This morning was pleasantly comfortable being 20 degrees warmer than yesterday morning, 51 degrees. The sky was mostly cloudy with a couple of breaks and there was no wind to speak of.
We started to get ready to leave and I noticed that the sailboat with the skull and cross bones flag had left and was on its way to the lock. We had passed the sailboat yesterday and he came in a couple of hours after us.
I mentioned this to Pete (Humbug) and he called the lock and found out that they were clear at the moment and if we got started they would wait for us. Needless to say we hustled and got off the dock within 5 minutes. We did catch the sailboat before it got to the lock so we all just drove right in.
The sailboat travels probably at about 6 mph and with the current with us we were making 10.5+ mph. The 3 boats left the Joe Wheeler Lock together and it was about 17 miles to the Wilson Lock. We never did see the sailboat again as we were able to drive right into the Wilson Lock and the drop was about 76’ and they did that in about 10 minutes or so. The locking was really quick.
After leaving the Wilson Lock there are some really large houses that sit on the south side of the river high on a bluff, probably 50’ above the water. They have a great view but the area across the river is in Florence Alabama and is a trailer park. Some of the units in the trailer park were the big, expensive motor home as used by traveling music entertainers that cost upwards of a million dollars.
It was Sunday afternoon and the river traffic was not heavy but very consistent. We only saw one tow and that was half way between the Wilson Lock and Grand Harbor at probably one of the widest parts of the river. In this area the river is called Pickwick Lake because it was formed by the Pickwick Lock. A lot of bass boats were on the water setting up roostertails as they speed from spot to spot.
As we approached Grand Harbor I checked the weather radar on the internet because the sky was looking a little darker. The rain was not too far away but it held off until we were fueled and tied up in the slip. The rain only lasted about an hour and it was just a light rain.
Grand Harbor is located in Mississippi but its mailing address is Tennessee. As you start to drive out of the parking lot you enter Tennessee. A little bit of a strange setup.
We are here for a few days so I am hoping to catch up on the blog. I have written all the text at the end of each day but I need to organize the pictures so I am ready to upload everything. Thanks to everyone for being patient on waiting for the new blog entries. The only trouble was that the internet connection was painfully slow and took several minutes for each picture to upload.