We spent over a week in the Chattanooga area enjoying our stay at the Chattanooga Yacht Club, some fantastic anchorages and a couple of days at the docks in the downtown.

Not too far from where we were docked, there was an exact replica of the Nina – we toured the boat with our looper friends Jim and Julie (on The Journey). We learned that the crew stay on board for about three months at a time and that they also do America’s Great Loop. It would be very neat if we get to see the Nina on the water on our future journeys!

The Tennessee Aquarium is located in Chattanooga and very conveniently for us was just a short five-minute walk from our boat. It is the highest rated aquarium in the US and we certainly enjoyed our visit.  One interesting fact we didn’t expect to learn at an aquarium is that one barge can carry the equivalent of 60 tractor trailers. We knew the barges were big but didn’t realize they were that big! Usually tows are pushing more than one barge – sometimes as many as 15 barges (900 tractor trailers).

While walking in the downtown, we saw some interesting sidewalks including this one with the Chattanooga Choo Choo song (I had that song stuck in my head for awhile!).

After Chattanooga, we cruised to the Shellmound Recreation area which has a free dock!  On arrival we met some very friendly local boaters who kindly invited us to join them for afternoon cocktails and their annual potluck dinner.  During our time with them we learned some unique Southern expressions:

Southern expression	What it means
Carry you somewhere	Drive you somewhere
I don’t care to	I don’t mind
Fixin’ to	Going to do that

While exploring we saw some interesting things growing in the woods and we learned from our new Tennessee friends they are Cypress Tree Knees.

As I was working on this post, my internet suddenly disappeared. We think perhaps that this 85 foot boat that docked just behind us blocked all signals.

We have been experiencing southern hospitality wherever we go!  We will soon leave Tennessee and enter Alabama as we retrace our route in order to get back on track to go south.

Have you ever wondered where the Canada geese go when they head south? Well, according to the Tennessee River Guide, many of them head to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, the southernmost wintering ground for Canada geese. It extends along both sides of the Tennessee River for almost 15 miles and 304 species of birds have visited here.

The Tennessee River continues to be very scenic and there has been a lot less tow traffic than on the Illinois, Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers.  The locks still prioritize commercial vessels through first, but we have been pretty lucky and have experienced no significant delays. 

One of America’s most famous landmarks is Lookout Mountain. The mountain thrusts upward more than 2,000 feet above the river and extends for nearly 100 miles into Georgia and Alabama. 

We have been very fortunate to meet some great people throughout our travels.  We first met Doug and Lynne (on DougOut) our first week on the loop and then we spent a lot of time together traversing the Trent Severn Waterway, Georgian Bay and the North Channel.   

Their home port is the Chattanooga Yacht Club and they invited us to be their guests. The club is located on Chickamauga Lake and is reminiscent of our home waters in that it is very secluded, scenic, and has lots of anchorages.  The weather of course is warm for October (at home our boat would already be out of the water).  We have learned that here they don’t need to take their boats out of the water for winter – they just put heaters inside the boats and monitor the temperatures – they don’t need to worry until they have three days of below freezing weather (which, we understand, is a rare occurrence). 

Doug and Lynne very generously lent us their vehicle so we could do some sightseeing.  We are really glad we decided to make Chattanooga a side trip as we visited some areas we had never even heard of. Rock City on Lookout Mountain was absolutely amazing!

We also visited Ruby Falls, home to the tallest and deepest underground waterfall open to the public in the United States. After descending in an elevator to 26 stories below ground, we embarked on a guided tour.

Both Jacques and I took videos of the falls, which were highlighted by music and lights, but alas, the blog format will not allow me to upload videos. Here instead, is a not so perfect picture.

We have been experiencing southern hospitality since we arrived – everyone has been very welcoming. Our plans are a little loose right now but we think we will plan to stay in this area for awhile.

Today marks our 100^th day on the loop!  In some ways it seems much longer and some ways much shorter.  We are on the Tennessee River making our way to Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Our original plan was to cruise to Nashville on the Cumberland River, however the one (and only) lock to get into Nashville is closed for a week – at exactly the time we had planned to go.  So our travel plan was revised.

