Shiloh Civil War Battlefield visit. Monday, 20th October

The Fall colors are definitely showing themselves here in Mississippi. We are on the border of three states here in Grand Harbor...Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. These gorgeous trees were on our afternoon walk, on Sunday.
Monday morning we were ready at 9 to accompany Cindy and Grant to the Shiloh Battlefields. They had friends, Susan and Jeff, arriving at the marina, and we needed to wait for them to proceed. Easy!  Jeff and Susan had to contend with the heavy fog that morning, so they were a little late arriving. No matter, we were happy to wait...always things to do!

 Cold evening and morning temps coupled with warm lake waters was causing all this fog. The sun did burn it off pretty quickly though.

We finally left the marina about 10.30am. We borrowed the marina van, with Grant driving. We were supposed to be at the Visitor's Center for the 11am screening of the 45 min. movie of the Civil War battles at Shiloh. We arrived 10 mins late, but it gave us an opportunity to look through the museum exhibits and visit the bookshop.

 Pittsburgh Landing is on the Tennessee River not far away, and the gun ships delivered their precious soldier cargo to the road head there. Without the ships, it would have taken the soldiers weeks if not months to reach Shiloh and Corinth. The story is too complex to recount here, but you can click on the link below to read more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shiloh

Sorry to use Wikipedia, but I was looking for Brevity!

Suffice to say, the battles produced a bloodbath. It was horrific. The movie was excellent, and emotional. Such a tragic waste of life, War is!

There are only 35 stars (states) on this flag!

 An excellent diorama, below. It was necessary to be able to visualize this battle on the barren fields we saw later.

 One of the troop ships that landed at Pittsburgh Landing. This was a totally new form of warfare, including them.

I was haunted by the 10 yr old Drummer Boy. Drummers were essential to the communications during the battles.

There were originally 54 Canons in a row on this battlefield.

Shiloh Cemetery.

 A replica of the Original Shiloh church

Canon seen through the lovely Fall foliage

 Memorial stones and sculptures are all over the fields, and the car tour took in 13 miles of the Shiloh Battlefield Memorial Park. It was astonishing to think of the bloody battles that took place here, on such a fine morning with such natural beauty around us.

We were all pretty hungry, half way through the car tour, so we decided to go and find a restaurant on the other side of the Pickwick Dam and Lock, that had been recommended to us.

We found it, and ordered local delicacies (tongue in cheek there!)

The road over the Pickwick Lock and Dam, which we had come through on Wednesday night...in the dark.

Our lunch destination.

 A friend of a friend had recommended this restaurant, and though it was now 2pm, they were very gracious hosts, and the food was excellent.

 We sat outside on the huge deck, and looked down on the lovely garden.

 An outhouse, nearby:)

 And I forget what they called this, but it was decidedly yummy. I know it looks horrid, but....

I ordered the pulled pork over country fries with mild hot sauce and cheddar cheese, with a cole slaw on the side. There was SO MUCH PORK!! and the meal was inexpensive, as so many of them are.

We arrived back at the marina 1./2 an hour late...3.30pm. We are not making a habit of this, really!

We are lucky to have the use of the courtesy cars, and never want to take advantage of that.

Waz and I went for another walk, knocked on Bruce's boat and joined him on deck to watch the sun go down. We had insufficient clothing on so returned to our own, and I set about making dinner for the three of us. Bruce joined us for a steak and salad dinner and we learn a lot more about his fascinating life.  After he left, around 9.30pm we did the usual things to prepare for our moving on the next day (Tuesday).

Tuesday morning. A bit of fog, but nothing to worry about. We didn't have far to go, so we didn't rush out of the slip.

There was a row of these rocker seats, at the back of the boat, along the dock. We had sat in one of them and enjoyed a cuppa, and then were asked to join the rest of the Loopers on another larger seat, for docktails, around 5pm,Sunday night. Most of them were leaving on Monday.

 We have just left the marina with no sign of the fog, now.

