TOTAL MILES TRAVELED: 82 NM
WAHOO! TODAY WE CELEBRATED OUR 26 ANNIVERSARY.
We were abruptly jarred awake this morning at 6:10 by the shrill alarm emitting from the marina’s boat storage facility. Good grief, enough with the sounds already!! We think it turned out to be a fire sprinkler low pressure alarm, nothing that excited anyone too much though.
Our early start got Dan to Enterprise when they opened at 7:30 and we were throwing off ropes in the rain by 8:30. It was wet and dreary but the “weather” was going on past us and we were headed towards sunny skies. As we pulled out of Ditto we saw some of the damage brought about by the forceful winds. This lovely willow had lost a huge branch and looked rather embarrassed at the loss.
"WEEPING" WILLOWWe enjoyed seeing the beautiful bluffs as we passed them by. Every once in a while we will get a glimpse of some really red dirt, reminiscent of that you see in Oklahoma or on Kauai.
ROCKY BLUFFSRED DIRT COUNTRY
Once again we approached the railroad bridge at Decatur and had to wait for the long freight train to finish passing over so the bridge tender could raise his mighty bridge for us.
DELIVERING WARES TO OUR WORLDWe spent the morning just cruising along as the sun began to peek out and greet us. We met only one tow and were passed by a pleasure craft that was motoring faster than we. Now I’m reading and Dan is checking out the view when we sort of bog down and I hear yet another funny (OK, not so funny!) sound. It appears that we were scraping along the muddy bottom, having ventured a little out of the navigational channel. No foul, no harm and back on course we continued on our merry way.
Around 1:30 we were approaching the Wheeler Lock and Dam. The lock master invited us to come on over and got us in after opening the gates. This is the lock we had to wait out the fog before locking up on 10/17. No fog for us now, just bright sunshine and blue skies above us.
DAN'S "AT THE READY"
We made a bee line to Wilson Lock and Dam, 15 miles on farther, and were done with our locking down by 4:00. We jammed down the 95’ drop, almost like a carnival ride.
This old pedestrian-only bridge was once the sole way across the river. The original bridge opened in 1939 as a toll bridge. Trains used the upper while wagons, pedestrians and livestock traveled across on the lower deck. It was rebuilt in 1854 after being destroyed by a tornado and could then accommodate the steam-powered trains. In 1862 it again sustained severe damage when those Confederate troops set it afire in an attempt to halt the advancing Union soldiers. After undergoing several more rebuilds, in 1993 the section over the navigation channel was removed but concerned citizens banded together to keep and restore the remaining section into the current pedestrian walkway.
RESTORED TRAIN BRIDGEPEDESTRIANS ONLY
We continued on to an open anchorage between little Kogers Island and the Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge where we dropped the hook as the sun gave its last gasp of the day.
GOOD NIGHT ALLOK, ONE LAST BIT OF FANFARE
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