Moonshine and I Can See Clearly Now!

Wow! We have enjoyed a couple of great days working our way up Barkley Lake and the Cumberland River and will arrive in Nashville sometime this afternoon. We're currently docked in Clarksville, Tennessee--fifth largest city in the state (population 170,000+). Clarksville is named after George Rogers Clark, a revolutionary war hero on the northwest frontier who became know as "Conqueror of the Old Northwest" for his success against the British. He was the brother of William Clark (Lewis and Clark). With an average age of 30, Clarksville is a young city with great access to fishing, hiking and rock climbing. Speaking of fishing, except for one tug and barge train yesterday, only recreational fisherman slowed our trip up the river as we do our very best not to rock them unduly with our wake. Word has it, striped bass (not the fish we know on the east coast), blue gill, and crapie are all hitting this time of year.

As we've traveled up river, we've gone from the wide open vistas of Lake Barkley (think several miles or even more across and stretching ahead out of sight) to the narrow, twisting and turning Cumberland River. The lake would be tricky without navigational aids--lots of shoals, shallows, and huge beached logs--but the nuns, cans, and GPS made navigation reasonably easy so long as you paid attention. Surprisingly, the river seems more straight forward having been scoured over millenia in a fairly narrow but deep trajectory. Yesterday, we observed a ton of bird life: large flocks of white pelicans, numerous great blue heron, more egrets than the Admiral had ever seen in one place, the required bald eagle, ducks, gulls and on. The birds were especially concentrated in the very pretty area known as "the thousand islands of the Cumberland."

The scenery really was spectacular and even a little bit of fall foliage color crept in in places. As we moved up the river, we also found a number of places that would be wonderful overnight anchorages with great protection in deep enough water.

Day before yesterday, we cruised just three hours and arrived at the marina at Kentucky's Barkley State Park. Upon docking, Larry and LeeAnn Lane on the boat across the dock immediately greeted us and before long invited us to cocktails that evening. As Larry headed into town, he offered to pick up anything we needed and Jackie asked for Starbuck's Cold Brew, her morning breakfast of choice. Subsequently, we met another couple on the finger pier next over, Tom and Linda Ray. Hailing from these parts, Tom and Linda completed the Great Loop about a decade ago and, taking their boat from here to their winter home in Coral Gables and back, have cruised the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, our next Great Loop segment, more than a half dozen times. Before you knew it, they, too, invited us for cocktails to share insights into the TennTom. Imagine that, in town less than a half hour and already juggling evening commitments!

We enjoyed a lovely walk in the park that afternoon and did a little bird watching along the way. The Admiral and I commented to each other that this was how we'd imagined our Great Loop trip would be. After a short rest, we made drinks (looper tradition is that you (almost) always bring your own) and walked to Linda and Tom's. We spent a lovely hour with them learning about anchorages and marinas along the Tenn Tom. Perhaps their best hint however was to keep your eye out for fishermen wearing camo clothes and fishing in camo john boats close into the banks. Apparently, if you "wake" them, they are inclined to call their sheriff pals who will accost you at the next lock and hit you up for damages. Good to know.

We left Tom and Linda and went to Larry and LeeAnn's boat where another boater, Sully, also joined us. Soon, Larry broke out a bottle of flavored moonshine. Truly deadly stuff, it tasted like an overly sweet, mint chocolate frappe. I'll try anything once but the sweetest thing I want in liquor is tonic and only when cut with a good dose of lime. You would not have to worry about that bottle of moonshine being a problem for me!

As to seeing clearly, for several days, I noticed that my distance vision was "off". Frankly, I struggled with it a bit. Strictly by coincidence, Jackie bought a magnifying mirror and attached it to the mirror in the master head. Deciding to investigate my left eye which I thought was the problem, I discovered a contact stuck to my cornea. I had been unknowingly putting a contact on over it each morning and taking it out at night--thus wearing two astigmatism contacts in that eye each day. With great care, I got the offending contact out. I can see clearly now!