We spent four days at Green Turtle Bay Marina where we attempted to keep cool in the heat.  We have been dealing with plus 35 temperatures for over a week which the locals say is not their normal temperature for this time of year.  In fact, the air conditioners were in such heavy use at the marina that they asked everyone to only have one air conditioner running per boat. Luckily, we had been placed at a dock with a roof (first time ever) and it helped keep the hot sun off the boat (and us). 

The marina was so big that we rented a golf cart in order to get around.  We could also take the golf cart into the town of Grand Rivers and we had a great time exploring.  It is almost a one business town – Patti’s 1880’s Settlement includes a restaurant, gift stores, clothing stores and an ice cream shop. The staff at most of the shops were dressed in period costumes – long dresses (with ruffles) for the women.

Patti’s Restaurant is in the process of rebuilding after a fire; we met a couple at the ice cream shop and they waxed poetic about the food at Patti’s.  Apparently, people come from all over to eat at Patti’s – so we really missed out on quite the experience (they serve over 350,000 people each year, in a town with a population of 350 people).

The Tennessee River is 652 miles long and it will take us over a week to reach our destination of Chattanooga at mile marker 464.  It also passes through three states:  Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama.  We are currently in Alabama and will be in Alabama until almost Chattanooga.  The scenery has been spectacular.

 

Is the Mississippi River muddy?  Yes!  In fact, it is so brown and muddy that in places it looked like we were cruising on the Peticodiac River mud flats when the tide is out. The Peticodiac River is located in Southeastern New Brunswick near Moncton – shameless plug for my home town!

During our 2½ days of cruising on the Mississippi River we learned that it is very big and very fast!  There is a mighty current on the river.  Our normal cruising speed is 14 kilometres per hour; on the Mississippi we were going 23 kilometres an hour without any acceleration on our part. This was quite thrilling, especially as we were continually dodging debris such as sticks and logs.

The tows and barges are bigger on the Mississippi River than on the Illinois River.  In fact, they put up quite a bit of turbulence behind them and when we cross their wake we are really going for a bumpy ride. It brought back memories of being on Lake Michigan.

We did find some peaceful spots on our sojourn down the river. As there are no marinas along this stretch, we anchored. 

We were happy on our third day to see the Ohio River.  It almost instantly changes from brown to blue and there is hardly any current so we were cruising at our more normal speed of 14 kilometres an hour.  The harbour at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers is very busy with lots of tow and barge traffic.

The scenery changed as well.

Paducah, Kentucky is a very interesting spot – there is a 12 mile 12-foot-high flood wall around the town.  In 1937 there was a devastating flood that covered 90% of the town.  Over 27,000 residents were evacuated. After six weeks of rain in the Ohio River Valley the river crested at 60.8 feet – 11 feet higher than the sidewalk we were standing on. The flood wall was constructed after this flood.  It is a very imposing structure but made quite beautiful by the many murals.

Here are a couple of the murals.

Due to the extreme heat, we ventured into the National Quilt Museum for some air conditioning (Jacques wants it noted that he did this under protest).

As luck would have it, we are in Kentucky at the same time my brother and his buddies are doing their annual motorcycle trip and we were able to meet up in Grand Rivers. We had great fun catching up and sharing stories!

We are currently at Green Turtle Marina, part of a resort community in Grand Rivers taking a few days of R and R after our travels down the Mississippi (and trying to escape the extreme heat – 35 degrees).

We are continuing our journey on the Illinois River. It is a very industrial area.

While in Peoria we toured the Caterpillar Visitor’s Centre where your tour starts in a theatre which is located in the bed of the truck below.

There are not so many nice anchorages and few marinas so we had a couple of longer cruising days.  Our cruise from Peoria to Bar Island anchorage was very uneventful:  perfect conditions, little tow/barge traffic and some wildlife.

Until, as we were just getting ready to drop the anchor at the Bar Island anchorage, we heard a loud thump on the port side of the boat.  Then many thumps.  We were uncertain as to what it could possibly be so I went to take a look.  An Asian carp had jumped over 4½ feet and landed on our port side deck!  It kept thumping around until it finally fell back into the water.  It was at least 18 inches long and was big!  I know this sounds like a made-up fish story, especially as I don’t have any photographic evidence, but it is true!  After we got settled in, we enjoyed a quiet evening and a beautiful sunset.

