Today’s field trip was to the Shilo Battlefield. We got the marina van and with the Captain of Ithaka at the wheel drove out to the site.

The battle of Shilo was early in the Civil war and took place across two days, April 6 and 7th 1862. There were almost 100,000 men involved and at the end of the two days there were over 23,000 casualties, 2500 of them were men that were killed. The entire battle takes place in an area about a 9 square mile area, and it is the bloodiest to that date in the war.

We got to the visitors center which is closed for renovations. They do have a tent set up so you can watch a movie that has the main details of the battle. The movie was good in outlining the troop movements and very good in describing the casualties. It also gave a sense what it was like to be a soldier then. Many of the troops had come from Ohio, Tennessee and Illinois, most of the way on foot. Living conditions were not what you called great.

Outside the theater is the cemetery where the Union soldiers are buried. They are in neat rows organized by the states and battalions they were part of. Many of the graves just have a number on them.

There is a driving tour that winds around the park and the 100′s of monuments that are in it. One of the first stops is one of the three mass graves that contain the remains of the Confederate soldiers. There is just a simple marker, no names, just identifying it as a mass grave. Since the battle was a Union “victory”, there was no need to do anything special with the defeated army’s bodies.

On the tour are markers that show the troop movements on both sides during the two days. If you are a battle buff, you can see exactly where troops were deployed and what they were fighting in.

There are also cannons from the war shown in place. At one point the Confederate Army set up a line of 50+ cannons to lob into the Union front lines. They fired into an area called the “Hornets Nest” for over 7 hours before the Union soldiers in the field surrendered. Replicas have been installed along that line so you can visualize the barrage. The cannon crews were able to reload and fire on fairly fast basis, overall they were able to fire 2-3 shots a second.

Lots and lots of CSA statues and an equal number of USA statues. There is pretty much one for each regiment that participated in the war.

The Parks department did a great job on the site, it’s easy to visualize how horrific the entire event was. Overall it’s very depressing when you look at the number of men and boys killed. The really sad part that even after such a debacle, the war continued on for 3 more years.

The ride home was pretty somber, the three of us were kind of lost in though about what we had seen. For Susan and I, we will pass on the other Civil war sites, they are not scenes of great battles, but more monuments to how stupid humans are.

Cold, cold night so there was lots of wet deck today. Plus a ton of moisture on the inside of the windows. Neither one of us slept well. Susan’s shoulder has been bothering her. We had been taking so much about anchoring out that I went into anchor mode getting up every hour.

We had been told about cinnamon buns for breakfast, so we headed up for free coffee and buns. The buns were great, we ate them on the way out of the basin. Had it not been for needing to get some distance done today, I’d gone back and gotten another.

There was a tow going up river just as we came out of the entrance to the marina. We set up a passing situation and we eased around Lisa Michelle and we were off. With about 120 miles to the lock, and Lisa Michelle doing about 5 knots, and driving all night, we should meet up again at the lock Sunday morning. I’m hoping with lighter currents at night, they will beat us there and have already locked through.

More great scenery along the way. Lots of tiny shore camps and houses like we saw in Canada. Lots and lots of Mc Mansions perched up on the rock walls. There were lots of little coves that would be great to spend a night in. Coming out of one of them was Onward a looper I had briefly talked to at Green Turtle Bay. They had spent 2 days in a cove with friends that had a pontoon boat.

Like yesterday there were a ton of fish boats out zooming across the water. Since it was Saturday there was a big uptick in pleasure boats with pontoons leading the way.

It was cold in the morning with no wind, then the wind came up and made the river choppy and reduced our speed. Then the wind dropped and it became really nice out. Clothing went from long pants / heavy shirts to shorts and tees for the evening. Final high for the day was 74, way up from the 54 on Friday.

On one section of the river there were new houses that had been built at the top of the river bank. They had 2 story concrete garages. At the top of the garage was a platform that held the outside air conditioning units. The house was then built on top of the garage. So what they had was a sturdy garage that could withstand all the flood water loads. The house in theory would be high and dry. All of the house systems (Hot water, AC , heating, electrical, etc) was high enough up so it wouldn’t get flooded. Not sure I’d buy a lot and build a house there, still risking a lot.

