I need to begin tonight by saying this is a beautiful trip and if you can't tell, I'm having a fantastic time. We have left the Cumberland River and did the Tennessee River. I think it is pretty obvious from the picture below that there are some Tennessee fans that boat.The Tennessee River is extremely beautiful. The current is not bad, the water is clear and the scenery is great. We did 190 miles of this type scenery. This sure beats working.

We spent Tuesday night in Clifton, Tenn. This was a small marina and everyone was extremely friendly and welcomed us to their part of the world. There was an Alison speed boat gathering and we saw approximately 15 to 20 Alison's on the river. One guy said his boat would do 109 mph Plus. They were expecting quite a few more boats for the weekend. We also meet a guy who knows Sterling Marlin, the Nascar driver. Sterling has a house in Clifton and the picture below is his river home.

Below are a couple of pictures of a dredge with a barge on each side. The dredge is dredging sand and stones from the bottom of the river. The dredge has a conveyor belt that lets the sand fall through on one track to a barge and the stones onto another track to the other barge. The water depth was 20 to 25 feet deep normally, however where these dredges were working the water was up to 75 feet deep. I guess they are mining from the bottom of the river. This type mining does not adversely effect the environment.

As you can tell from the picture below, there are some really nice homes on the river.

We now on the Tennessee Tombigbee River. We have quite a few locks to go through. This is the first lock and it lowered us 84 feet.

Once you enter the lock you can tie a line around the floating bollard, pictured below and bring the line mid ship. This holds the boat against the wall. One person can lock through without any effort at all. The line goes around the lower station for pleasure boats and around the upper station for barges. These locks are 600 feet long.

The picture below is of the miter doors opening as we exited the lock. Quite an impressive operation

Tonight we are in Smithville, Mississippi. This is a picture of the sunset from the dock. It is a hard life but someone has to do it and I'm glad I am fortunate enough to be able to see such a sight. The only comment I have is "Thank you Lord"