10/08 - 10/11-09 Scottsboro, AL

10-08-09 A side trip to Guntersville
[Rick] Since we’ve been here in Scottsboro for several days, we decided to take the boat out for a bit. It was a perfect day, so we drove about 20 miles back to Guntersville, walked the town some more, and had lunch. When we first got there we were the only boat at the free public dock right downtown. By the time we returned, several looper boats had arrived and we visited briefly with old friends before heading back to Scottsboro.

10-09-09 Scottsboro and the tornado
We have been very lazy. Two looper boats that we’ve met previously arrived here today (Falcor and Carolyn Ann), as well as one that we hadn’t met before, although we do remember passing them on our way upriver and waving (Noah Genda). So we spent the day chatting with our friends here, reading, and piddling on the boat. Late in the afternoon, a huge black cloud covered the sky. It was moving very fast and for a while, we thought we would be bypassed. Then, we heard the tornado warning siren from the town of Scottsboro. A voice from the heaven indicated that a tornado had been spotted about 8 miles away and for everyone to seek a safe place. We, and the others from the other boats, abandoned the boats and went to the hallway of the marina office. The marina was closed, so about 15 of us huddled in the hallway leading to the bathrooms. Then, the rain, the thunder, and lightning began and lasted for about 10 minutes. The power went out, but fortunately one of the boaters had brought a couple of flashlights with him. Then it cleared up and was actually quite nice afterward. A siren indicated that the warning was over. We returned to the boat and watched the radar as the front moved eastward.

One weird thing happened as we waited in the hallway during the worst of the storm. We saw a man walking on the dock. He came to the hallway and asked which way to the boat ramp. We told him the ramp was a good distance away, and to get his friend still in the boat and come inside. He went back to the boat, a 16 ft Jon boat, got in and left with his friend toward the boat ramp. These are the people you read about in the newspaper after a storm.

10-10-09 Saturday
We did nothing except laundry.

10-11-09 Sunday
You will recall that the Presbyterian minister, Rev. Roy Hall, whose wife runs the wonderful restaurant at the marina, invited us to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Scottsboro. He told Betsy to be sure to bring a harmonica with her if we came and she said she usually had one in her pocket. Since we were still in town on Sunday, we did attend. The church was modest, with about 200 in attendance. Rev. Hall gave a very good sermon entitled “Here’s what to expect”. Every time we attend a church, there is something special happening, usually communion. Today, at Cumberland, they were installing Deacons and Elders. Rev. Roy asked Betsy before church if she would play something as the postlude. At the appropriate time, she played “My Country Tis of Thee”. She received a very nice round of applause. Then, one of the members presented her with the flowers that had graced the front of the chapel.

Our Canadian friend, Gayle from Falcor, attended the service with us, and Betsy gave the flowers to her, since we do not have room for them on our small boat.

We were going to Wal-Mart for flu shots but someone else had the car reserved and we could not get there in time. Oh well, we’ll get them somewhere else.

We will probably be here for a couple more days. There is nothing on the schedule and we really like it here. Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be rainy, at best.

There will not be a blog until we have something to report. We are killing time until the rendezvous on Oct 25. Remember that we were going up the Cumberland to Nashville. We decided not to do that and that gained us a week. Then, we were going up the Tennessee to Knoxville, but again decided not to go past Chattanooga. That gained us another week. So, here we are, killing time for two weeks. Tough life!

10-06/07-09 Scottsboro, AL II Unclaimed Baggage, Inc

[Rick] I have combined the blogs for Oct 6 and Oct 7. I wasn’t going to write a blog for Tuesday until I remembered that we went to Unclaimed Baggage, Inc. The rest of the day, we just relaxed and rested.

Unclaimed Baggage was begun about 30 years ago. In the beginning, it was the place where all unclaimed baggage from the airlines would be sent when the owner could not be found. At that time, you would literally open suitcases, rummage through them, and buy what you wanted at a very good discounted price. After all, the basis cost to the store was zero. I am told that it was not uncommon to get $600 watches for $30.

