We're in Guild, TN this evening. Jim and Dudley went to fetch their car with our car and drop one at Chattanooga, which we'll use to come get the other one tomorrow. The car shuttle game! It's nice to have the cars, but it cuts into "Miller Time" when we arrive.

We went through the Nickajack lock today, which is the last lock before Chattanooga. On the way it was cold and cloudy most of the time, so we just stayed inside, but it warmed up a little this afternoon and we went up to the flybridge for a while, just to see the pretty scenery even though it was only 64 degrees.


We also saw a bald eagle sitting on a dead tree watching for fish to catch. We were within 200 ft of the tree when he flew off.









At Nickajack lock, the wind was blowing 30 MPH, but farther upriver it had gone to complete calm, leaving a nice reflecting surface for this shot of Jim's Favorite bridge.








Earlier, we had a little excitement when we intentionally went out of the channel to read the phone number on a real estate sign and got into 4 to 5 ft of water where the charts said 20 ft. It's a river, so I know they change with every flood, but the depth sounder was reading 20 ft. until it quickly went to 4 ft. Our boat draws 4.5 ft with the props turning, so we were plowing mud for a while as we backed out. We also heard a thud kind of sound as we contacted something on the bottom, but noc that chunka-chunka sound of a propeller hitting something. We decided we didn't really want that phone number there anyway! I did run the boat up onto plane later to feel for vibrations and make shure she'd plane, which she won't do with a bent prop, but all seemed to be OK.

We're going through the "The Grand Canyon of the Tennessee" tomorrow, which is supposed to be really pretty scenery. We hope the weather will cooperate.