Steve, Nancy and Bill Do the Tenn-Tom

Hello from Fulton, Mississippi on the Tenn-Tom Waterway.  The Tenn-Tom gets its’ name from the fact that this waterway joins the TENNessee and TOMbigbee Rivers (get it…Tenn-Tom).  The waterway shortened the trip for vessels to various ports by as much as 720 miles.  (A boat going from Pensacola, FL to Chattanooga, TN would travel only 771 miles via the Tenn-Tom instead of 1541 miles via the Mississippi River).  Now days, there is just one problem with this route, you must go through a series of 12 locks from the top of Mississippi until you reach Mobile, AL.  Locks take time, as I have explained before.  Today we started with the first lock, the Jamie Whitten Lock, which happens to be an 84 foot drop!!!  We had to chew gum so our ears didn’t pop…just kidding!  We have proceeded through two more and have just tied up at a marina.  The manager of this marina looks just like Billy Bob Thorton.  Gosh, we are sure meeting the “look alikes”, huh?  And believe it or not, he is originally from Grinnell, Iowa!  Small world.

Going down in the lock

The doors begin to open...



The doors are almost open...



Out we go....

Nancy & Bill in the lock

 

Now I will back up a few days and retrace our steps.  We had planned to leave Grand Harbor Marina on Saturday morning.  We awoke to windy, cold and rainy conditions.  We looked at one another and decided to stay one more day.  After putting on our jeans and sweatshirts, we managed to take a hike around the wooded area near the marina and visit with the other boaters.  We are constantly running into boats we have met along the waterways, and Sat. was no different.  We ended up doing dinner with our friends from Time and Tide.  The Broken Spoke Restaurant proved to be as “tasty” as had been reported.  Sunday wasn’t “quite” as cool, so we started our trip down the Tenn-Tom.  This section of the river is not heavily populated, so you see lots of birds, trees and beautiful scenery and that’s about it!  Sorry folks, I just can’t make anything too spectacular happen out of that J  So, I am once again doing the laundry and in an hour or two, we will take the loaner van into town to WAL-MART.  This is the life, right!!!!  Just kidding, we will stop for dinner on our big night out!  So long for now and say a little prayer that the South starts to warm up.  According to the locals, they are twenty degrees below normal temperatures for this time of year!  A-shucks! 

Dinner with Gary, Christelle, and Bill at the Broken Spoke