Free Beer Trumps Free Laundry

    July 2 – 9

We landed at Cherokee Marina on Old Hickory Lake just prior to the holiday weekend. Cherokee is located 239 miles up the Cumberland. It would be the farthest we would travel on the Cumberland as we needed to head back through the Cheatham Lock that would be closing again in a week, this time for two weeks.

We were surprised to see the great transformation of the marina from the last time we had driven and stopped here. A new owner at Cherokee is giving it a new life. New docks, new ship store, new power, new patio and bar. Two dockhands and the owner helped us in, we would be docking on the lower end of the fuel dock. The entire staff was friendly and very helpful, this is the first place we’ve been in a long time that seemed like staffing was not an issue. After our first drink at the outside bar, we decided we would stay a few days for the weekend festivities. Friends from home joined us the next day.

After a few days of bands, fireworks, and fun, we began our return journey with our friends aboard and enjoyed sharing the beauty of Old Hickory Lake. The lake was named after President Andrew Jackson who had the nick name of “Old Hickory”. President Jackson lived in the vicinity at the Hermitage. The Heritage is now a museum honoring the seventh president and serves as his final resting place.

The kindness of people never ceases to amaze us. Dave found this out on his trip down the Ohio River with Tasha’s dad, Kurt, and we are finding it true again. We had the good fortune of being invited to stay at a private boat club. What a treat! The club owns a small tract of land and built a club house with lay along dock.

We joined two members on the lay along and met several others who stopped by on our nations birthday to enjoy the water, fireworks, and friendship. We also had two different people help us with leap frogging our friends’ truck ahead so they could cruise the Cumberland with us from MM 239 on Old Hickory Lake through downtown Nashville to MM 172 on the west side. We are so very thankful for the kindness of other boaters.

Our longest delay in locking was at the Old Hickory Lock (not the limited hours/days Cheatham lock), we rose at 6 am to call the lockmaster hoping to lock through right away. Our overnight dock was in view of the lock and we were crushed to see two barges waiting at the gates when we came up out of our cabin. Commercial traffic has priority over recreational boats. Dave called the lock master just hoping, and we were advised it would most likely be ten hours before we could lock through. We had a 45 mile run plus lock time and the weather was predicted to be in the 90’s. We cruise 8 to 10 mph. so we knew it would make for a very hot, long day and getting in after dark. Luckily, with our dock being in eye shot, we stayed plugged into power, did a few chores, Remy had run of the dock house and grass, and we barbequed for lunch. It was the perfect place to wait. Things looked to be moving a bit quicker than anticipated, so after lunch we packed up and headed to the lock, the lock master was filling the chamber for our lock down, we were on our way out of the lock at 2:00 and were at our destination by 6:30.

We were a good two hours earlier than we had thought! This was the last leg our friends would be with us and we had a truck so we wandered to a spot on the river a few miles back for dinner. You take advantage of a vehicle when you have access to one!

Now or Never took a day off of moving to regroup and do laundry! Tasha was so excited to have access to a full-size washer and dryer (we have small units on the boat and can only wash very small loads) and they were free to use. If you follow us on facebook, you’ll know David was even more excited to learn they were trying to kill a keg from the holiday weekend and had FREE beer.

It’s the little things, and you see where each of our priorities lie. We think the consensus of our friends was that the beer trumped the laundry, all in all a good stop! Free beer, clean stuff!

The second go around with the Cheatham lock was uneventful. We waited less than an hour, as it gets closer to the shut down on Sunday, we are sure it will get crazy busy again. Thankful it was so easy.

We made our way back to Lake Barkley. The days were hot – 90+ each day so the plan was to leave as early as possible to arrive at our destination by lunch time to avoid the extreme heat and then hibernated in the boat for the afternoons. Plans change, we slept a little later, got into Clarksville in the extreme heat of day and had some a/c issues. While Dave trouble shooted the a/c issues in the 150+ engine room and the 90+ salon, Tasha found air for Remy in the ship store for several hours. Remy enjoyed not only the cool building but adorned herself chief greeter as people visited.

The past few days somewhat are the same, as we are cruising downstream on a repeated course. We see a few new things each day, but a great deal of the view is just beautiful nature. The populated areas are few and far between.

Remy has spent 90% of our cruising time in the starboard wing door opening, peering out to the view. She only moves when there is food on deck or when she finds herself with the hot sun upon her.

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A few stats from our first 3 weeks cruising:

We will hold up on Lake Barkley awhile to get a few things done and then start our way down the Tennessee.

            Ohio River – 325 miles, 5 locks

Cumberland River – 420 miles (up and back but not complete), 5 locks

            13 days on the move, 10 different marina’s

            4 fuel stops, 582 gallons (this includes our fill up prior to departing – we do not have full tanks now)  $3.33 avg / per gallon diesel  (our $2.99 p/g prior to leaving skewed this a bit!)

For you history and geography buffs, Lake Barkley was impounded by the Army Corp of Engineers in 1966. The dam impounds the Cumberland River near Grand Rivers, KY approximately 38 miles upstream from where the Cumberland empties into the Ohio River. One mile above the dam is a canal connecting Lake Barkley with Kentucky Lake, forming one of the greatest freshwater recreational complexes in the country. The lakes run parallel courses for more than 50 miles with Land Between the Lakes National recreational area located between them. Lake Barkley is 134 miles long with over 1000 miles of shoreline. As with the formation of Kentucky Lake in the 1940’s, communities were flooded in the 1960’s to build Lake Barkley. You can still see old foundations and streets as well as the old railroad.

Barkley 58,000 acre reservoir – 134 miles long  shoreline 1016 miles

Kentucky 16030 acre reservoir  184 miles long 20640 miles  shoreline

Cheers! D, T & R