It used to be that a great vacation was no phones, no fax, no electronics, just us and maybe a camera. Now, we think it's bad if there's no cell phone service and no internet, which is what it has been for the past few days.

We're in the Midway Marina, near Almost Nothing, MS and I'll be lucky if just this text gets out to the blog. No way to add more pictures because it's so slow that the servers won't wait for this slow phone internet to upload them. Just to get the one picture here, I had to reduce the file size by 80% and then wait 15 minutes just to get it uploaded.

We stopped at the beautiful Joe Wheeler State Park Marina again, but this time there were very few boats at the big transients dock and the fall colors had gone to mostly winter browns. Also, we woke up to frost all over the handrails of the boat and on the docks and boat ramps. Had to be careful going out to walk the dog. It warmed up nicely to about 60 during the days though.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving at Counce, TN (back at the corners of Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama). Kathy cooked a full Thanksgiving feast with a whole roasted chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, a pumpkin pie and a chocolate mousse pie. YUM!

Then we started down the Tenn-Tom Waterway which connects the Tennessee River to the Tombigbee River. We went through three locks today 11/29) without much waiting and got about 55 miles down the waterway, which mostly looks like a big ditch. The Army Corps of Engineers says they moved more material for this than the Panama Canal, but it still looks like a big ditch.

We met another Hatteras Owner's Forum member in one of the locks today. Their boat name is "Fun@Sea.calm" a rather cute incantation of what cruising is supposed to be all about. They came over for drinks and appetisers, which turned out to be dinner by just finishing off with some of Kathy's Thanksgiving pies.

We'll stop at Abdereen, MS tomorrow and then on to Columbus, MS where we'll leave the boat to drive home for Christmas and New Years with friends and family.

Just cruisin' on the river. We had a nice two days and are now in Huntsville, AL.

When we started out yesterday morning, it was totally calm and the water on the river was a smooth as glass, reflecting the islands and river banks like a mirror before us.








It was bright and sunny all day and the fading fall colors were still pretty. It seemed like we were the only boat on the river and our wake flowed like a wave study in a physics class.










Today was all gray and mostly rainy, but still afforded us some interesting views, like this "Painted Rock" bluff along the Tennessee.

We're going back to Joe Wheeler State Park tomorrow, which is a beautiful location (but with a really bland restaurant). Then on towards the Ten-Tom and further South.

Wow! What a beautiful cruise! "The Gorge" between Chattanooga and Guild, TN is really spectacular. It's not the Canadian North Channel or the Florida Keys, but it's by far the best river scenery we've ever cruised. We were sorry that our longtime friends, Don & Julee Norris were unable to join us at the last minute. When we came upriver, we saw the gorge shrouded in mist and with excellent fall colors. Today, we saw it in bright sun with the fall colors fading fast, but still pretty.

There are VERY tall bluffs and steep hills coming down to the river's edge. In many parts, the river is 50 to 100 ft. deep and the bluffs are 500 ft. tall. It goes like this for 30 miles or so.







Around every bend is another beautiful scene. Much more than half of the shoreline is uninhabited TVA land, so it looks like a cruise through nature.








The fall colors were dying down to browns, with a few still beautiful trees mixed in.











This guy had a house with a great view, but what a steep trip down to his boat dock. At least he doesn't have to worry about flooding!











Snake! The local marina cat caught this pretty little baby snake and was gently carrying it to the dock. It dropped it and gave it to me as a present, I suppose to prove it's hunting prowess. It was totally unhurt. I think it's a Prairie Kingsnake. It's not a baby Copperhead, so it's non-poisonous. It was very happy when I released it in the water close to shore and it could swim really fast. I'm glad the cat gave it to me instead of having it for supper.

Tomorrow, we're going on through Nickajack lock and on to Scotsboro, AL.

Yesterday, we went to see the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, TN. It was started by one man (Jack, obviously) after the turn of the century and still produce every bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey at that one plant for distribution all over the world. It's a big operation, but it is still run by simple and their tried and true methods and all of the water used to make whiskey comes from this spring on the property, next to Jack's old original cabin.

They start by making their own charcoal out of white oak boards. It's stacked in "ricks" like these two and burned while being sprayed occasionally with water so it will make charcoal instead of ash.







It takes 4 of those ricks to make one of these bins of charcoal. Perfect charcoal for filtering whiskey is a big deal at Jack Daniels. To make sure the charcoal is pure, they start the ricks on fire with 180 proof Jack Daniels whiskey.




Then they put corn, barley and hops in huge vats with water and yeast and let it ferment.











After fermenting, the yeast has turned the sugars into alcohol and it is distilled into 180 proof alcohol.