Flooding is an issue on the Illinois River – the few cottages we saw are set on stilts.

This year there was a terrible flood on the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. At Grafton Harbour the marina was underwater for three months!  Usually this would be a place where we could get fuel but they have no fuel this year as the fuel lines were underwater for so long that they all need to be replaced – not an inexpensive endeavor.  However, the marina staff are absolutely wonderful and bend over backwards to accommodate the transient boaters.  They have a courtesy car that is available for our use if we need to provision – it is a 12-passenger van and is not right off the new car lot (actually, before we could use it, the alternator had to be replaced).  But it worked fine once it was repaired – just not the prettiest thing on wheels. 

At the marina there is a young duck that was orphaned as a result of the flood.  Deedee hangs out at the pool and thinks that humans are her family.  She also travels around with the marina staff as they are working around the marina – she was swimming behind the working barge and jumped on for a ride at one point.

We spent four days at Grafton. We enjoyed the view from a restaurant on the top of a very steep hill (shuttle service provided!).

The view from the marina was spectacular as well – Grafton is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.

We rented a car so we could visit St Louis and the Gateway Arch.  We, of course, have seen pictures of it before but were not prepared for the size and grandeur of the Arch.  We watched a documentary on the building of the arch (completed from 1963 to 1965) and it was fascinating and almost unbelievable.

We then took the tram tour to the top of the Arch.  That in itself was worth the price of the very reasonable admission.  The tram is a combination of escalator, elevator and Ferris wheel.  There are eight trams that seat five people.  It is like something out of The Jetsons – very 60’ish futuristic!

A few days later we got to see the Gateway Arch from our boat!

Next up: the mighty Mississippi!

We very happily left Lake Washing Machine (I mean Lake Michigan) and continued on our journey into Illinois.  We passed under 13 bridges on the Calumet River on our way to the first lock.  We need 18 feet 4 inches to get under a bridge without the bridge operator opening it up.  We approached one bridge that was listed at 18 feet 5 inches clearance and the bridge operator called us on the radio and said he didn’t have to open the bridge – that we would pass under no problem.  Needless to say, we were very apprehensive but we proceeded.  I kept out a careful eye and sure enough we made it with just inches to spare.  The lowest bridge height after that was 19 feet 7 inches so we were not too worried at all. Some of the bridges are not all that far apart.

We have seen a lot of tows and barges on the Illinois River as it is a commercial river.  Tows are like big tugs that push the barges (but don’t call them tugs – the tow captains do not like that).  The tows come in all sizes; the one below is what I would call about medium sized.

Asian carp are an invasive species that are on the Illinois River and are threatening the Great Lakes ecosystem.  To keep the Asian carp out of the Great Lakes there is an electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

We were happy to see many other Looper boats on our arrival at Joliet.  We hadn’t seen too many Loopers in the last few weeks but now they are starting to gather on the rivers.  We met many of them including our first Canadian Loopers!

There were a total of 13 pleasure boats at Marseilles Lock. Once we were through the lock we immediately encountered a tow and barge.  We were the lead boat – here is what it looked like behind us as we all passed the tow.

We were delayed at one of the locks because a barge had run aground. The lock master had informed us of this and gave us the go ahead to proceed to the lock from the marina. It was an hour and a half cruise to the lock so we naturally assumed that we would get right into the lock – but it was another two hours of waiting after we arrived. Commercial vessels have priority at the locks. 

By the time we were able to enter the lock we were up to 21 boats.  We had to raft (tie) to each other – here we are second from the left.  This was one of the few places where we could buy charts – so this was a bit of an obstacle course for me as I had to go through each of the boats in order to get to the lock station to buy the charts. 

While the river is quite industrial in nature there are some scenic areas.

‘Carp cowboys’ are people who are trying to remove the carp from the rivers.  When the Asian carp jump out of the water they use their bows and arrows to get the fish.  It was amazing to watch the effectiveness of their method.  They keep the arrows on some sort of string so they can pull them back with the fish attached. While this picture doesn’t show any carp I can assure you that they were jumping like crazy – I just couldn’t capture it on my camera. 

