October 29: Green Turtle Marina, KY

We have really had a cold snap of weather; it was nice to have electricity so that we could run the heat all night last night. This morning there was glistening frost on the dock as we shoved off. It was cold traveling, so we were wearing multiple layers of shirts and sweatshirts, hats and gloves. The wind on the river really magnifies the cold.

I took a lot of pictures as we cruised through the 11 miles of Cross Creeks National Wildlife preserve along the Cumberland. There are 250 species of birds found here, but we mostly saw Snowy White Egrets and White American Pelicans. There was a huge colony of hundreds of birds. When the pelicans were in flight, you could see that the outer most row of their wing feathers were black, but it doesn’t show when their wings are folded. We also saw a doe and her fawn on a sand bar island who was obviously distressed by the boat. The mother ran towards the end of the island and realized there was no more land and then reversed her path and dashed off to the distant tree line. Her baby followed her in both directions. As we continued into Kentucky, we saw horses on the river shore.

We arrived at the Green Turtle Bay Marina in the mid afternoon. We were happy to discover the diesel fuel price had dropped to $3.32 per gallon – the lowest we have paid for the entire trip. Docked in a transient slip, we took our zip locked bag of quarters to take advantage of the nearby washer and dryers. Tom was excited to have cable again, a real treat for the trip.

They were very kind to loan us the marina van and we made a quick trip to Paducah to the grocery store and to Circuit City to get some software for my new laptop. Then we dashed back to the boat to see the Obama’s infomercial making us two of the 3.3 million people who watched. When it ended, we returned to Grand Rivers to Patti’s 1880’s Settlement for a wonderful dinner of pork chops and baked apples and bread in the flower pot. Yum, Yum.