On Wednesday (8/05) we were riding on the happy excited wave of smooth and efficient motoring and got a little too ambitious with our progress – we ended up locking thru as the sun was setting and by the time we were done it was dark. Again. Ugh. It took a while to find a spot to hunker down for the night, tying to a giant grain barge, hoping for ominous weather we saw on the radar to pass by as far away from us as possible.
Pasta bolognese, some Malbec and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry on TV (because Capt. Max got all excited about Tana and I being married, for realz).
Thursday was a great travel day, during which we made 130 miles (at 11.5 miles per hour) and locked thru 6(!) locks. Your blog writer actually did a couple of boat tasks, including waxing our windshield in case we were going to get rained on (this helps the water bead and run down quicker to improve visibility in bad weather), and tie the boat in the locks (this is required so that we don’t lose control, while the lock fills with rushing water that raises or lowers us to the next level).
Y’all, I’m actually also working remotely for my paying job and this trip makes a cool setting for what’s normally a four-walled office. I lift my head up from the screen to catch trees and clouds floating by!
We stayed at the Grand Harbor marina, another swanky-ish place stocked with a courtesy car, pool & hot-tub, and a supermarket nearby. (I desperately need some dark chocolate and J&J waxed mint floss!) Oh and a security guard, an ex Vietnam vet, who is simultaneously a man of a God that’s all loving, a supporter of homosexuals and lesbians that just want to be able to be themselves (even though they get an unfair treatment – all his words), and was heard saying things like “these are my boats and hoes” and wanted to get a hug and another and another and another. (This is a run-on sentence that my brain just couldn’t fix.)
Friday morning we allowed ourselves to sleep in, leisurely filling up on fuel and water, getting a few groceries, giving VK a little bath (I was still in bed when all that was going on, maybe I should say “they” rather than “we”?). Shortly after taking off we arrived at a larger body of water where Ten-Tom waterway merges with Tennessee river, and a giant lock that had several BIG boats coming thru in both directions, which meant that we had to wait in line for 3-some hours. Apparently, this is what you do, while you wait…
And now, a few miles north of the lock, we are anchored by Wolf Island, where I am watching from the captain’s chair on the flybridge a couple of locals circling the area for hours, catching some dinner, big barges floating by, and smelling something delicious being grilled by Chef Chris. Where is my glass of wine?