We are now at mile 165, 25 miles south of Nashville. Because of the Titans football game we couldn't get a space on the downtown dock until Monday so we've been inching along. Friday night we spent the night at the town dock in Clarksville, Tennessee's fifth largest city. As is the case in the river towns if the town has a dock it is located close to the historic parts of the cities so we get a historical view of where we are. Clarksville is a large producer of tobacco, beef cattle and soy beans. I was once one of the largest tobacco producers in Tennessee and this area played a big role in the war between the states. Ft. Campbell, home of the Army's famed 101st Air Assault Division, is 10 miles no
It was a day for clouds
The view from our back deck at the first nights anchorage, Buzzard Bay, early evening ....PERFECT
LOTS of bass boats here very quietly fishing and enjoying the beautiful weather.
Clouds and the Cumberland..this is the most peaceful waterway we have ever been on.
It is in a word....Reverant
A wee little taste of the color change to come
Thursday night we anchored....Hickman Creek near the sight of Fort Donelson wherein 1862 Union forces encircled Fort Donelson and forced 13,000 Confederate troops to surrender. This was the first major victory for the Union and brought national prominence to Ulysses S. Grant. The fort is no longer there and unfortunately there was no water access to tour the grounds or the Ft. Donelson National Cemetery.
The next morning when the heavy fog lifted, this fisherman was very surprised to find two trawlers in his fishing grounds! Kind of a scary thought, he couldn't even see our anchor lights...would have been pretty easy for him to run into us...but luck was with us and Bob & Judy had their generator running and he heard the muffled motor through the fog, but had no idea what it was.
His morning catch....2 Crappies....no not crap...but crop, as in "Croppies"
The Dover Hotel....Sunday, February 26th 1862....General Ulysses Grant rode up to this building and accepted an unconditional surrender from Confederate General Simon Buckner. The first and only time during the Civil War that a large army surrendered unconditionally.
Here we are passing a barge on a One Whistle. (our port side)
Steam billowing from the stacks of the TVA's Cumberland River Power Plant. When it started operating in 1973 ( a very good year, our son Kent's year) it was one of the world's largest. Today it takes 20,000 tons of coal a day to run it and it produces electricity for over a million homes. I was as you can see fascinated by it.
Two sets of stacks, the original 1000 foot stacks are now obsolete and have been replaced with 600 footers with scrubbers that remove toxins from the gases.
A back view of the barge docks where they unload the coal that feeds the beast.
Close up of the black coal, Tennessee Tea, in front of the stacks
So....we took the last train, and here we are in Clarksville!! (Monkey's circa 1966)
Actually this is a bad depiction of the waterfront. There is a beautiful park at the top of the ramps the entire length of downtown.
Gary and our friends Bob & Judy in Clarksville
An historic downtown street
Trinity Episcopal Church circa 1881.
And went to the Custom's House Museum where we saw this awesome train display, complete with airplanes a circus and a carnival kind of like the Christmas villages everyone sets up but fully automated. Unfortunately they only do the complete show on Sundays so we had to be content with pushing the buttons to get a few of the displays to animate. Like the Carnival seen below complete with lights and moving rides!
We passed the Queen of the Mississippi at the Cheatham Lock coming back from a cruise to Nashville
And had a lock tender take mercy on us. After telling us we would probably have to wait 5-6 hours for all the barge traffic to go through, he got approval from this tug for us to lock through with him. When he exited he hooked up to his barges and off he went....
We passed him about five minutes later :-) after thanking him profusely for letting us slide through with him
Saw some unusual sights along the way
And the anchorages.....SPECTACULAR....don't you agree?? Does it get any better than seeing this at the end of the day from your "porch"....PARADISE
Tomorrow it's 25 miles to Nashville. We hope to get there early enough to get a good spot on the town dock well away from the bridge where we have been warned people like to occasionally throw things down on the boats. Grow Up!!!
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