We're Baaaack!!

Flint and Leslie are back on the water again! After spending four months at our son's home in Chapin, South Carolina, we are back on Grace Full again. He is doing very well and is back to work full time. We enjoyed spending time with our 3 and 6-year old grandchildren and forming close bonds with them, but it was time to get back on board. Kevin and Meredith drove us back to Joe Wheeler State Park in Rogersville, Alabama on February 7th and we spent the next week doing little projects to prepare for cruising again. A cruiser named Toby Balda , whom we had previously met at the rendezvous in October, took us to his home area of Nashville for a day of touring. We had always wanted to see the Grand Ole Opry Ryman Auditorium and were not disappointed with our visit there. We also saw the Opryland Hotel and it was magnificent with all its beautiful indoor garden areas, waterfalls and streams. The only "star" we saw that day was Charles Stanley, who was attending the National Christian Radio convention at the hotel. We visited a number of live music bars along "Music Row" and heard some good music from various wanabee musicians. Tobey indicated that music producers used to look for new talent in these venues, but that they now get their new "stars" from shows like American Idol. After dinner we attended a Bible study/prayer meeting with some Nashville song writers and radio talent who were Tobey's friends. We had a wonderful time singing and praying with them.

We couldn't stand it any longer, we needed to get moving! We were going to leave Joe Wheeler with another looper couple on Pookie II, but they decided to delay the start of their trip until February 22nd and we couldn't wait any longer. We were anxious to start cruising again and we had people to see down the river so we pushed away from the dock on Tuesday, February 17th. We needed to transit two locks before our first stop that day and one of them was the highest lock we would encounter on our trip. The locking process came back to us pretty quickly and Flint brought us right up to the wall very gently so that I could loop our line around the bollard. (We will show you in our next blog what a bollard looks like.) We had come up these locks on our way to Joe Wheeler last October and we found that going down was much easier. We stopped in Florence, AL for two nights at their city marina and borrowed their courtesy van to make a trip to WalMart. Tobey drove to Florence from Joe Wheeler and went to dinner with us.

On Thursday we left Florence to travel to the mouth of the Yellow River, which is the entrance to the Tenn-Tom waterway. The sun was shining, but the wind was gusting about 20-25 knots on our nose and we had whitecaps on the Tennessee River. As we turned south down the Yellow River, it settled down for us to dock easily at Grand Harbor Resort. We are at the corner of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennesee and this area of the country is beautiful. We met Tom Lewis at the rendezvous in October and he offered to spend a day with us and take us on a tour of Shiloh National Park. One of the previous loopers left a CD tour of the park for any looper to use with the dockmaster and it gave us an excellent lesson on the Civil War in Tennessee and Mississippi. It felt like we were living through the battle with the soldiers. After the tour we went to the Catfish Hotel on the Tennesee River for a wonderful fried catfish dinner. Tom took us to his vacation motor home at the Goat Island RV park and shared with us some pictures of the ministry he and his wife share in Sierra Leone, Africa. She is an opthamologist and they have set up an eye clinic near Freetown where she goes twice a year to do free surgeries on anyone who has a need in the area. The clinic operates all year long with a small staff of medical personnel. She did 208 surgeries in a two week period earlier this month. Tom is a retired hospital administrator and he now handles the clinic operation. Their website is www.southerneyeinstitute.org if you would like to see their work. We have an open invitation to join them on any of their trips to assist during the surgery weeks. We never know what the Lord has planned in our future!!

Grand Harbor is not only a marina, but also a resort with a wonderful full-service spa, so Flint and I decided to avail ourselves of a their services and have a massage. The masseuse was also a physical therapist and we both felt that it was the best massage we had ever had. Such decadence!! We relaxed a little after our massage and played a game of Mexican Train Dominos. Flint whupped me again! One of our looper friends taught us to play this game in one of the ports we stopped at off Lake Michigan and we enjoyed it so much we bought our own set at Kevin's home and taught them how to play it. When we left we gave them that set and bought another one to take with us. Saturday evening we had "cocktail hour" with a couple who live on their boat at Grand Harbor and whom we had met at the AGLCA rendezvous in October. We enjoyed getting to know each other better.

Sunday morning we borrowed the courtesy van and went to church at First Baptist of Counce. It was a great service where the Spirit was definitely present and we enjoyed wonderful worship and teaching. The sermon was based on James 1:2-4 relating to the fact that we will have trials in this life, but that should not take away our joy because God is still in control and He loves us.

It's Monday morning and we are off to our next port in Fulton, MS called Midway Marina. We are travelling on the Tenn-Tom Waterway, which is a manmade canal similar to the C & D Canal on the upper part of the Chesapeake Bay, but without the current. We are going to see a lot of old friends during the next week and we are looking forward to that. We'll be back with you again in about a week to tell you all about our reunions.