The barge traffic was light, most of it was coming down river, so we passed going our own directions. We got to Clifton where there are some back to back curves in the water. We had about 4 miles to go and there was a tow about ½ into them. I asked how fast he was going and he said just under 5 knots. So we backed down the speed and tailed him along to Clifton. It added some to the trip, but the engines got a chance to cool some. We got some better looks at the scenery and at one point there was an eagle in a tree watching all the festivities.

We got checked in at the desk and taped our Looper card into their guest book. We looked back to see the boats we had met on the trip. Pretty cool and good to know that some of them made it this far.

Outside the marina we saw that power came to the marina to a large power board mounted 20′ in the air above the levy wall. There was flight of stairs up to it so someone could climb up and disconnect the power before it was all flooded out. All in all they would be looking at a 50′ flood depth, a little more that what they got in 2009 and 2010.

Getting the marina car we headed into the downtown are. The restaurant wasn’t open until six so we walked down to the general store. A real find, Susan got great rib-eyes to cook, and ½ lb of the olive-loaf that I love for sandwiches. I also picked up for only $2 a garden hose valve, so I can replace the one that is leaking. Yay retail therapy!

One thing that tickled me walking downtown and signs that said “Danger – uneven historic sidewalks” at every corner. I’m thinking our neighborhood should invest in a stack of them, much cheaper that pulling everything up and replacing them.

Dinner was at the Pirate’s Lair, a Cajun food place. I’m hoping that if I eat enough Cajun food in the next few days it will help me understand the tow operators. I went with the Jambalaya, it had a heat that slowly built to the point that sweat was coming from my forehead. Susan went with fried oysters that were good but they gave her a huge plate that she couldn’t finish. The people next to us had recommended the crab and shrimp combo, but it looked like more food that either one of us could eat.

We got back to the boat and tried “Boiled Custard”. It was in the milk section next to Egg Nog (hard to believe that Egg Nog Season is here!), the clerk said it tasted like melted ice cream and it did. (She also tried to sell us “Pork Souse”, but we were clever enough to pass on that.

Off to our only lock on the Tennessee River, it’s about 4 hours away. Hoping to get through easily and then be into our next marina for a few well earned rest days while we wait for a good weather window to do the 400 miles to Mobile.

Last night at the Paris Landing State Park Marina was a tower that showed the water depth. As I posted before, the water depth is at the winter pool level, about 5 feet below the summer level. We really started to notice it as we went farther down the river.

We saw houses with docks that ended about the summer pool level, about 5′ above the water level. I’m not sure when the level drops, but it looks like it ends lots of people’s summer boating.

Because we had gone a little farther yesterday, we were taking it easy today. Susan suggested pulling into one of the coves that we can see, anchor and have lunch. Great idea.

Dug into the Tennessee River charts and the Skipper Bob’s guide. Little Crooked Creek seemed to be ideal. So we setup and approached. When the water got to be under 5′ deep and we were still pretty far from shore we backed out. Looks like a combination of more shoaling and the winter pool were going to keep us out.

We headed a little farther to Harmon Creek. We had seen a fish boat zoom in, plus there were markers. We followed the channel in about a mile and anchored in a deep corner. We had 10 feet of water below the keel, a good place to go.

We had a nice lunch and Susan gave a try at fishing. She could see fish jumping about 40 feet away so she knew fish were there. There were also about 5 fishing boats that came in, made a few casts and gave up.

About this time we saw our friends on Toba glide by on the river. They are pretty distinctive with the blue boat and the orange dink on the stern. I tried hailing them on the radio, but wasn’t able to connect. Maybe we would see them down the river.

After an hour Susan gave up. She had been through her collection of lures with only one nibble. So we picked up the anchor and picked our way slowly out of the channel.

About 3 PM we saw the sign for Pebble Isle Marina and started in. I had targeted what I thought were the entrance markers and slowly headed towards them. Watching the depth gauge undwind from 45′ to 3′, I knew I had turned too early. Backing out slowly to deeper water. There, farther down the channel was another marker. Carefully rounding it, I found 12′ of water and headed up to the fuel dock.

We purchased 190 gallons of fuel, we had used it to come the 335 miles from Grafton to here. Not bad 1.7 miles to the gallon. The currents on the Mississippi had helped along with taking it slow.