Enter the children of the founder. They decided that they needed a different business model. So, now, the place is a converted strip shopping center. It is one big store, with everything out for you to browse. It is much like a Big Lots. However, they now sell closeouts, overstocks, etc from businesses. After all, it is hard to imagine 100 pogo sticks came from someone’s luggage. Also, the bargains are not a great as before. New hardcover books are $6.00 and at one time were $.50. DVD movies are about $3.00 each, non returnable.

They have a museum of some of the “better” items brought in. This includes a space camera that belonged to NASA, later returned. There is 1770 violin and bow, in the original case. A bound book of a French newspaper from 1870-1873 is on display.
All in all, the Unclaimed Baggage store is a good way to kill an hour while waiting for the rain to abate. They have a second store in Boaz, AL, about an hour away.

10-07-09 Scottsboro, AL

We lounged around the boat most of the day. The only thing of note that happened was that we went to the local restaurant for lunch. They are normally closed, but the manager told us to come on over as she had two groups eating there. She was to serve meatloaf and fresh vegetables. It turned out to be two groups from the Presbyterian Church. The locals, Primetime, were from the First Presbyterian of Scottsboro. The others, Joy Club, were from Birmingham, AL. Betsy went back to the boat and got her harmonica and returned to play a few hymn selections for them. They sang along and seemed to enjoy themselves. We promised the minister that if we were in town on Sunday, we would come to the Presbyterian Church. The minister is the husband of the restaurant manager and the chef is their son.

The rest of the day was just resting and relaxing…….and another trip to Wal-Mart!

Pictures of the Goose Pond Marina:

10-05-09 Scottsboro, AL Goose Pond Marina

[Rick] Today was a very dreary and miserable day. It rained early. Then, when the rain stopped, it misted the rest of the day. The entire day was overcast. So, there are no pictures today.
You will recall that we made the decision to go back downstream from Chattanooga rather than fight the current and mess with the lock that is under repair and go upstream toward Knoxville. So, we left Chattanooga to 0930 and headed for Scottsboro. We made great time going with the current.

We arrived in Scottsboro at 1430, after 5 hours of very easy travel. We passed through the Nickajack lock after waiting only 15 minutes for the opening.

The marina at Scottsboro, Goose Pond Colony Resort Marina, turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The marina has free wifi, free cable, courtesy car and all of the other required amenities, including a nearby Wal-Mart. The cost is only $20 per night. We checked the gas price and found it to be $2.699. On the way, we passed a marina where the gas was $3.299. Glad we passed this one up.

Scottsboro is not a huge town, but it does have a unique distinction in the United States. It is the home of Unclaimed Baggage. That’s right. When luggage is lost at most of the airlines and cannot be returned to the owner, the luggage is sent to Scottsboro. We plan to visit the facility tomorrow, so come back tomorrow for a full report.

10-04-09 Chattanooga: Ruby Falls

Betsy speaks: Our plan was to leave sometime today and head upriver towards Knoxville. We have one lock to go through, and had really planned to go only about 20 miles today, to the town of Soddy Daisy. We were never positive we’d make it to Knoxville, about 150 from here, but hoped to make it eventually as far as the Tellico River and the Little Tennessee River. That would be about 100 miles farther upriver. But the plan was always flimsy, so the plan changed!

We called the lock, which is less than 10 miles away, and found out that there were five barges waiting to go through, so we probably wouldn’t be able to go through until very late this afternoon. We already knew that once we made it through this lock, we’d have a problem coming back as work is beginning tomorrow which will cause the lock to be closed Monday through Thursday until 5PM each day for the next several days, so our coming back would have be very dependent on timing the lock just right. So we decided to just stay in Chattanooga one more day, then head back downriver tomorrow morning rather than heading upriver against a very strong current.


