Kenlake Marina -- WE ARE HOME.......The TN River Journey is Complete

Today is an exciting day -- the day we successfully complete our 1,500 mile trip of traveling the entire length of the Tennessee River which is 648 miles long stretching from Paducah, KY to Knoxville, TN.  This journey was a bucket list wish for us since our retirement.....like many life events Gene and I accomplished this together --- side-by-side.  Today is also a sad day as it's the last day of our incredibly awesome 1,500 trip where we lived every minute of every day together in a 34' boat......and both of us can truthfully say it was "our best time ever",  We bring Summer 2018's Bucket List journey to a close, but it has opened all kinds of thoughts and ideas for our next adventure.  We will spend a couple of months discussing our options and hone in on what our next bucket list adventure will be......and don't you worry -- there will be a "next adventure" and it will very likely include "water"......

To close out this adventure, we left Pebble Isle Marina about 10AM and had 53 miles to travel to make it back to Kenlake Marina in Aurora, KY.  As we pulled out of the Marina, we see a yellow butterfly flying around Cloud Nine....at that point we knew our trip will be successful -- we saw a yellow butterfly every single day on our trip -- we had no mechanical issues or any other issue on our trip and we give the yellow butterfly sighting credit for giving us the good luck to work with us to be safe and have fun.

We have traveled this particular 53 mile stretch probably 10 times over the past year, but we always enjoy seeing the boats and barges along the way.  On this particular day, we see 6 barges, 16 Looper Boats and 1 Ferry; however, likely the best sighting was when some of our friends from our Marina drove their boat out to meet us and welcome us home.....that was amazing and it was so fun to see them....

After a brief reunion with our friends, Jack and Lisa in the middle of the river channel, it was time to get going -- and get home.  So they rode all the way back to Kenlake Marina with us side-by-side.  We arrived at Kenlake Marina at 1:50PM as Jack and Lisa escorted us into the marina.  When we entered the Marina's no-wake zone, we turned the stereo up while playing the Temptations song:  "Everything is Fine on Cloud Nine"....and it was.  We pulled into our slip and all our dock friends came to see us and welcome us home......it was a long rest of the day and night with us telling stories and celebrating a successful trip with our friends.

We had a lifetime of fun, smiles, laughter, made new friends, learned so much about boating and how to just enjoy the moment and love our time together.  All our planning paid off, we had everything we needed and adjusted to the things we could not control (mostly weather-related situations).

At this time, I'm not sure how we could top this trip we just completed, but we will spend some time thinking of our next adventure and find something that will get us just as excited and motivated to love our next adventure just as much as we did this one.

Thank you to everyone who followed our journey.  There will be a sequel and hope you'll join us on that adventure too...…

Few Statistics to Share:
# Days on the Water = 58
# Miles on the Water = 1,500
# Different Marinas Visited = 18
# Locks Completed = 16
# Pictures Taken = 3,647

Until Next Time...…

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