Waiting at the dock were our friends from Toba. We set up to meet them for Docktails later on.

I’ve been battling a dirty fuel problem since we crossed into Canada (I’m blaming it on the fuel we got at the Port of Rochester). The filters have these cool little gauges on them that tell when they need to be changed. The starboard side has needed to be changed more often. When I checked, the port one was ready the starboard side was about ¾ clogged. I decided to change both since I was down there. I’m getting much better at changing them and I’m down to where I’m not spilling fuel all over the bilge and myself.

Docktails with the crew of Toba was fun. We’ve been crossing their path lots on the trip. They had gone the Saturday we were in Pennsylvania to Nashville. We had cheated and gone by car, but had seen the city docks that they used. We swapped stories about what each crew had seen in Nashville.

With the sun down, the temperature dropped pretty quickly and after about an hour of chatting we headed inside. Susan had made zucchini noodles with sauce for dinner, it was great!

A strange day, we started off wearing long pants and coats, switched to shorts and ran the AC when we got to the dock, back to long pants and coats for Docktails and as we climbed into bed made sure both heaters were running. It’s supposed to go into the 70′s on Sunday and even warmer on Monday.

We got off to a slow start this morning, I had some paperwork that I wanted to get done while we had a good Wifi signal. The day was a little chilly but clear we we finally pushed off the dock around 10 AM.

We did just a few miles down Barkley Lake. It has lots of little cranny and coves, its a place that looks like you could easily spend a few summers exploring. It’s connected to Kentucky Lake via a 2 mile canal. Like Barkley, the Kentucky Lake has lots and lots of places to go and hang out.

We headed “upriver” in a “South” direction on the Tennessee river. The Tennessee is a very long river starting well east of Chattanooga. It flows north (one of the few rivers that does) and ends up flowing into the Ohio River and then down to the Mississippi River. Our next few days will be upriver, we will be fighting a slight current until we get past Pickwick Lake.

I’ve taken other Loopers to task about blowing by Canada, I expect to take some about our trip on the Tennessee. There was a ton to do on the “Land Between the Lakes” that we missed out on. We should have kept the car for an extra few days and gone exploring. The nice thing is it really not that far from home, we can get set up with a cottage rental and a small fish boat to go exploring.

While the temperatures have dropped, but the color of the trees has just started to change. While we were rewarded with brilliant colors in West Virginia, western Maryland and parts of Pennsylvania the show here won’t be for another few weeks.

There were lots of fishing boats out for a Thursday, we made an effort to not swamp them as we went by. Not sure if there was lots of catching going on, we saw them sit for about 15 minutes and then it was up hook and off to the next location.

As the day went on the clouds started coming in. The forecast was for nice weather, and our plan was to anchor out. With the change in the weather and me not feeling 100% I opted to go slightly farther than our planned cove and spend the night a marina.

The trip down the river was pretty uneventful, and we got to the Paris Landing State Park marina without issue. The marina is part of a Tennessee State Park and it once we saw it, it’s more of a resort than what you would consider a state park. The marina looked like it had space for about 500 boats. There is a great little store that stocks parts, snacks, etc. Services at the dock were great, the Wi-fi was super fast which was a bonus.

The overall level of this river section and the Kentucky Lake is being controlled by combination of the rain water that falls and the water from Pickwick Dam (water in) and the Barkley / Kentucky Dam (water out). At the base of the dock is a tower that has three crosses on it (there is a picture as the cover shot). The upper cross is the height of the dam at Pickwick Landing. About 55 feet below that is a cross. This is the “summer pool height. This is the level that they attempt to keep the water at all summer after the spring rains. The cross below that is about 5 feet down and that is the winter pool. We asked and got told that the worst it had been was in 2009 and 2010 when the water level rose 20′ above the summer pool depth. The water was up over the retaining wall and well into the parking lot.

Across the highway is a three story hotel with a conference center and restaurant attached to it. It had been recommended to us when we docked. If you call the rangers they will take you back and forth. It’s about 1.5 miles, but it’s across a major highway, they would rather take you than scrape you up later on.

