Yes, another early start, but this time we made the conscious decision to leave early because of possible late afternoon thunderstorms. Our trip today is "only" 56.1 miles, but it also involves 3 locks so there is about 7 hours of travel time plus the lock times. This will be the last lock raising us up until we are in the Mississippi River so the Tombigbee portion of the waterway will end today.
Interesting sights today include this view of the of a barge terminal for a factory. This is interesting? Yup, the views for today are pretty much the same as the last few days..
The other random picture of one of the local sights along the way is this sand loading terminal. It seems that a large amount of sand is quarried out of the local river sediments and shipped downstream. Aggregate (sand and gravel) are important in mortar, concrete, asphalt, etc. and as such are critical to large growing metropolitan areas. For example, Houston, Texas has no local source of gravel for construction, and in College Station you could go to a Texas A&M baseball game and watch trains pass just outside the right field fence. When you here the train first whistle for a crossing, they flash up on the screen a trivia game to guess the number of engines pulling the train. Something like 14 train loads of gravel destined for Houston pass through town every day. 
The Rankin and the Montgomery are the first two locks and dams today. When the gates of the lock open for boats to leave, the permission to leave is signaled by either a loud horn or a siren. Upon exiting the Montgomery Lock we noticed this Osprey nest at the top of a pole. If you look closely, the nest is built on top of the four "horns" for this lock. Wow, the osprey chicks must be deaf when they are hatched...
The last lock is the Jamie Whitten Lock, and it has a lift of 84 feet as compared to all of the locks in the previous days, which had lifts of about 27 feet. This made this lock chamber look like we were entering a big dark hole when the gate closed behind us. The picture at the right shows the approach to the lock and dam with a big highway bridge in the foreground. These structures need to be built on a strong, stable foundation, and you can see exposures of the bedrock along the left side of the channel. 
This is the last lock on the Tombigbee River, and after this lock, we will spend about 25 miles in a man made ditch that actually connects the Tombigbee and Tennessee Rivers. Even at this distance from the lock, its height is still impressive.
There are some bends between long straight segment, but this photo pretty much says it all... The portion was completed in 1985, and the trees that line the waterway reflect that. They are very uniform in height and no doubt, in age.
Topographically, we are going across a drainage divide between the Tombigbee River that flows into the Gulf of Mexico and The Tennessee River. The Tennessee River flows into the Ohio River the flows into the Mississippi River that also ultimately flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Streams flow into the ditch from the sides, but they enter at different levels above the ditch. An example of this can be seen in the photo at the right. They have built a spillway for the water from the stream to flow down as it enters the ditch. Before the ditch was dug, this stream would have flowed smoothly into whatever stream flowed down back into the Tombigbee. As we approach the end of the ditch, the depth of the cut decreases and the height of these spillways decreases until "magically" we are out of the ditch and into the Tennessee portion of the waterway.
In this case, we leave the ditch about 8 miles before our destination at Grand Harbor Marina when the character of the waterway abruptly changes back into the winding, natural, river pattern once again. Thus, we are now in the upper reaches of a tributary of the Tennessee River. It feels good to be back in a more scenic and familiar setting of natural river channels.
We arrived at Grand Harbor Marina in mid-afternoon. We had hoped to arrive before the predicted late afternoon thunder storms, and we made it with just minutes to spare. When we docked, the sky back to the west was very dark and ominous, and the storm hit a short time after I had time to walk Lucky. Timing is everything... The photo at the right shows Lucky Us at her dock after the storm had passed and the skies cleared. You cannot see it in the picture, but the antenna for the marina wifi is on the side of the office/store and pointed directly at Lucky Us. Small wonder that we had the best wifi connection of any marina that we have stayed at on the entire Great Loop!
We picked up the marina loaner car to use for the 8 mile trip into Counce, TN for dinner. The marina and its very extensive grounds are mostly in Mississippi, but about 200 yards past the main gate you are in Tennessee. The best and certainly most unusual local restaurant is "Freddy Ts". The photo at left shows just some of the colorful decorations. This is the actual stern of a boat that was sawed off and made into a booth. This jet ski hangs from the ceiling along with dozens of 3 foot long replicas of fishing lures, and the list goes on.... All that and very good food.
Wow, I guess that when you are walking inside of Freddy Ts and look down and see a TV screen you probably need to walk home... Yup, it really is a TV in the floor with thick glass over the top (and yes, it really is both a bad attempt at humor on my part and a bad photo).
...and here is the happy couple after dinner in front of a carving of a fish on the wall. The eclectic decorations go on and on as can be seen in the next photo (below).
Last, but far from least, here I am with old friends Sulley and Mike. They hardly fit the overall theme of the rest of the decorations, but I am sure that they are popular figures with the kids as well as me. If it is not obvious by now, we obviously enjoyed this restaurant on our stop here about 18 months ago and were delighted to be able to come back again.
We will be here for at least 3 nights. We intend to do the usual things (like I will sleep in), but also, the Admiral was able to schedule an appointment with a veterinarian to get the final booster shot for Lucky's flu vaccine.
No comments:
Post a Comment