and the superior version that is sung by Eric Cartman, Oysters and Pearls (recommended by Rob, captain of the Easy Living), and a very obscure Guns N' Roses song called We Are Sailing that is evidently only available through youtube. Any other suggestions?

I finished Life on the Mississippi today! It was good - a bit slow at times, but good! Now I've moved on to a recommendation from JW - A Whole New Mind. I'm only on the third chapter or so, but it's good!

2010-07-18T21:45:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 27

We're back in Tennessee! Sweet Home Alabama is just a little bit less fun now.

The only lock we passed through today was the Nickajack Lock. As we were rising, Simon and I reminisced about the Mississippi River locks. The lock operators would always come by on their little utility scooters and chat with us! Here on the Tennessee River, however, we rarely even see the lock operators ... probably because we're going through way bigger locks, rising over a hundred feet in many instances.

We're getting dangerously close to the end of the trip so I think I'm going to start providing little tidbits of boating advice or boating rules. Pretty bold after only being a boater for 27 days, right? Nevertheless, here goes:

Tidbit #1 - No matter how carefully you coil and stow an anchor line, when you go to throw the anchor, the line will have twisted and wound itself into a knot of gordian proportions. It's also a rule that the more urgently you need to throw the anchor, the more impossible the tangle.

In my continuing quest to arm you with the tools you'll need to someday follow in our wake, I've added a new list - Stuff you're gonna need. I'm trying to stray from the more obvious items that you already know (bug spray, sunscreen, etc.). I'll continue to update it as more comes to mind.

I'm thinking that maybe we should have some t-shirts made to commemorate the trip ... mostly because I don't want a tattoo. I don't do needles!

We're on the hook in Nickajack Lake, next to Raccoon Mountain (where's my raccoon trap when I need it?!). The bullfrogs are making quite a racket - we can hear them over the generator!

Evasion

2010-07-17T22:07:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 26

We're on a pretty tight schedule. We've gotta make 60 miles upriver everyday in order to make it through the Chickamauga Lock, which closes at 6am on the 20th!

Saturdays are fun days because there are always lots of other people boating and frolicking on the river.

We covered our 60 miles today, braving another typhoon. The toughest part about it was all the wake the other boats made as they sped past, fleeing to their harbors.

Simon and I have improvised a new recipe! Their kind of like Coney Dogs ... maybe they should be called River Dogs? But aren't otters river dogs? Anyway, here's what you do:

You grill some hot dogs and a hamburger. You're also gonna want to toast the hot dog buns. You also open a can of Bush's baked beans with the back of a hammer (check out the updated casualties list) and put it on the stove to heat up. Put the can of beans right on the stove - not in a pan. Cut up an onion and some cheddar cheese.

After the burger is grilled, you chunk it up and mix it with the beans. You pour this concoction over the hot dogs and then top it off with onions and cheese! It's really good!

We're on the hook in Guntersville Lake tonight. I don't want to jinx anything, but ... for the last several nights, we seem to have evaded our bloodsucking nemeses! Not sure how we were able to give them the slip ... Maybe we smell so much like the river that we're indistinguishable now!

No sleep till Knoxville?

2010-07-16T23:40:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 25

Took our sweet time this morning!

It was a muggy night, and Simon and I are both exhausted. After a breakfast buffet, we spent some time recuperating in the pool.

This may be hard to believe, but the song "Sweet Home Alabama" is somehow better when you're cruising through Alabama on a boat! We probably played that thing ten times! Also played a "Southern Man" a few times too for good measure. To round out the playlist, I threw in The Moondoggies "Don't Be A Stranger," Good Old War's "Only Way To Be Alone," Patrick Watson's "Wooden Arms," and the Black Keys' "Rubber Factory." Quite a blue-grassy playlist! It felt right for the occasion.

Thanks to Micah for Moondoggies and Patrick Watson. Good recommendations!

It was a short trip today, but it did get a little dicey. Another squall ambushed us today! It lasted longer than most too - maybe an hour or more. We braved the whitecaps and, despite having almost zero visibility, we managed to make it to Riverwalk Marina where we're docked for the night.

It's astounding how exhausted we are. We could barely muster the energy to go see Inception - which is really good!

We were going to grab dinner at the Hard Dock Cafe, here at the marina, but they're charging a five dollar cover charge! Typical.

Instead, we just finished a steak dinner! There's a restaurant down here called Steak-Out that specializes in delivering steak dinners! It's really good! Their name, however, is interesting in that there are multiple puns here. The closest pun, "stake out," doesn't really make sense though does it ? Unless, of course, a large part of their clientèle are police officers on stake outs.