 Bruce was going to come and help us off the dock, but each time he appeared, we weren't ready. I had gone to say goodbye to Grant and Cindy, and the other Loopers on that dock, and then we cast off the lines around 9.40am. We went back towards Pickwick Lake to see if we could find him...he came walking down the dock and took photos of the boat as we were leaving, with his I-pad.:) We enjoyed his company, and look forward to running into him somewhere else.
We are now on the Tenn/Tom River. The Tennessee, Tombigbee River system. One leads into the other.

 I am sure we will be back. I am so sad to leave this lovely place. So much more to explore.

 Looking forward...

and to our starb'd side. Some lovely homes here on the lake and river...we wish!

The rock is very crumbly, and sits in layers which are fascinating. Later we had a chance to see just how crumbly it is and marveled at those who built their homes on top of some of these seemingly tenuous cliffs and rock faces. Are they nuts??

 Not long after leaving Grand Harbor Marina. Pickwick Lake is bottom left.

 This rock is different, and appears much harder. We didn't think it was granite, however.

You couldn't find a more beautiful spot for an RV park, seriously!

this green marker sits high and dry on a rock pile. The lake/river is at Winter height, which isn't good for us, for the most part, though there is generally enough water, as the tows come through these parts, and they need 9ft.

We passed this coal tow, early on in the piece. The large building at back right is a NASA facility we believe.

The little 'lake' we were in initially, soon turned the corner and took us down a 25 mile manmade canal. You can see this at the top of the screen. Obviously it wasn't very deep, at 14.7ft, but sufficient for our needs.

The canal started just before this bridge. It gave us a rest from following red and green markers, for a bit, and we could take time out to let our minds wander and consider what we are going to do when we have completed the loop. Stand by for more on that...we don't seem to be able to think much beyond the bottom of Mobile Bay, Alabama, lol. There are just too many options, and we want to do so many things in the future to be tied down to any ONE thing. Such is the life of a pair of gypsies.

The grounds on the side of the canal and the bridge were well groomed.  It was pretty and obviously well cared for, which is always cheering.

 These water races are attractive and Waz got a bit creative with the camera...I was driving!

As you can see, we are headed due south at this point.

The light was perfect for taking photos of the water race...which he did....LOTS of them:)

 The shallow walls of the canal soon turned to higher ones, and they have been stepped. In some places they were as high as 175ft above the canal. The cut is 1300ft wide. They dug out 150 million cu. yards of dirt to create the waterway. This is supposedly more than was dug to create the Panama Canal.

 The cold snaps are encouraging more of the trees to turn color. I have to keep reminding myself that color in trees is just the leaves dying, or winterizing. I would like to think there is life there, but unfortunately, it is a sign that colder things are on their way. Brrrrr. The day might be bright and sunny, but the temps are in the high 60's, and the wind we generate is cold! We are often bundled in down jackets and hats, at such times.

 Eventually we came out of the canal into Bay Springs Lake. WOW! This is another man-made lake, with tree stumps sticking out of the water, and one has to be careful...extremely careful, not to get too close!

 We originally tried to anchor just off the Lake in Five Finger Cove, but the anchor didn't take the twice we tried. We were hailed on channel 16 by another boat we had seen way up in the cove, and they invited us to either raft or anchor in their vicinity. We made our way further into the cove and chose a little horseshoe to set the anchor. Here, Waz is giving me the signal to reverse to help the anchor dig into the orange mud. He has a line with buoy on it set above the anchor, in case we get the anchor stuck under a tree trunk or something we cannot see, and this would allow us to pull the anchor from the dinghy, if necessary.

 Our neighbors! Yes...there are none!:)

We took the dinghy off the back and made our way to the boat that had hailed us. They were a little further into the cove, and we took our cooler with a bottle of wine, with us. It was around 2pm.

 This place is simply stunning! Our boat friends had spent the last three nights anchored where they chose, and were getting ready to move on the following morning. We hadn't come across them before, but we spent a very pleasant 2 hrs in their company, and enjoyed the wine and their boating stories too.

I was up at 7am the next morning, in time to see them disappear into the sunrise...with just a little bit of fog