Across the Mighty Mississippi and on to Paducah!
Many of you, being geography buffs probably noticed my comment about trees in this country "east of the Mississippi" was in the context of all the trees in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, which, as any dummy knows (except maybe my brother Bob), is WEST of the Mississippi! If you caught that intentional little slip-up, you are entitled to a large cash prize. Just send me your name, address and your $10 geography contest entry fee and I will send your cash prize in return mail. Anyway, we found out that there just aren't that many places to cross Big Muddy from the AK side into Tennessee, so we moseyed on up the Arkansas delta, as the call the northeast corner of the state, into Missouri for a bit and then across the River (this AIN"T the Colorado) into the northwest corner of TN. We stayed at a State Park called "Reelfoot" before heading up through Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area and on into KY. Our first up-close photo of the Mississippi River was at Tiptonville, TN, where Lorri captured me in an energetic moment. The town is called Tiptonville because, as you can see from the picture, the River tips to the right in this area.
After a few martinis and a hearty dinner around the campfire, not to mention a mellow cigar, we watched the sunset over Reelfoot Lake and Lorri took the photos below.
The next stop was Fort Donaldson National Historic Site along the Tennessee River. This was the site of U. S. Grant's first major Civil War victory. It effectively cut off Confederate shipping to and from Nashville along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. A little known fact is that, because of this, all the really good country singers and pickers left Nashville thereby creating a country music shortage across the southern states and demoralizing the boys in gray. Grant was ruthless.
Below is a picture of Lorri standing in the "lower river battery" along Lake Barkley, formerly the Columbia River which flows from Nashville and points south. Well actually it points north but it flows from points south. Are you geography buffs paying attention?
After a nice tour of the Fort, we headed north through the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, known locally as "LBL" for obvious reasons. We camped at Cravens Bay before heading to Paducah and an overdue night in a hotel. Paducah, in northwest KY on the Ohio River, is a very nice little town and the home of the Museum of the American Quilter's Society. Personally, I think they put the apostrophe in the wrong place. I know for a fact that there are more than one American Quilters. Anyway, Paducah bills itself as "Quilt City, USA". As you can imagine, this place rocks! They built a levee down by the river front and then decided it was too ugly, so they hired a guy to paint murals on it. The murals supposedly are depictions of past significant events in or around Paducah (which may explain why there were only about ten of them). Anyway here are a couple photos of us kids standing in front of them. For you surveyors out there, you may notice that the mural behind me is a surveyor, however, I doubt its authenticity because there were neither doughnuts nor cans of beer in the picture. I think the guy is supposed to be George Rogers Clark (William's older brother) or one of his chainmen.