My brother Steve, a great lover of waterfalls, had told me about an “underground” waterfall that he remembered visiting somewhere near here many years ago. So when I saw a brochure for Ruby Falls a few days ago I picked it up. This afternoon we called a cab and rode out to Ruby Falls and took the tour which was very enjoyable. Sure enough, it is a very high waterfall inside a mountain. After riding an elevator down 260 feet, you then walk 2/5 mile through a cave to the falls. Of course it is lit with ambient lighting and many interesting formations are pointed out.


Once you get there, the falls are magnificent…nothing like Niagara Falls, but beautiful nonetheless. They are very tall (145 feet), and are inside a huge chamber that you come to after ducking and holding your breath in to get through narrow passages to get there. You can walk behind them if you’re willing to get a little wet. Fortunately we went prepared with rain gear since it looked like it was going to rain anyway!

So that was about it for today. We arrived back at the boat late afternoon just as it started to rain, and now at 10:30PM it hasn’t let up. We expect rain all day tomorrow and the next day. Still, we hope to leave here tomorrow morning and head downriver about 80 miles to Scottsboro, Alabama. If its raining too hard we have several options for stopping sooner. We’ll be back in Central Time which we really like because we don’t have to stay up so late to watch Letterman!












Here’s one last picture of us at the marina in Chattanooga with several other loopers. Two of these have just started the loop in the last few days so we just met them here for the first time. Now that 24 foot Pookie II has finished her loop and we are so far ahead of 21 foot Quotidian, we’re by far the smallest boat in the bunch again. Yes, we're that tiny thing on the far right of the dock!

10-03-09 Chattanooga, TN II and Delta Queen

[Rick] We awoke this morning to the sounds of Ducks. No, not those ducks, these ducks.







The first thing we did was to go watch the IMAX 3D presentation of “Under the Sea”. This was a part of our combo ticket to the aquarium, which we visited yesterday. This was a great underwater story. It featured the coral reefs and the fish and animals that inhabit the reef. It also stressed the ecological balance that must be observed and the consequences if that balance is not kept.

Chattanooga has a FREE shuttle service throughout most of the main part of town. It is provided on electric, no emission, busses that hold about 15 people. They run round trip to the Choo-Choo section, a destination in itself. They also run across the river to the North Shore. That is where we went to see The Legendary Delta Queen. She is one of the main reasons we wanted to come to Chattanooga. She is tied to the RDB 463.6 and is now a restaurant and hotel. We traveled on her many times before she was forced to retire, and were somewhat apprehensive about seeing her in her now permanent location. She sits on a dock in McClellan Park, a very nice park with a carousel and a lot of specialty shops nearby.


We walked on like we owned the place. No one stopped us. (On the way out, the guard was stopping Looky-loos). We walked all around the boat and she is in great shape. She is clean, freshly painted and varnished. All of the furniture and pictures are in place. The large comfortable chairs are there and still comfortable. Banjo Bob Stevens still plays in the Texas Lounge, but we were told he is the only person still employed from when she actually was sailing. The dining room was still as we remembered it. We thought about staying for supper, but the menu did not appeal to us. We later found that “Reservations are required” and they are full for the evening, both hotel and restaurant. This is a good thing, as the only way for her to survive is to keep pulling in the people.



We returned to the boat in late afternoon and after supper, went to listen to the headliners at the Bluegrass festival. It is unfortunate that they are having a Barbershop Quartet competition this same weekend about 5 blocks away. We were told that the top 250 quartets in the southeast will be competing.

Tomorrow, we leave Chattanooga and continue upstream toward Knoxville.

More pictures from the Legendary Delta Queen:






















The Fountain at McClellen Park...

10-02-09 Chattanooga, TN

[Rick] Having to go only 30 miles to Chattanooga, we made no attempt to get up at the crack of dawn to get started and we finally left the dock at 1000. On the way out, I got this picture of the “cottages” that are for rent at the marina. They are just houseboats without a motor. They are moored in slips, with power, cable, etc and are rented just like a land based unit. Wonder how CAMA would react to a proposal to put in about 100 of these at Wrightsville Beach or Sneads Ferry. They would go nuts.

