At long last - Service - sort of

Guess we were too optomistic about the ease of internet service on the water. This is the first time in days that we have had any service at all. And this is questionable. We are in Columbus, MS about a third of the way down the state. Tomorrow we cross the border into Alabama - then three days to Mobile Bay and another day to our destination at Gulf Shores. Then home for at least a couple of weeks. We have had a lot of cold weather and rain. Unusual for October. It has been more like November weather. We've been here in Colmbus for 3 nights. Have been traveling with several other boats - there are about 20 transients were at Columbus - we're rafted 2-3 deep - waiting for weather.

I fell at Aqua Yacht Harbour and hurt my back but am getting better each day. No permanent damage. Had to find a dentist this morning to fix a crown that came off. Will have to learn to deal with these things. The boating community is much like our community at home - everyone helps out.

We're looking forward to the next few days. South Alabama is much like the Everglades. Lots of sloughs, swamps, rivers of grass and all the wildlife that goes with that. Last time we went through this area, we did not see another boat, a car or house for 2 days and over 200 miles.

Will send this now - can't believe I have been on for 15 minutes without locking up.
See you guys out there somewhere.
Love
Bob & Ann

Thursday Update

Hello Dear Ones - We are at the beautiful Joe Wheeler State Park in Northern Alabama. Have had mostly beautiful weather. Today it's raining pretty hard. We're leaving tomorrow for Aqua Yacht Harbor. Will have the boat lifted on Saturday for maintenance work and leave for the Gulf probably on Monday. We have made lots of new friends here at Wheeler and expect to see many of them on our way around the loop. I'll work with pictures at Aqua Yacht where we should have better internet service. It's terrible here. Missing all our family and friends. See you out there somewhere.
Bob & Ann

Hello Dear Ones . . . It is Friday, October 13. We have not had internet service all week. We are going to have to buy some sort of booster so that we can receive service in more places. All the tech stuff is very frustrating. Our trip got off to a slow start - The very first day we arrived at the first lock, entered and were told that the power had gone down. We sat in the lock for 8 hours before they could even close the door. We finally got down and arrived in Clarksville just at dark. Took us all day to go just a few miles.

Made Green Turtle Bay the next day. Left early the next morning and immediately ran aground. Seems that Lake Barkley is around 10 feet under winter pool due to human error. We thought we had lost rudder control and possibly an engine. We made it back to the marina on one engine, had the boat pulled. Thankfully, they found nothing wrong. Guess whatever was stuck in the prop fell out. We have a little vibration but have been operating OK since. There were many boat with major problems from hitting rocks and trees on the lake bottom so we feel lucky that our problems were minor.

We are now at Joe Wheeler and will be here for at least a week. Bill, Eva and Kathy Breedlove have been with us. Jim Breedlove is arrving tonight and we'll spend the weekend together. They are all leaving on Sunday and then Rob and I'll attend the Loopers meeting next week.

Our weather has been fabulous, except for a little cold and rain yesterday afternoon. We got through Wilson Lock just fine - after a 3 hour wait. I'll write more about that next week and post some pictures (if I can figure out how). It was a very interesting experience. Had no problems with Pickwick or Wheeler locks.

Will post more next week. Miss all of you.

Ann & Rob

A New Day in the Life of . . . .

Good Morning Family and Friends . . . .

We are finally leaving on Saturday morning, October 7th, accompanied by Bill, Eva and Kathy Breedlove. We'll be traveling on the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers to a Great Loop Cruiser' Ass'n Rendezvous in North Alabama and then on to Gulf Shores, Alabama. We'll be driving a rental car back to Nashville sometime the first week of November.

We are semi-retiring; we plan to be in the office a few days each month and will be able to handle most of our business remotely.

This is quite a change for us "old folks". All this electronic stuff is scary and a huge challenge. Some of you may remember Rob's experience with his "man overboard" button. If not, let us know and we'll repeat the story.

You'll be able to check out our progress on this blog site and see some of our pictures. We have planned and prepared as much as humanly possible but . . .

See you "out there somewhere".
Love to All
Ann & Rob