Day 187: Knoxville to Lenoir City, TN
Day 187: Saturday, October 22nd: Today greeted us with wind, light fog, cold and heavy overcast. Not pretty, but we were looking forward to the day. Today we would go to the beginning of the Tennessee River and then as far upstream on one of the tributary rivers as we could navigate.
We left the marina in Knoxville and turned northeast. Knoxville ends suddenly and gives way to farms and woods. We soon came to the University of Tennessee's agriculture research facility where they develop feed for livestock. They have a cattle farm on site:
Within just a few miles of Knoxville, the Holston River and French Broad River join to form the Tennessee River. This is the start of the Tennessee. Holston is on the left and French Broad is on the right:
The railroad bridge across the Holston marks the end of navigable water for us and makes an eerie silhouette in the morning overcast:
So we turned right up the French Broad River:
About a mile upstream is one of the facilities of Sea Ray Boats. They make some models here. It is a pretty facility, but appeared to be closed on this Saturday morning:
A few yards past the plant the water was too shallow to travel on, so we turned Integrity around and headed downstream. This marks our first real downstream day since leaving the Mississippi River on September 17th.
On the way back to Knoxville, we noticed this pile of what looked like blue sand. Bill guessed it had copper oxide (cupric oxide?) in it. The color reminded us of the icebergs in Alaska:
At another point we had noticed this boardwalk. Going down, we got closer and figured out it was part of a trail that meandered along the bluffs:
Approaching Knoxville from upstream, we got a better picture of the skyline and the marina in front. Actually, the real downtown Knoxville is a mile or so inland of here:
The fall colors have brightened in just the last two days:
This mix of color particularly impressed Bill. It is a great time to be on this section of the river!
We soon learned that today was a huge regional shell race. Teams from all over had gathered here for the race. The course was about five miles along the river and went upstream and downstream. The Coast Guard Auxiliary told us to go at no wake speed and we could proceed through the boats; it was like dodging gnats. The teams were dressed in team colors:
Since we were going at idle speed the shells easily outran us. This view of four boats headed downstream was fun:
We discovered that, when we left the "Baker Inn" yesterday, were supposed to have taken some of the homemade pound cake that Gael, wife of Webmaster, Chaz, had baked. However, we overlooked doing that.
So, as we passed the Baker's, Newsom handed us our share of the cake along with some of Gael's homemade lemon sauce. We were particularly happy to have more of that great cake and sauce combination!
We continued to retrace our steps downstream until we arrived at the Ft. Loudon Dam. About half a mile up from the dam is Ft. Loudon Dam Marina, where we moored for the night. Looper Cher III was moored next to us. We had met them at the rendezvous at Joe Wheeler earlier this month.
Ruth did several loads of laundry while Bill worked to fix a nagging problem plaguing the VHF radio and the radar. Then we walked over to Calhoun's Restaurant for supper overlooking the river. This is one of six Calhoun's dining places. They are famous for their BBQ ribs so that's what we had. We also had their "white chili" which was perfectly wonderful.
Then to bed. It had been a cool, overcast day that ended pleasantly.
Position tonight: N35 47.950 W084 14.280
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