Day 123: Stop at Goose Pond Marina

Day 123: November 18: Up early again. I went up to the flybridge which had some puddles on it; rain overnight but thankfully it was done and gone.  A pastel sky set the stage once again for a talented artist to set up an easel on shore. God has a way of inspiring artistic expression; music, dance, painting; replicating nature's beauty becomes a passion for some. Every time I see something like this I wish I had enough talent to be able to recreate such an amazing vision. I'll leave it to those more blessed. 

The river is very quiet this morning; a perfect opportunity to try to perform the calibration again. We left the wall and David and Sandra waited, watching us while we began the sea trial. We headed out onto the calm water and the game was on. John started the process; I stood by with fingers crossed. I knew Steps 1 and 3 would not be a problem but was anxious about Step 2; we needed to have a long and wide enough stretch to complete 15 zig zag cycles. We were both happy when we read the words Success on the chart-plotter. Now we had to see if we had remedied the problem. David and Sandra said they enjoyed the show! LOL. 

Zendeavor had already pulled off the wall and was chugging ahead of us downriver. We fell in behind, set the course, engaged the autopilot. High fives all around! We had recalibrated the system. For now we were back in business. 

We traveled 27 NM in 3.5 hours before pulling into Goose Pond Marina to fuel up. We filled up here on the way upriver; they had the best price at $4.49/gallon of diesel; so we decided to refill after our trip to Knoxville. After filling up, taking on water and pumping out we decided to stay for the night since it's free when you take on 200 gallons of fuel. Who can pass that up? 

We docked the boats and I immediately got busy doing 3 loads of laundry. A courtesy car was available so we took advantage of that also; Sandra wanted to check out the Unclaimed Baggage store; something she had read about in a magazine about everything you need to see in Alabama. So off we went. 

We couldn't believe the amount of "stuff" in the store. Hundreds and hundreds of items; so much of it had to do with skiing, coats, boots, skis, poles, and more. Electronics also; phones, cameras, IPADS, laptops. Imagine leaving all that behind? I do believe not all of it comes from unclaimed baggage; hundreds of items had new tags on them and some shelves had packages of the same items. No matter, Sandra was able to check off something on her. bucket list. 

The most interesting section was the "Museum". It was hard to imagine anyone leaving behind some of the artifacts that were behind the glass. A suit of armor? beautiful instruments? A hobbit? 



Having satisfied our curiosity, we stopped at Walmart. Picked up a few things including oil; John will be all set with enough oil for another 2 changes. Dinner at Ruby Tuesdays and back to Goose Pond. It was a beautiful, quiet night. 










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