Clarksville, TN to Nashville, TN

Date             October 5 and 6, 2011

Day               99 and 100

Departure      Clarksville Town Dock, Clarksville, TN 8:05 am (10/5)
Arrival           Nashville Town Dock, Nashville, TN     5:00 pm

Miles               64.5    

Cumulative   2329.3

Again, up at 6 am to get an early start and again, fogged in!

Duddon Pilot, Last Chance, Last Dance and Erika Lin waiting for the fog to lift (look close you will see a Great Blue Heron on the dock in the lower right corner of the picture!) 

When the fog lifted, a beautiful, clear day emerged.  We are traveling with the three boats above and are going at a leisurely 7 to 8 miles per hour.  Going at this speed we are sipping diesel fuel and able to conserve the diesel we burn.  Last Dance was the "leader of the pack" and the river in front of them was as smooth as glass.

We only had one lock to go through today.  When the lockmaster was contacted, he said the lock was ready and to come on in.  The only boats in the lock were the four of us (Duddon Pilot was next to us and not able to fit in the photo!).

We saw this very strange sght at the tip of an island.  I guess the water is not too deep here!  It must be quite a sight to see when they are playing a game of volleyball in the middle of the river!!

Homes are built on the top of these rock formations.  Some of them have built stairs in the spaces between the rocks to allow them to access their docks on the river (enlarge the photo to see the ramp on the right)

The Nashville skyline.  The building on the far left is locally known as the "Batman Building".  At 617 feet, including the antennas, it's the tallest building in Tennessee.

This bridge was built in 1909 and closed in 1998 because of unsafe conditions.  Rather than tear it down, the city converted it into a pedestrian bridge.  After more than four years and an expenditure of about $15 million, the bridge reopened in August 2003.  With a length of 3,150 feet, it is one of the world's longest pedestrian bridges.  We are docked just before the bridge and directly across from the NFL Titan's football stadium.  Fortunately, no games were scheduled during our stay!

On Thursday morning, we took a walk on the pedestrian bridge.  This is a view of Nashville, Last Dance and our boat from the pedestrian bridge.

Next we walked into downtown Nashville.  There were door to door bars and all along the sidewalks were men and women of all ages singing and playing their guitar in hopes of being discovered.  We discovered this huge guitar on one of the corners. 

This paddle wheel boat, the Andrew Jackson, went by as I was writing this entry.  I was able to run out and get this shot of both the Andrew Jackson and Erika Lin on the Cumberland River before the paddle wheeler slipped away.