The better answer is probably that it's a pun on "take out."

I think I've only been this exhausted about five other times in my life - I gotta sleep this off. Over and out.

So hot

2010-07-16T22:50:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 24

Today was unbelievably hot.

The air was thick with a visible humidity that coated our throats as we breathed. The smell was rough too. The lakes we were passing through were calm to the point of stagnation. After much non-scientific discussion, Simon and I believe that the scores of dead fish we saw floating on top of the water were killed by the heat! (Those little white dots are dead fish.) As you can imagine, this only bolstered the stench.

We're docked at Joe Wheeler State Park Marina in slip 610. We lucked out and arrived on Italian nigh! The buffet included salad, hot wings, spaghetti and meatballs, pizza, and peach cobbler. The buffet did not look great. Normally I wouldn't have looked twice, but evidently your food standards change after three and a half weeks on a boat! It was delicious!

They had showers too, but we didn't use them - just swam around in the pool for a bit! The chlorine probably did us good!

I'm a bit surprised that no one has asked, yet, about how I'm able to post to the blog everyday. The secret to our internet connectivity is a Verizon MiFi 2200. This thing is incredible! We're getting internet in places that AT&T has never even heard of! Well done, Verizon.

This heat really takes it out of you. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow ...

Scorcher

2010-07-15T12:38:00.001-05:00

A heat advisory just came across the weather band. The heat index
right now is 105 degrees! It's so hot that if we don't wear shoes, our
feet get burned on the deck!

Maybe we should get an egg so we can brag, "it was so hot you could
fry an egg on the bow!"

We've seen a bunch of dead fish floating in Pickwick Lake - could that
be from the heat?

I was going to insert a Home Movies quote here about being hot, but I
couldn't find it. Just watch an episode from season 3 called "Bad
Influences" and you'll see what I mean. It's probably on AdultSwim.com
or even youtube. Hilarious stuff!

--
Sent from my mobile device

Alabama

2010-07-14T23:37:00.002-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 23

Allow me to first wish Blake (whom I will henceforth refer to as Banana Sandwich) a happy birthday!

As we were cruising today, a boat full of girls zipped past and one of them mooned us! At first I was caught off guard, but now I think that was intended as a birthday gift for Banana Sandwich. So next time I see you, man, I'm gonna pass it on. Don't even try to stop me.

We're on the hook in Alabama now after a day of uneventful cruising. We just passed the turn off for the TennTom. Simon and I waved a sad goodbye to the route to Mobile.

I was looking forward to seeing some alligators. I have to confess that I was toying with the idea of catching one. Most of you are probably thinking that's a bad idea, considering my run-in with the copperhead. But, I have successfully handled an alligator before. It was a small one - only about three feet - but I think I could wrangle another one!

The Tennessee River is beautiful, but I feel like it's just barely a river; it's surface is glassy, there's almost no current, and it even smells a bit stagnant. The current is so slow, in fact, that we killed the engines for a few minutes and and jumped in (it was super hot today)! There are no anchor eating trees to dodge, very few barges, and marinas every couple miles ... It's almost too easy.

Famous last words, eh?

Maybe I'm getting a little too confident? Tempting fate? I only put sunscreen on my shoulders, neck and face today - and it was only 8 spf! I have a theory (which my science type friends will probably immediately shoot down, as is their wont) that after I get pretty tan, my need for sunscreen diminishes. Alright Amy, Emily, I'm ready - fire away!

One thing the Tennessee River does have over the Mississippi is Lock names. Locks on the Mississippi are all numbered. The Tennessee River's locks have names like Pickwick, Nickajack, and Chickamauga!

We were able to help out some fellow boaters tonight! The Adventure II, which came through the Pickwick lock with us, hailed us on the other side of the lock and told us their GPS had gone out. They asked if we were going to their destination. I informed them that we weren't and that we also didn't have any GPS - just river charts. We proceeded to lead them to their marina with only the stars and our Tennessee River map to guide us. Then we remembered that Simon has an Iphone and it got really easy. Anyway, it was really great to be able to help someone out!

Could be rough sleeping tonight. It's really muggy. We've also got about a million bugs in here, but they're not mosquitoes!

Headed to Knoxville

2010-07-14T00:12:00.003-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 22

After tallying the votes, it looks like Knoxville is the winner! The people have spoken, and we're on our way!

