19 Oct 17

It was 43F when we got up this morning, with a light ground fog. But, we wanted to make it to Florence by noonish, so we got under way by 09:00. The wind was very light from the south, so the lake was smooth and it warmed up rapidly to the mid-70s by noon. We were tied off at Florence Harbor Marina by 12:45 and immediately went for lunch at the adjacent River Bottom Grille, where we all ate way too much. I had a car reserved at Enterprise at 13:00, but was 10 minutes past 14:00 when I called them, and they had let the car go and did not have another; we were not amused. Having no vehicle, we resolved to walk the 1.5 miles to the Frank Lloyd Wright house “Rosenbaum” for a tour; interesting place, but Wright had some very specific ideas about how one should live in one of his houses and would accept very little change or flexibility. We stopped in a local brewhouse on the way back to the boat and had a flight (sample) of each of their 8 beers; IMHO, none of them warrant a repeat visit. Back at the boat, we were all still so stuffed from lunch, that we made a light dinner from appetizers and called it quits.  

34-47.177’N, 087-40.446’W; Log = 25.0, Sum (2017) = 2899.6 N-m

20 Oct 17

I got up at the crack of 07:30 to collect the rental car. After breakfast, we loaded up Matt and Julia and went on a driving tour of the south, starting with a quick drive-by of the local Indian Mound, followed by a brief pilgrimage to the Muscle Shoals Recording Studio, made famous by recording sessions with artists such as Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon and Lynyrd Skynyrd, among others. From there, we drove up the Natchez Trace National Parkway all the way to Nashville, stopping to visit the grave of Meriwether Lewis and a number of other interesting points of view along the way; it is a gorgeous drive through northern Alabama and the middle of Tennessee. Once in Nashville, we parked the car, got the young folks checked into a hostel just off Broadway, then hit the streets looking for action. We finally settled on The George Jones for drinks and dinner and stayed for 4 hours dancing to the Friday night house band playing country & western favorites and watching the Astros tie up the ALCS by beating the Yankees 7-1. We left Nashville at 23:00 and did not get back to the boat in Florence until 01:15.

21 Oct 17

I crawled out of bed at 08:30 to return the rental car. After a light breakfast, we borrowed the marina courtesy car to go grocery shopping at Publix. In the afternoon, we walked over to the Indian Mound and Museum with Diane and had a look at this Native American artifact from about 1300 years ago; very interesting museum, which talked about the evidence indicating that Paleo-Indians have been resident in the Florence area for at least 2800 years. Back to the boat for happy hour and dinner aboard. Then, we walked over to the River Bottom Grille to watch the final game of the ALCS; happily, the Astros beat the Yankees 4-0 to clinch the American League Championship - they are now going to the (so-called) World Series to play the National League Champs, the LA Dodgers.