Old Hickory Lake...Still

  On Friday we spent the better part of the morning on a fact finding mission after two of the crew here on Swing Set got haircuts; Holly and myself. Both haircuts were not worthy of payment which is a lucky thing because none was expected. Rosie's only defense being her truthful admission that, "I'm no beautician". My excuse for the doo on Holly was that she wouldn't hold still, a ploy that will hold up for quite a while, I think.
  Using the dinghy, we later visited several marinas and a couple of anchorages nearby. We found a great disparity in the price of fuel, and in the price of beer. At one place I had two cases on the counter ready to purchase and found out that I was about to pay $1.50 per can of the nectar. I must have looked desperate. I respectfully declined being the victim of such robbery and helped the nice girl return the beer to the cluttered corner where I found it.
  We were luckier at another stop, although it took some savvy negotiation on my part just to get the price down to under $1.00 per can. A rather huffy capitalist did her best to explain beer pricing to me, but I wasn't born yesterday and I know a little about the cost of beer. I was so caught up into the deal I missed checking the age of the beer and made a mistake for which I'll take full responsibility, not return it, and drink every drop. It'll still taste better than Miller Lite, no matter what the born on date is. We'll drink the older stuff later in the day when our taste buds get numb.
  By late Friday afternoon we decided to get around some society and took the dinghy to Anchor High Marina, near the lock, and to a restaurant called Rudders. The place was packed and we thought a wedding was taking place or some other reception, but it was a typical Friday night crowd. I saw two fellas enjoying lots of elbow room at a high top table for at least four and asked Rosie to go over and see if we could join them while I did battle at the three customer deep bar. Neither of us had to wait long as Rosie was offered a seat, and a waitress asked if I was to be sitting nearby and that she would be glad to bring over our ice cold bucket of beers.
  The two guys turned out to be very friendly and full of good local advice. They stayed and talked for about an hour before moving on and leaving us to attract some other patrons to join us.
  We found Swing Set in the dark with no problem and was happy to find Holly behaving herself, left all alone on watch. We woke on Saturday to another beautiful morning, a quick breakfast, and a mission to accomplish.
  By 8 A.M. we were on our way up the river to get fuel at Creekwood Marina, at $3.89 per gallon their fuel price bested others as high as $5.17 and was probably delivered by the same truck. They open at 9 A.M. and we pulled up to the fuel dock on the button. 210 gallons later we were topped off and even the $820 dollar fuel bill left me a happy camper. We had traveled way over 520 miles and even adding the 19 gallons we acquired at Hoppies, and the other 20 gallons we stowed away in the bilges for the trip and added once we got into Kentucky Lake, we still did better than 2 miles per gallon at our turtle like pace of 7-8 miles per hour. With still over 100 gallons left in the tanks before filling up, I could depend on over a 600 mile range in a pinch. Rougher water will decrease that number, but it's something to work with. We won't make it to Spain, but most other crossings can be made with no sweat.
  We got a line on a local party cove called "Two Foot Cove". We knew the place would be skinny, but the river is down a bit and this anchorage turned out to be just too shallow for us to properly inflict ourselves on the clientele. Not only that, but judging by the amount of deck boats chock full of kiddies making their way into the hot spot, Two Foot didn't seem to be up our alley. We like our entertainment to be more of the adult variety.

We chugged back to Skinny Dip cove and found things more to our liking. We spent the afternoon visiting in the dinghy and also had some nice folks swim up to our boat and visit us too. One question we got was what we do when the weather turns bad and my incredulous answer was, "You mean the weather turns bad?"
  This picture was taken early in the day and the attendance at least doubled by day's end. Of course the battery on the camera failed again. Time for a new camera, as the battery was replaced last winter.
  We made some roughly knit plans for Sunday and next weekend too, as we have decided  to head upriver on Monday again as there is still over 100 miles of navigable river upstream from us and we'll see what we can see up there and be back here on Old Hickory for the Memorial Holiday weekend.
  The partying was still going strong when we ran out of gas and decided to have a nice dinner and chill out for the rest of the evening. The sun and heat got to us, not to mention those high priced Bud Lights.

  Once again we were treated to a pretty sunset as we sat off the channel behind two islands, keeping us out of the boat wakes for a quiet evening once the other boaters went on their way. We watched a little T.V., read some on our Kindles, and called it a night.
  On Sunday morning, there was one other boat in the cove and they had to be a late arrival, either too pooped to keep going or someone wanting an early start on the partying.
  After a healthy dose of Cheerios for me and a yummy breakfast bar for Rosie, along with the customary two cups of coffee each, I'm hard at work on this post and Rosie is mopping the dew off of Swing Sets decks. I'm starting to like this regimen.