Having learned a lesson after getting shut out of the TennTom, I checked the Tennessee River for lock closings and found that the Chattanooga lock will be shut down for a few weeks beginning July 20th at 6am. That gives us roughly 300 miles to cover in six days, so we've got to stay on schedule!

After weighing anchor this morning, we stopped at Birdsong Marina to get gas. The owner of the Marina, Bob Keast, told us a few stories and sold us a map of the Tennessee River! They stopped printing these in 2003, so we were pretty glad to get our hands on one!

Bob is quite the character. The best way to describe him (at least to the family) is ... well, imagine if Pop owned a marina. That's pretty much Bob. He had a building (resembling a pole barn) on a barge in the marina that he told us he's going to transform into a restaurant! As we were leaving the marina, he took our picture and told us to look for it on his website, here.

We left and got another day of smooth sailing under our collective belt! Also, does all this ridiculous scenery remind anyone else of Bob Ross (rest in peace)? I can hear him now, painting little friends for all his temporarily lonely trees .. *sigh* ...

We're at Clifton Marina tonight. When we looked up Clifton online, the interwebs told us that 2700 people live here. When we arrived, we were informed that there are 700 townsfolk and 2000 inmates in Clifton ... Wikipedia, you have failed me for the last time!

Clifton Marina has a courtesy car (as some marina's do) which we borrowed to venture into town and find dinner. Before we hopped in their mid nineties Buick Regal, we were given a screwdriver and told not to put it in park! Evidently once it gets into park it doesn't get our unless you jam this screwdriver somewhere down in the console.

This poor Buick had a host of other problems as well ... The rear driver's side window wouldn't roll up, which probably explained the two inches of standing water in the back seat! They needed a bilge pump back there! She also steered and sounded like someone had replaced the bearings with gravel and let half the air out of one tire!

After driving around a few minutes without finding any restaurants open, we stopped at the Bear Inn to ask for recommendations. What's the first thing I did? Put it in park. I instantly realized my blunder. But to be fair, that's instinctual at this point - mere muscle memory! You stop, you shift into park; you stop, you shift into park; you stop, you shift into park. I've been doing this for 14 years now! (Deanne, are you taking notes?)

Simon and I jimmied that shifter with the screwdriver for 30 to 45 minutes before throwing in the towel and calling the marina for help. The proprietress came and tried to fix it, but without any success. She left the car where it was, with the keys in the ignition, commenting, "we don't want to make it too hard for somebody to steal it!"

She gave us a ride to the marina and then told us we could use a truck parked in their lot. The keys were in it with a little tag on them that said "Gene's Truck." Thanks, Gene. She was obviously upset with her husband who hadn't had the car fixed, who in turn was obviously upset with us for forcing him to have to do something about their marginally salvageable Buick in the near future.

Exhausted and starving by this time, Simon and I headed for the only restaurant still open in town - the Country Girl. It's in a truck stop, and all the locals warned us that the food wasn't very good. To the contrary, however, we found that it was quite good! Either that or we've been on the river too long!

Speaking of country girls, it's been awhile since I've been in the south, and I'd almost forgotten how fetching a southern accent can be in a young lady :)

Foiled?

2010-07-12T21:31:00.001-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 21

It's officially been three weeks! Not bad, eh?

Another uneventful day of boating cut short by thunderstorms. Just as the storm hit, we were rounding a bend into a section of the river riddled with islands. Not the best place to have twenty feet of visibility, so we pulled out of the main channel and dropped anchor.

Saw a few interesting things today - one of which is what appears to be a partially submerged building. We were going to tag it with the Plan C logo that Rob and Kate invented, but we didn't have any spray paint.

Probably the coolest thing I saw today was a hawk swooping down at the river, grabbing a fish, and bringing it back to the nest atop a day marker. Pretty exciting to see things that I've only previously witnessed through the Discovery or National Geographic channels!

Also saw this crazy, steampunk looking pulley system for a drawbridge we passed under. I'm a sucker for steampunk!

For awhile there on the Mississippi, non commercial boats were scarce. Here on Kentucky Lake, however, they're all over the place and I'm reminded of an aspect of boating culture that we experienced up north. Everyone waves to everyone else.

There are other vehicular communities that do this too. Motorcyclists for example. As a biker, I can share that if you're going down the highway and another biker doesn't throw you a wave it's like a slap in the face. It's actually made riding the Big Ruckus difficult. It doesn't command much respect - only about 10% of bikers wave to me.