The restaurant had a buffet gong and we made it in the door as early birds, so we got it for $7,95, a deal! The buffet had yellow squash casserole with carrots, onions and cheese covered with canned onion rings; white beans and ham, mashed potatoes, pork chops in gravy, fried catfish, corn bread, hush puppies, a nice salad bar along with cobblers and pies for dessert. As they say good Southern Cooking!

At the gift shop Susan picked up some cookbooks as presents. Quick trip with the Ranger across to our boat slip and we were settled in by 7:30 PM.

We’ve both noticed how early it’s getting to be dark, the days are noticeably shorter. I’m hoping as we head south and into Florida that we will keep some sunlight. Once we get into the Florida part of the trip we will be doing 4 hour days so that will be easy to manage in the daylight.

We had planned to sightsee in Nashville on Sunday. The combination of being exhausted and rain turned it into a boat day with a short side trip to the local market to stock up on food for the next few days.

Monday didn’t start well with the notification that my favorite Aunt, Aunt Hazel had passed away. Her entire life she was full of adventure, she was up to try almost anything. So it that spirit we hopped into the car and headed south east into Tennessee to Nashville. As with most of the side trips we could have taken the boat, but it would be 4 days each way along with 200 gallons of fuel.

About 11 AM we rolled into downtown Nashville, first stop is the Country Music Hall of Fame. The Hall is a block sized three story building with artifacts from the first days of Country Music through 2014. We were both impressed over the number of people that were inducted to the Hall of Fame and how many of them we recognized. We were also impressed on how small and thin the early stars were. They had lots of decoration on their costumes, ornate piping, trim, sequins, etc. Most of them performed before the days of elaborate stage shows. It was also B/W TV for most of them, so costumes were key. Oh yea, lots of live radio and TV, lip synching hadn’t become mainstream.

The second floor is mostly about the move of Country Music to the West Coast. Lots of people had moved to the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas along with the areas in Kansas from the south east to start new lives and they brought country music with them. In the 30′s the droughts caused the land to turn to a “dust bowl” and people were forced to move west into California. They took the music with them; it had slightly changed during the years and had a newer fresher sound. It was amazing the hardships the families in the dust bowl went through.

From the Hall of Fame we went to lunch. The cool thing about Nashville is that there is a lot of live music. All of the places we looked at for lunch had small bands playing. It made lunch a little more special.

From lunch we walked to the Johnny Cash Museum. We are both fans, and wanted to see more about him. It is a very extensive collection, he and his estate have given lots of artifacts. I was impressed with the collection of albums and singles he put out across his career. It turns out the gift shop have most of them on CD. They do mailorder so I’ll be able to fill out my collection.

Next to the Cash Museum is a bridge that goes across the river and ends up at the stadium. It was converted to a pedestrian bridge so we walked ½ way to get pictures of the river and the town. I had heard stories how fans raft up across the river for the games. I could see how that would really work. We could also see boats tied up at the city docks, had we come by boat it would have been a great location.

From there it was a short walk to the Nashville Walk of Fame. Not as many artists as the Hall of Fame but lots of people that we knew. Some of the plaques are missing and have temporary ones that say “Out on tour”. Except for Dolly Parton’s that said “Out for Hair and Makeup”.

I wanted to see the “Grand Ole Opry”. I thought it was downtown, but it turns out it was 10 miles away. Short car ride and we are at the Opryland Mall, and next door is the Opry. I signed us up for the back stage tour.

It turned out that the Grand Ole Opry outgrew the facility downtown – Ryman Auditorium – and had a new theater that opened in 1974. It consists of two theaters, one that hosts the radio show and a TV studio that was home to shows like “Hee Haw”. Parts of the show “Nashville” were also filmed there.

In the center of the front edge of the stage is a 12′ circle made of the oak floor from the original theater that was home to the Opry. So performers today can stand and perform in the “same spot” as other country legends across the decades.

I also learned that there are many country music artists that are members of the Opry, it’s the highest award an artist can receive. Most of them will play12-20 shows a year at the Grand Ole Opry show. Most shows will have between 4-7 performers during the 2 hour show.

After the 90 minute tour we were pretty beat, the two hour ride in the car was long. We were so tired that we * gasp * got take out pizza * gasp * for dinner.