The day was overcast and the clouds were very low. Easy to see why they call these mountains the Great Smokies.

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Upon arrival in Chattanooga, we immediately took a spin around the harbor to see the Delta Queen. She is tied to the RDB just up from the marina. She looks no worse for wear, but we still wish she was plying the rivers with the calliope playing. It is such a shame that she is now a glorified B&B.

In Chattanooga, Marine Max is the agent for the city for all the dockage in the downtown area. In reality, they are a yacht brokerage that rents out slips. We are paying $1.00 per foot and were very disappointed to find that they have NO shower facilities and the restrooms close at 1800. They do have wifi. We are on a face dock, in the river current of 3+ mph. The shower revelation was most annoying.

We got the bikes and biked to downtown for lunch and to look around. While eating pizza at a nice pizza place, our looper friends, Jack and Pia, came in to say hello. They were across the street and saw us come in. They left their boat down river and rented a car to come here because of the strong current. They are planning to go home to Charlotte for a few days since they are so close and already have the rental car.

We decided to go ahead and see the aquarium today and use tomorrow for the Blue Grass festival that is going on here this weekend. We purchased our tickets to include an IMAX show at 1700. About 1645, we were leaving the aquarium to go to the theatre across the street, and the guard said we had missed the show. Turns out that we are back in Eastern Daylight Time, having crossed the line sometime today without knowing it. Luckily, we exchanged or tickets for tomorrow. We are not going to change our watches, as we will be back on Central Time soon.

We took some great pictures in the aquarium, but it really is a place you need to see for yourself. It is a very good aquarium, rivaling Baltimore and Chicago. The aquarium also features a butterfly house. It was very good.

We ate supper at the Bluegrass festival in the mobile vendor area. Betsy went back to listen to the headline band as I write this blog.

We especially enjoyed the penguin exhibit.

Betsy inside a tube in the giant crab exhibit.

Remember the huge houseboat we passed yesterday and that stayed at our marina last night. We passed them again today and here is the proof. This baby is huge.
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10-01-09 Guild TN Hales Bar Marina

[Rick] What a pretty Day. We went to the fuel dock of Alred Marina to fill up. Alred has a special for loopers. If you get at least 100 gallons of gas, you get two nights dockage FREE. We had already planned to take them up on this. When we got to the dock, we found out why they do this. The price per gallon is $3.899, at least $.50 more than we have seen in weeks. Remember, we saw $2.499 at Pebble Isle. We went ahead and filled up and figured the stay was a discount of about $36.00. Oh Well.

We proceeded upbound toward Chattanooga. The weather was perfect. The scenery was beautiful. As we neared the town of Guild, we saw one of these famous signs.

We called the Nickajack lock and told the lockmaster we were ready to go through. We waited about 10 minutes for him to empty the chamber, and the doors opened for us to enter. We proceeded in and tied to the starboard side in our usual manner. After we were secured, the lockmaster, via the loudspeaker, told us to tie to the port wall. We figured he had just forgotten to tell us when we entered. So, we untied, moved over, and retied. The rest was very normal and we were on our way in about 20 minutes. On the way out Betsy very calmly said on the radio “Thanks for the test of our boat handling and line preparation skills.” You don’t want to know what she said while not on the radio!

We are docked at the Hales Bar Marina. We are in a covered slip. The marina has free Cable TV, free very strong wifi, and in general a nice marina. Unfortunately, it is in the middle of nowhere. So, we had my birthday dinner on the boat and watched Survivor on TV.

A large houseboat came in after us. The boat is 80 feet long, 19 feet wide, and two stories tall, with a full deck for lounging on the top. It is gigantic. They have huge banners on the side pulling for the Alabama Crimson Tide this Saturday.

BTW. Happy Birthday to ME……..