Now the boater wave is not like the biker wave, which is kind of a reverse heil. Don't get any crazy ideas; we're not throwing each other reverse heils because were crazy neo-nazis (although to be fair, the biker community may contain proportionally more of those than society at large). No, it's all about aerodynamics. If you stick up an open palm and wave it, the wind is gonna catch your palm and arm and make keeping your balance tough.

Anyway, boaters wave like everyone else, except they wave to pretty much everyone.

But I've been stalling. Let me get to the reason for the title of this post - the guy who was going to transport our boat around the closed locks almost doubled his price today! The boat transporting business must be good because we haven't found anyone else willing to transport Plan C for a price that isn't silly (i.e. half the value of the boat).

So we find ourselves faced with a few options if we don't find a way around these locks.

Option 1 - Stay on the Tennessee River and follow it all the way to Knoxville.

Option 2 - Go back to the Mississippi (a three day journey) and see if Plan C holds enough gas to make through the 300+ mile marina-free stretches before and after Memphis.

Option 3 - Sell Plan C in the next couple days, buy a couple kayaks and head to Mobile, portaging around the closed locks - the timing on this one is tricksy (hobbitses).

Let us know what you think! Vote! I'm not going to push a P Diddy style "vote or die" campaign ("what does that even mean?!"). This is more a "please vote ... unless your don't want to or just can't be bothered" campaign.

The [lake] was angry that day

2010-07-11T20:52:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 20

Another day afloat!

Pretty uneventful day. We're still making our way south through Kentucky Lake.

Check out these floating patches of red stuff. They were out in the middle of the lake and some extended for as long as 50 yards. I put Plan C in neutral and climbed down to investigate only to discover that they're dead minnows! There were literally tens of thousands! Why so many? Why in the middle of the lake?

Speaking of floating dead things ... when we started Huck Finn 2010, I really expected that I would see a dead body floating down the river. My stomach is weak, so I wasn't looking forward to it, but I was preparing myself mentally. Almost three weeks later, and still no dead bodies. Don't worry though, I'll let you know if I see one.

Around 6pm, we were hit by another five minute squall. Off on the horizon, we spotted dark clouds pouring down rain. By this time, we knew that it was only a matter of about ten minutes before we would be inundated. We closed all the windows and put everything inside that couldn't get soaked.

Before a storm hits there's an eerie calm (seems fairly obvious, right?). Then everything - the water, the air, the clouds - turn a deeper shade of blue and the wind picks up big time. Today the wind was especially bad. It transformed a fairly placid lake into a heaving landscape of four foot white-capped waves.

We contemplated waiting it out, but these waves were serious. I was honestly afraid that if we got turned sideways one of the bigger waves might roll us. We set a gradual course for a cove on our port side and maneuvered behind a protective beach, barely missing (we found out after the storm had passed) a sandbar!

The storm blew over a few minutes later and we were on our way.

Did I ever tell you about the mystery of Lock 23? Didn't think so. As we cruised down the upper Mississippi, we passed through Lock 22 and then came upon Lock 24. After double checking our river charts to make sure I wasn't crazy, I asked one of the lock attendants what happened to Lock 23.

He said that after the locks had been planned out, the powers that be decided Lock 23 wasn't needed. He also said that Lock 23 is in Pennsylvania now ... which makes no sense! Why would it still be called Lock 23? They didn't move it. But then again, they didn't bother to renumber the rest of the locks, which seems like a really obvious and simple thing to do, so maybe he's on point. He went on to say that the tug operators are having shirts and hats made that have the Army Corps of Engineers Logo and have "Lock 23" printed on them as a joke. Wonder if I could snag one of those?

For cruising tunes, lately I've been liking Pheonix's Wolfgang Amadeus Pheonix, Ok Go's Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, and Good Old War's Only Way to Be Alone. Good Old War seems especially appropriate for river cruising - very blue grassy.

We stopped early tonight because it was very overcast and another storm was on the horizon. We're on the hook somewhere on Kentucky Lake. This storm is nuts! We have no visibility and there's lots of thunder and lightning. Hopefully it'll blow over soon so we can open the windows and get some air!

Scrambled eggs

2010-07-11T10:30:00.001-05:00

Simon makes some of the best scrambled eggs I've ever had. They may
even be better than The Dad's.

We may have to have an egg scramble-off (single elimination, winner
take all) when we meet in Canada!

--
Sent from my mobile device

Maintenance

2010-07-10T23:32:00.002-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 19

We accomplished a lot today!

