To The Tennessee River Headwaters

  We had anchored last night at the 619 mile marker, just outside of the RDB channel marker, or just outside of the green buoy on the left hand side of the river going upstream. There are so many homes along the Ft. Loudon Lake, it's hard to find a spot to spend the night on the hook without being in someone's front yard.

  Many of the homes on Tellico Lake seem to sit right on top of each other, but on the Fort Loudon Lake, there is a bit more acreage between the homes. This picture is of one of those.

  This home was no bigger than most, nor prettier, but we thought the boat house was pretty neat. One home is just nicer than the next, there is no way to pick a favorite. Personally, we thought the upper Cumberland River, or Nickajack Lake on "The Narrows", was a more scenic cruise, due to the absence of ostentatious homes along the banks.
  Yesterday was miserably hot, and today promised to be hotter. We started our journey early, and to avoid reaching our destination too early, with nothing to do but lounge around in bath water, we slowed our pace down even more to save even more on fuel and give us time to sightsee. Once we reached the outskirts of Knoxville, the homes were even more impressive. Most everyone had signs supporting the University of Tennessee Vols, and when we reached Neyland Stadium and went to take a picture of it, the camera battery was dead. It was still dead when we cruised by Calhoun's and Old Town Knoxville, so get a travel brochure if you want pictures of those places.
  Channel markers started getting sparse after downtown Knoxville and they became non-existent after a commercial dock at mile 651.5. At mile 652, the Tennessee River ceases to exist, where two rivers, the Holston River, and the French Broad River come together to make up the Tennessee.
 

  We were in 30 feet of water and we decided to anchor with a view up both rivers. This picture is looking upstream on the Holston River. We saw plenty of stumps in the channel and had no desire to go further. You could say we are stump broke.

  We may have been able to go up into the French Broad River pictured here, but there was some industry of some sort just upstream from where we were anchored and we didn't want to anchor in plain view of it. The absence of channel markers in this area lead me to believe that there is no barge traffic, so we shouldn't be in the way of anyone. The wind, and the currents, are keeping our bow pointed downstream towards the Tennessee River. It's odd but our anchor is set and we're staying put.

  This is the view looking downstream from the headwaters of the Tennessee River. We can say that we've traveled every mile of the Tennessee River from the Ohio River to here. The only other river I've traveled the complete navigable length of is the Meramec River in Missouri. Maybe the River Des Peres too, but those who know about it also know that it doesn't count.
  We were just settling in at our current spot and I wanted to cool off and jump into the river. I kept the transom door closed because the current is too swift here for Holly to be falling in the river. When I got in, Holly got excited and fell from the back of the cockpit seat onto the swim platform and nearly rolled into the river anyway. She was yelping bloody murder and at first we thought she broke something. We had passed a veterinary hospital as we cruised past Knoxville and I was thinking about how we were going to get Holly there as I was holding and consoling her. As it turned out, she just scared herself, and us too. But the event was a reminder that safety is utmost when we are usually in remote areas with no help for miles. Not only that, an injury can ruin a good day.
  If anyone paid attention, we surpassed 50,000 page views on the blog today. I mentioned it on Facebook and our friends wrote lots of nice comments. I've only had one complaint so far about the blog, but it seems lots of people are enjoying it. Some of my friends are calling me a writer, but I said that's like calling Adam Sandler an actor. I am humbled by the compliments, but a man's got to know his limitations and I usually know mine. I'm not looking for "another career", so please enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it, and we'll leave it at that.