October 17: Grand Rivers, KY

This morning we had breakfast watching the sunlight play on the mist rising from the water fall over the spillway at Ohio Lock #52. There were a couple of small skiff fishing boats with guys in camouflage gear out early with lines in the deep water between us and the dam.

We called the lock master and he told us to come on over in 20 minutes giving us time to finsh our coffee and get out the locking lines. The authority on this river is the US Army Corps (rather than the Coast Guard) and they operate the locks. This operation has two parallel locks: one large lock nearer the bank and a smaller one towards the middle of the river. The lockmaster said that all the refined fuel from New Orleans headed for Pittsburg, Philadephia and surrounding areas comes in tankers through Lock #52. One of the things that jams up the lock is the lack of water. Last week he had barges backed that waited for two and a half days to pass through. When the water is low they have to close the large lock because there is not enough water to handle the depth of a loaded barge. He also said that if this lock was closed for any reason,

Pittsburg would be out of gasoline in 4 days.

The larger lock was loaded with 15 barges of black shiny

coal headed south while we passed though headed

north. Behind the barges we could see the lock house which was flooded through the lower floor during the past month's high water. There was a load of 15 barges waiting to enter as we exited the lock. As we pulled on down the river, there were a number of barge caissons shoved up on the shoreline waiting passage. You really felt like you were feeling the pulse of the heartland’s commerce just being there and watching the operations.

We proceeded up the Ohio River past the mouth of the Tennessee River to where the Cumberland River runs south through Kentucky. This is the way to Nashville which is our destination for the weekend. We followed a tug boat pushing a load of cement for a while. That had to be a heavy load. The Cumberland River is quiet and the banks are green again and lined with hardwoods. We could see serious erosion along the banks including trees which were standing on totally exposed root systems where the soil had been washed down stream.

Our timing was great for the Barkley lock. We arrived just as another pleasure craft was pulling in to the large 800 foot long cavern. It feels like a cavern because the sides are 100 feet high on either side when you are at the lower water level. We tied up to the bolero cleat in the wall and when the huge doors closed, we rose 57 feet with the cleat sliding up the wall with us. On the other side of the lock, we entered the wide beautiful Barkley Lake which they say has 1000 miles of shoreline.

Just a short way from the lock, we pulled into Green Turtle Bay Marina in Grand Rivers, Kentucky. This is a huge marina full of covered shed slips with all sizes of motor craft and maybe 100 large sailboats. We pulled up to a slip next to a yacht out of Holden Beach, NC and had fun chatting with him about his loop experiences. We also saw the trawler Gitana again which is owned by the couple from Raeford, NC.

The manager of the marina came down to the dock and suggested that there is a variety show in Grand Rivers on the weekends and offered to loan us a marina car if we wanted to go. So after grilling out hamburgers, we drove the couple of miles into town to the Badgett Playhouse for a Branson-style musical review. The show ranged from Oldies rock and roll to Disco with a live band backing up the singers and dancers. It included a tribute to the old Hee Haw TV show which was fun. Remember the corn patch where they told the “corny” jokes? Unfortunately, the IGA grocery store was closed when the show was over so we will have to go back for the ice cream and apples.