Kentucky Dam Marina let us use their courtesy van to go into town. Kentuckiana was our first stop for a few boating supplies and then we cruised down to the NAPA auto parts store. The guy who worked the counter had been a boat mechanic for 40 plus years! We told him what that we needed oil caps for our boats motors. After asking what year, make, and model he was able to saunter into the back and find exactly what we needed - from memory! Didn't even look anything up. Amazing. He went on to tell us some common problems to look for in our boat. We wanted to invite him to join us for the rest of the trip!

We stopped at Wendy's for lunch. This was a slightly less satisfying experience than talking to NAPA guy. Burger and fries sat pretty heavy after not eating greasy food for so long!

At Walmart we stocked up on some staples - Coke, anchor chain, sunscreen, and a pocket knife. We also picked up some serious bug repellent! We went with the most DEET we could find - 40%! I want that stuff to singe my arm hair and any mosquito foolish enough to come close!

After a quick DQ stop, we went back to Plan C and got her cleaned up to be listed for sale! Simon cleaned inside and took pictures while I scrubbed the decks. Scrubbing decks is harder than I anticipated! But she cleaned up real nice! Check out the Craigslist ad. There are more pictures here on Flickr.

The cleaning was done, and we were ready to get back on the river. After refueling, we checked the the fore hold and discovered the bilge wasn't working! There was an alarming amount of water in there! Fortunately, we were still at the marina and bought a new bilge and float switch. After installing them, we discovered that the problem was a blown fuse. Note to self ... check fuses first ...

But the old bilge was on its last leg, so it was probably good to replace anyway.

While I was scrubbing the decks, I think I burned my neck and face. Forgot to put on sunscreen again. I'm gonna be super tan the next time you see me. Or, I may be alarmingly red.

I hesitate to invite the comparison, but my goal is to be the shade of an expertly toasted marshmallow. Though I'm afraid that I passed that stage long ago. All the hair on my arms has turned blonde! It could be good if the mohawk did that - it'd be easier to pass off all this grey hair!

We didn't make much progress today. We're on the hook just south of where we were docked last night. It's good to be back on the boat again. While we're on land we have to put on airs: showering, wearing shirts and underwear, using bathrooms.

Tennessee River

2010-07-10T00:26:00.000-05:00

Captain's Log - Day 18

After a fantastic night's sleep (nice and cool with almost no bugs!), we are officially on the Tennessee River!

I'm going to expose my own ignorance and confess that I believed the Tennessee River would be flowing south when we entered it from the Ohio. Turns out it flows southwest from Knoxville and then curves back north to meet the Ohio! Also, is that an eagle's nest? It's huge! They have eagles here, right?

Despite a calm and uneventful day, I was stressing for most of it. You know those lock closings I mentioned yesterday? I called the people who run the locks on the TennTom to see if there was some way to get through. I figured it was a situation similar to when there's road construction on a residential street - the sign says "No Thru Traffic," but you can actually get through. Nope. Turns out they're closed tight - no exceptions.

I asked the woman on the phone if there was any way at all we could get around the closed locks. After a pause, she drawled "Well ... you could go down the Mississippi." Thanks zero (and that's no thanks).

My newest scheme was to get the boat pulled out of the river above the lock in Gainesville, Alabama and put back into the river below the Coffeeville lock. Three hours later, I had called about seven boat transport places and no one could help me. It seemed our only options were fast becoming a) strap a 50 gallon drum of gas to the swim deck and hope we could make it down the Mississippi, or b) end the trip in Gainesville, Alabama. Neither of these options thrilled me.

Ten minutes after we passed through Kentucky Lock (only thing that came to mind when I saw it was "gates of Mordor") I got a phone call. We were just pulling out of a tugboat marina where we'd come closer than I'd like to a break water (it was dark). A guy who had been recommended by a guy who had been recommended by a marina was finally returning my call! He says he can help us out! Definitely a weight off.

On an unrelated note, during Simon's daily nap yesterday, we were swarmed by Japanese beetles. For those of you who don't know, I have a history with Japanese beetles. One summer during college, I was employed by FedEx as a plane de-bugger. There were about five teams of six people whose entire purpose was to guard FedEx's planes and ensure the beetles didn't get on board. We massacred them by the tens of thousands.

I was a bit nervous at first that perhaps word had traveled in the Japanese beetle community and this was a hit squad come to exact revenge. But I played it cool and they didn't suspect a thing. You'll be happy to know that I was able to suppress my training and didn't squish a single one!

Tonight we're docked at the transient dock of the Kentucky Dam Marina. This is the first we've set foot on land for over four days! Crazy, right? The mosquitoes here are smaller and more lugubrious than those we last encountered on the Mississippi! Could be some decent sleeping tonight!