Watts Bar Lake to Ft. Loudoun Lake 8/26/2018

It's Sunday morning, August 26 and we are making phenomenal progress to reaching our goal of Knoxville.  Watts Bar Lake is so gorgeous.  The shoreline is filled with willow trees that droop into the river.  It is so serene.  There is actually no commercial industry on Watts Bar Lake and the homes in the area are imbedded into the hills and trees.  The entire lake is under-developed, which is a good thing -- it's preserved in a beautiful way.  Watts Bar Lake is our favorite part of the TN River so far.  Hills, trees, nice homes/not huge homes, very tasteful properties, coves everywhere and still hundreds if not thousands of acres to develop in the future.  The only thing we weren't in love with was the amount of debris in the water - including a long 2x4 piece of wood with nails in it!!  This part of the river doesn't have much current and there are many hair-pin turns which helps to keep the debris lingering in the corner turns.

Whether the "passenger" is in a car or on the water, the passenger is typically the navigator and has maps, a note pad, etc.  This particular day, our toilet paper roll got wet when "someone" took a shower.  It was necessary to dry it out as our paper supply was getting low and we couldn't throw away a perfectly good, but wet, roll of paper.  So I made an executive decision to put the paper upstairs in the sun to dry.  I already have one of our bath towels in the sun to dry -- so why not toilet paper too.  I also had my note pad for the blog story, binoculars and cranberry juice in the coozie.  We are set and ready to go....and with a 6-hour ride, our "paper" roll should be nice and dry by the time we get to Ft. Loudoun Marina tonight!!  (and it was good to go by then in case you were wondering)

A-Typical Picture of Kathy's side of the Boat (drying Wet Toilet Paper Roll)……

This is the day we will lock through our 8th and final lock on our upbound trip to Knoxville, Ft. Loudoun Lock.  This lock will raise us 60 feet into Ft. Loudoun Lake. Our ride today will be 62 miles long -- which is a long ride for us in a boat.  At 10 MPH, that will take us more than 6 hours to ride - plus we have a lock to go thru and it's unknown how long that will take to get through.  We had contemplated stopping earlier than 62 miles and breaking that ride up, but the weather was perfect at 74 degrees, sunny and light winds.  So we decide to go the 62 miles on this gorgeous day.  It was an absolutely lovely ride with lots to see and take pictures of.

Beautiful Homes on Watts Bar Lake

For those of you that travel I-40 between Nashville and Knoxville, these smoke stacks will look very familiar to you near Kingston, TN.  Well we could see them too from the TN River.  These are the twin stacks of the TVA Kingston Power Plant.  That was cool to see a familiar sight we've seen so many times on the interstate -- also seen on the water.

TVA Kingston Power Plant

  We now make a sharp turn to the right in the river and go under a bridge.  Just past the bridge, we see what will become a familiar sight -- UT Knoxville Pride with orange and white colors.  Look closely at the picture below and you will see a big "T" cut into the hillside - in addition to the orange/white checkerboard tin roof on top of the boathouse.  This is one of many UT fan sightings we will see on our journey!!

Just about 3 miles upstream we "fork" with the Clinch River, one of the Tennessee River's largest tributaries.  This river begins in SW Virginia and flows into the TN River.  The TN River now splits with the Clinch on one side of an island and the TN River on the other side of the island.  This island is called "Long Island" which is more than 6 miles long.  When the island ends, the TN River becomes very narrow and the landscape turns to bluffs, densely wooded hills and rolling pastures with lots of cows and other livestock we haven't seen in a while.  We now see the I-75 bridge that connects Chattanooga and Knoxville -- I-75  actually starts in Canada and ends in Miami.

I-75 Bridge

Next we come across the small town of Fort Loudon noted by the Southern Railway bridge and the town's water tower.  See how the bridge that boats go under is at the far right of the river.  Typically the river channel is deepest in the center of the river.

10 miles later, we reach our 8th and final lock of our upbound trip, Ft. Loudoun Lock and Dam.  We will have ridden 62 miles on the river today by the time we get through the lock.  A long but adventurous day for sure.

Within a mile of getting through the Lock, we arrive at Ft. Loudoun Marina, our destination for the night.  It is an incredibly busy marina especially at the gas island.  As we always do, we fill up with gas before going to tie up the boat.  To our amazement, we see that gas is $3.17 per gallon which is the absolute lowest price on the entire TN River.  Most of our gas stops have resulted in gas being as high as $3.99 per gallon.  And to top that, their overnight stay charges are only $30 it doesn't matter how long your boat is.  Typically marinas charge $1 per foot and we are 34 feet long.  Mathematically speaking, we are saving $4..... Our next ah-ha moment was that they have a Calhoun's restaurant on the property -- so we are set for the night.  Time to get settled in, take a stroll around the marina, eat some BBQ, take some sunset pictures -- and oh yeah, it's a full moon so we'll take a moon-rise picture too.  Life is good...…

Beautiful Full Moon Rising

Calhoun's Restaurant on the Water

 Arriving at Ft. Loudoun Marina, we have reached the last lake on the Tennessee River and with only 46 miles to arrive in Knoxville, we will have completed our "upbound" trip as planned.  We are so excited to have had a safe and "FUN..FUN...FUN" trip.  Tomorrow we will "do it all again" and drive our last 46 miles to downtown Knoxville.

Love my Captain.....Love Cloud Nine....