Illinois has its own Ottawa so we paid a visit. No Parliament Buildings in this small town but it did have several historical landmarks. 

Jacques is very good at finding places that will deliver to the marinas. As we don’t have a car this is a necessity for big items like new batteries! We will stay in Peoria another day in order to replace the batteries and get some other maintenance done. We woke to a beautiful sunrise this morning and the moon last night was spectacular as well.

We arrived in Chicago on a beautiful, sunny Saturday.  Just a short hour and a half cruise from Hammond, Indiana. 

We docked at Burnham Harbor which is right beside Soldier Field.

We were not in Chicago an hour when I was asked if I was Irish – I was a little startled but responded that I am Canadian.  I guess my Maritime accent is noticeable at times!

We immediately set out to do some sightseeing; we walked until we found a water taxi to take us to Navy Pier and jumped on an architectural boat tour of downtown Chicago.

We learned some fascinating things:  1.  It was not Mrs O’Leary’s cow that started the Chicago fire of 1871 – that is just a story – and they do not really know how the fire started. 2. The fire burned for three days. 3. The city rebuilt rapidly to much improved building codes and included green space as a priority in their planning.  Seeing the skyline from the water you do not realize how many parks there are – walking around the downtown and the riverfront was enlightening.  Chicago is a beautiful city.

You will note that the building below is longer on one side of the clock tower than the other. When it was built it was equal on both sides. They had to remove part of the left side of the building when they widened the street!

Their light rail trains run on top of the streets.

Northerly Island is located very close to the marina and has a concert venue.  The winds were so favourable on Saturday night that we were able to hear, with perfect clarity, the whole concert set of Flogging Molly, a Celtic Irish band, while sitting on our sundeck.  Then, to top off the evening, we were treated to a spectacular display of fireworks from Navy Pier.  We felt very welcomed to Chicago!

Having never been to Chicago before, we did the typical touristy things:

Uber was our friend but we did a lot of walking too.  We also hailed a bicycle rickshaw so we could get to the riverfront which was a little too far to walk.  We sampled some Chicago cuisine:  deep dish pizza and Chicago style hot dogs at places we wouldn’t have found if we hadn’t had asked the locals.

We have enjoyed our time here but have certainly not done the city justice. There are tons of theatres, museums, and restaurants – we would need several visits to take it all in.

Yes, we know that Moncton is not on the Great Loop! Although it would be possible to get close to Moncton by boat, we travelled more conventionally and took a flight. We travelled to Moncton so we could join my mother as she celebrated her 90^th birthday!  Unbeknownst to her, we had been planning this for a while! 

Shediac is home to the warmest beaches in Canada, so we rented a cottage there and enjoyed some family time on the ocean. Shediac is located only 20 minutes from Moncton.

The views from our cottage were amazing. The timing of our visit had high tide in the morning and low tide by the afternoon and evening.

Shediac is known as the lobster capital of the world and is home of the world’s largest lobster.

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world.  At Hopewell Rocks (an hour from Moncton), you can walk on the ocean floor at low tide or kayak in the same area at high tide.

It was a fabulous week and really special to get together with all of our family.

We spent a week in Moncton/Shediac and also spent an evening with brand new Gold Loopers, Patrick and Tina of SEALOONS, where we exchanged looping stories and got some good tips!

We left Racine (after saying goodbye to some new friends) and cruised nine hours to Hammond, Indiana. We will spend two days here and then off to Chicago!

Our cruise from Milwaukee to Racine was one of the best we have had so far – Lake Michigan was calm and the water was like glass.

However, since our arrival in Racine, the winds have not been favourable and Lake Michigan looks like a washing machine. 

And when the waves hit the break wall near the marina, it makes for great pictures; not so great boating.

Luckily, we had planned an extended stay in Racine in order to get some maintenance done.  We have met some great people here.  Bob, our immediate next door neighbour, welcomed us warmly when we arrived, helping with our lines and having us on board for ‘safe arrival cocktail’ once the boat was secured.  He also, very generously, offered the use of his car so we could do some provisioning.

