Weather and Rivers

Weather is always news. A really strong line of thunderstorms went through Tennessee tonight. A possible tornado hit at Kimball, TN, just west of here, with lots of damage, but fortunately, no fatalities. The storms hit downtown Chattanooga pretty hard. We were on the edge of the worst part of the storm, and just got a lot of rain and some wind. The 2" of rain we got are most welcome.

Our trip last week on the River Explorer (Riverbarge Excursion Lines - www.riverbarge.com) was all we had hoped. We boarded the vessel in downtown Nashville on Tuesday and headed down the Cumberland River that evening. Turning this 700-foot-long vessel around just below Nashville is quite a feat of seamanship - and our captain did it in the dark!

This trip was just as good as the first Riverbarge trip we took two years ago. We had lots of lovely morning fog to watch. Well, we enjoyed it, but the captain, I'm sure, wasn't too happy to have to deal with it during the night and in the early hours. This trip went down the Cumberland River almost to the Ohio, through the Barkley Canal to the Tennessee River, and then up the Tennessee to Florence, AL. By the return trip, we were beginning to see more fall color along the riverbanks.

We stopped at Savannah, TN, for a bus tour of the Shiloh Battlefield. It is a beautiful, but sad place - with the knowledge of all those lost lives on this ground. The stop in Florence, AL, included a bus to Helen Keller's home, Ivy Green, and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. We had seen those two places on our trip in August on the Delta Queen, so we passed on that trip. Instead, we took a taxi to the Rosenbaum House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We had seen that before, too, but this time, we had the docent all to ourselves. She gave us a great deal of information, then left us alone to wander around by ouselves. It was great!

The last stop was at Clarksville, TN, on the return. Kate came down to the boat for lunch and to visit with us for a while. That was a special treat. We got back to Nashville about noon on Monday. We had planned to spend some time with Jean (where we had left our car), but we decided we'd head on home then, instead of waiting for the official trip ending on Tuesday after breakfast. We hated missing that good visiting, but we were really tired and just wanted to get home. Jean came to get us, we took her home, and we headed back.

We can't recommend the Riverbarge highly enough. This is a great experience, great staff, great crew, great office staff - just a super company to work with

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Today's pictures are of the River Explorer and John in the Pilot House. Mostly we spent our time sitting in the Pilot House at the bow of the upper deck, watching the river go by.