The alcohol is then slowly dripped and filtered through huge vats of charcoal. At this stage, it's like "white lightning" moonshine. Our tour guide lifted the lid a little and let us breathe in the alcohol fumes from the vat. It smelled like clean whiskey and was overpoweringly strong alcohol. It's a "dry" county, so they can't let us taste the whiskey, but a few whiffs from the vats was enough to get you just a little tipsy.

Then they put it into white oak kegs, which they also make themselves, on the property. The kegs are specially roasted on the inside "to release the flavors and colors of the wood to seep into the whiskey. These kegs are stored for 4 to 7 years until it tasted just right. There were 68,000 barrels of whiskey in this one 6 story warehouse, and thay have 6 more like this.

Today, we drove to Watts Bar Lake near Knoxville, just to see what lakefront realestate prices were here. We did find a perfect lakefront lot with 1/2 acre and 150 ft of lakefront where a deepwater dock could be built in front of a house. It was $265K, which is much lower than lots back on Pickwick and Wilson Lakes. We decided to pass, even though it was just a perfect lot.

We also walked up the riverside here a few blocks to see the Hunter Art Museum. It was fine, but nothing to write home about.

Saturday, we're leaving Chattanooga and heading back towards the Ten-Tom canal, and eventually Florida.

We've been to see the Chattanooga Farmer's Market and Chili Cookoff, the Chattanooga Aquarium and the 3D I-Max movie "Dolphins & Whales.

The Farmer's Market wasn't much, mostly because harvest season's over here, but there was a good artisan bakery where I got a very nice Kalamata olive bread, and we had 5 little bowls of chili from the 5 finalist Chattanooga fire stations. You got a voting ticket to try all of the chilis and then put your ticket in the ballot box for your favorite. My favorite was Station Number 1 and Kathy liked Station #1 the best too. I haven't watched the national news to see who won.

The Chattanooga Aquarium really was excellent! The aquarium is so close we just walk across the street to get to it. This picture is where we are docked and taken from the Aquarium 4th floor windows. There are really two separate huge buildings. One is the fresh water rivers and the other is the salt water aquarium. Sure enough, going on a Monday is great because the place wasn't packed with crowds, just us a a few other tourists.

The rivers aquarium was totally excellent - worth the trip. There were hundreds of large tanks, great underwater "scene setting", like this croc.,









Besides the many freshwater fish, I also liked the river otters and the live butterfly garden.















The salt water aquarium was equally impressive. It was mostly a single huge tank with many access points and views, full of an incredible variety of salt water fish. This is a shot of the underwater cave diver view where you can walk through an underwater cave and look up and through the cracks to see the deep fish hiding down there, almost like scuba diving.


One exhibit had many tanks of seahorses and I was amazed by this leafy sea dragon seahorse. Everything you see in green is actually just one single seahorse looking like kelp.







The 3D I-Max was a Ho-Hum. Very good pictures of whales and dolphins, but the 3D glasses didn't work that well and were too distracting and there was an awful lot of moralizing about man's bad effect on every creature they showed. Yeah, I know that stuff, but they just laid it on too thick and too often. I'd rather see the movie just as an I-Max movie, and without all the moralizing.

There's a cold snap here and it's going down to 24 degrees tonight. I just ran both diesel engines to get 1,000 lbs of steel hot again to help keep water pipes from freezing in the engine rooms. The boat's nice and warm though with our built-in heaters in the air conditioners.

We're in Chattanooga, after a beautiful but misty cruise through "The Gorge", which has steep mountains and headlands all the way down to the river and lakes. There was no wind so the water was frequently like glass.






Before we left Hales Bar above the Nickajack lock, we visited the now defunct hydro-electric plant from the previous old lock and dam. Evidently, when the dam was built in the 1920s it leaked through the bottom of the dam. A temporary fix lasted for years, but they built the Nickajack lock to replce it and blew up the old dam.

The old hydro-electric plant is now empty and used for boat storage inside the huge concrete building.











On our way through The Gorge", the Fall colors were showing nicely even though it was misty, with overhanging mist above the mountains lining the waterway.









The brightest colors seemed to be small trees along the banks in some places.












After we arrived in Chattanooga, the Groves shuttled cars again and we drove them to visit the Groves Tennessee mountaintop summer home. It's in a really beautiful area called Mont Eagle, near Chattanooga. This is a nearby lookout over the valley below.




We said a fond farewell to the Groves on Friday. We'll be staying in Chattanooga for over a week, doing the tourist thing. Our dock is right downtown at the Aquarium, which we'll go see on Monday instead of going with the weekend crowds...... nice to be retired so we can do that. There are also lots of other places we want to go around here like the Jack Daniels Distillery, Watts Bar Lake homes, a 3D I-MAX theater, the Bluff Arts District, and a couple of wineries and Civil war battlefields.

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.