As luck would have it, we were here for the annual dinghy poker run.  The rules were simple:  drive around and patronize local participating lakefront businesses between 3:00 and 7:00 p.m. in order to receive one sealed envelope per purchase.  Once you have five sealed envelopes you deliver them to the judges’ table to reveal your hand.  Five card stud, best hand, wins the grand prize basket.  I would like to report that we were the winners but alas, we didn’t even have one pair.  However, we did have a great time and met many of the local boaters.

Nancy and Carey are the local Harbour Hosts for the America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association (of which we are members).  We spent a great afternoon with them and other veteran Loopers mutually sharing our Great Loop stories. 

Tim and Kathy also welcomed us warmly and we spent a lovely evening on their sail boat.  Then Tim, on a rainy, dismal Monday, drove us to Kenosha to go to West Marine for a few boating items.  He also played tour guide and showed us some of the sites.

We certainly picked the right marina for an extended stay (and the right dates as with the high winds since our arrival we wouldn’t have been able to cruise anyways).

We decided to stay an extra day in Pentwater as we wanted a favourable weather and wind report before crossing Lake Michigan and to our delight, DougOut, with our friends Doug and Lynne, arrived about mid-day.  We rafted our boats together at the Pentwater anchorage and had a great time catching up on each other’s travels.

On August 15, the weather window looked promising and so we set out.  For the first little bit it was dead calm on Lake Michigan and we were excited to do a smooth crossing. 

However, after 20 minutes or so we started hitting choppier water and we had waves on the beam for the whole crossing.  There were a couple of other boats we could see in the distance who were also making the trek across from Michigan to Wisconsin.  The crossing took 6½ hours and for about 45 minutes we could not see land in any direction – a first for us.  Sorry – no pictures – was a little too rough to take clear pictures.

Our first port of call in Wisconsin was Sheboygan which we chose as it was one of the shortest places to cross the lake at about 94 kilometres. It is a city and therefore quite a bit larger than the small towns and villages we were visiting in Michigan. We toured the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and, believe it or not, one of the attractions is the washrooms! From their website:  ” The public washrooms at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center epitomize the achievements of Arts/Industry, the decades-long collaboration between art and industry conceived by Director Ruth Kohler. Begun in 1974 as a means of supporting artistic exploration by providing artists with access to industrial technologies, Arts/Industry gives artists from around the world the opportunity to create new bodies of work using the facilities, technologies, and materials of the nation‘s leading plumbingware manufacturer, Kohler Co”.

Wisconsin (America’s Dairyland) is known for its cheese curds and they have poutine here.  For those not in the know, poutine are fries served with cheese curds and gravy, a very Quebec dish, we were surprised to see it served outside of Canada.  Here is a hopped-up version of poutine we ordered as an afternoon appetizer – needless to say we did not need a big supper that night!

An historical marker in Sheboygan is an 89 foot section of the Lottie Cooper, a Great Lakes schooner that capsized off Sheboygan in 1894.

Our next stop was Port Washington where we were docked in the main channel next to about 50 charter fishing boats. These are working boats so they start their engines at 4:00 a.m. to get an early start. We did see some successful catches but didn’t so much appreciate the early morning wakeup call!

Cruising to Milwaukee was like playing on a Par 3 golf course where you can always see the flag for the next hole.  We could see Milwaukee as soon as we left Port Washington.  It was not a long cruise – about three hours.

Milwaukee is an unbelievably beautiful city. 

Lakeshore State Park is 22 acres and is gorgeous with kilometres and kilometres of bike trails.  We took full advantage of the trails and put many miles on our bikes. 

One evening bike ride we visited two beaches – one was full of beach volleyball nets and they were all occupied – there must have been hundreds of people playing.  And of course, we couldn’t leave Milwaukee without visiting the Harley Davidson Museum.  Seeing the progression of the bikes from the early 1900’s to today was very interesting (even though we are not motorcycle enthusiasts). 

Another evening, we saw two tour boats traverse the marina – it is a huge marina with lots of boats but we found it kind of strange they would take paying passengers through the marina. Perhaps it is a way to get closer to the Milwaukee shoreline.

We are looking forward to our next stop –  Racine, Wisconsin!