Days 161 - 162

Ditto Landing Marina - Joe Wheeler State Park, Rogersville AL

• Start 7:30 AM
• End 1:30 PM
• Underway 6:00 Hours
• Distance 48 miles
• Total Miles on Trip 3173
• Av Speed 8.1 knots
• Locks 0
• Weather Rain , 49 Degrees, Wind 6 Knts NE

UUGH!!! Another rainy cold dreary day. Long pants, and running the generator the whole trip to keep the heat on. I miss the warm sunny days we have had for most of the time on this adventure. It is bad enough that I have to wear long pants, but even with an electric heater the helm is not very warm. As much as I don't like the weather as least we can stay warm while we are running. Tom & Val (Wine & Roses) do not have a generator which means they do not have any heat when they are running.

Check out the photo page to see pictures of Mark & Karen "enjoying" the homemade "boatmade"? pumpkin pie as they ride down the river.

The state park is very nice, but we have very little cell coverage and the wifi does not reach the docks. The only reason we choose to stay two nights, is because the Wilson lock has been closed for maintenance and they should be back on schedule Friday the 5th.

Thursday night we overwhelmed the only restaurant here with 14 loopers showing up at once. Once again we had very good service. It seems when the waitress says up front, we are short staffed please be patient, they still manage to do a great job.

Friday Angel & I went for a 5 mile bike ride into town. We passed a crew of linemen installing new power poles. The road was closed down to one lane, and it was funny to have the flagman stop us until traffic was clear. Then they stopped traffic on the other side and let us pass.

As we got closer to town, there was cotton puffs along the side of the road. We did pass a couple of small cotton fields but they were not big enough to account for all of the cotton we saw. Once in town, a 18 wheeler passed us that was loaded with giant bales of cotton. The bales had to be at least ten feet round each, and cotton was just falling off the sides.

It was cold enough on the bike ride, that we stopped and bought winter gloves for the ride back to the boat.

When we leave Joe Wheeler State Park, we will have two locks to get through the Joe Wheeler Lock and the Wilson Lock. Because of operational problems at the Wilson Lock our 30 mile run will probably take all day.