Day 26 – 31
I can honestly say that Wednesday, 10/07/20, has to be the best day we’ve experienced aboard Legacy, so far. From the Shell Mound Recreation Area at the Nickajack lock to just west of Chattanooga, we cruised through a beautiful segment known as “the Grand Canyon of the Tennessee River”. Perfectly clear, humidity-free weather only complimented the breath-taking beauty of this part of the river. Towering hills and bluffs surround a very curvy, winding path that forms the deepest portion of the river also referred to as “the gorge”. The river depths in the gorge are astounding. For a river which normally ranges between 12 and 60-foot depths, it plummets to deeper than 130-feet here. One reason for this depth is the river follows an ancient earthquake fault at this point. For about 2 full hours, we were treated with spectacular views around every single bend. I kept wishing that family and friends could’ve been aboard to witness this place with us. I was overwhelmed to the point of tears, and decided that maybe this whole boat life thing isn’t so bad after all.
Our tie-up in Chattanooga was in a lovely area, and within walking distance of several restaurants and the famous Tennessee Aquarium. We were the only inhabited boat on the transient dock, plus there was a locked gate at the top of our dock, which didn’t bother me, considering our proximity to downtown. One of the most exciting things about our arrival to Erwin Marina was to retrieve the multiple packages we’d ordered from Amazon to ship there awaiting our eventual arrival. One of those items was an all-weather puffy coat for me that was about a month past-due, weather-wise! We were also anxious to have one of Erwin’s technicians look at our boat to determine our latest problem with our starboard generator, which suddenly refused to start for us. Thank goodness for the port generator! Without it, we would’ve been pretty uncomfortable the night before, when we’d anchored-out at Shell Mound.
Even though we could walk to many places, we decided to rent a tiny Ford Fiesta from Hertz because we had multiple errands to run over a period of several days. I had prescription refills to pick-up, a long overdue haircut from Great Clips, a broken Hoover carpet cleaner to FedEX back to Hoover, and we were anxious to FINALLY get to ride the Incline Railway up to Lookout Mountain, which we’d tried to ride during two previous trips to Chattanooga, but without success. The two prior trips had been anniversary trips, which meant they were in February, which we finally figured out is the month the Incline Railway annually closes for maintenance. This time being in October, we knew we were golden. And besides – third time is always a charm, right? Sadly, it was still not to be. ☹ We pulled into the parking lot, spent 15 minutes trying to get the pay-parking-meter to accept our payment (it denied every one of our credit cards, causing us to fear maybe something bad had happened with our identity until we found out it was denying everyone else’s cards, too!) It finally accepted $2.00 worth of quarters I fortunately still had with me from my last time at the laundromat. Parking paid, we donned our obligatory masks and hiked up to the ticket counter, only to be told that – due to COVID – the railroad was operating at reduced capacity, which meant all their tickets for that day (AND for each of our remaining days in Chattanooga) were already sold out! Curses – foiled again! With that I concluded the Universe is quite obviously forbidding us from riding the Incline Railway.
During our stay, one of our favorite places to eat was Scottie’s On the River, which was less than a quarter of a mile from our boat. We enjoyed a delicious Sunday brunch at Hennen’s downtown, and drove the Fiesta out to another one of our favorites in Chattanooga, Boathouse Rotisserie and Raw Bar, also located on the river, but several miles away from our boat. We lunched outside at a fun restaurant called Food Works and drove to Walgreen’s to get our annual flu shots. Then tropical depression Delta came through and dumped a ton of rain on us. We had anticipated that, but were still neither one thrilled with traipsing around in the rain, but did so anyway so we could lunch again at Big River Brewery downtown. The SUN finally returned on Monday, 10/12/20! We used that day to return the rental car and provide me with a Hobby Lobby fix to buy some crocheting yarn. 😊 I’m making myself a navy-blue “nautical” cowl, to wear with my new coat. The Erwin boat technician had determined our starboard generator needed a rebuilt starter and had to order a part to get that done. We’d hoped the part would arrive on Monday, but then realized that was Columbus Day, which meant we’d have to wait until Tuesday morning, the 13th, to get our generator repaired before we could leave.
Position: N 35° 03.366, W 85° 19.018
Distance traveled: 32.9 NM
Total distance traveled: 386.5 NM
Time underway: 4 HRS 29 MIN
Total time underway: 50 HRS 40 MIN
Total marina nights: 27
Total nights at anchor: 4
Locks today: 1
Locks Total: 5