Adventures of the J Dawn

Well our part for the boat has not come in yet so we decided to leave the dogs at a kennel and take off. Monday we left and headed to Vicksburg MS in our truck. We spent most of the day visiting the Vicksburg National Battle Field. We then headed down to New Orleans.   We spent the last 2 days exploring the city. Lots of jazz, interesting cemeteries, Bourbon St, and big mansions. Road all over in the streetcars and of course plenty of walking.  Us down by the Mississippi River.  So beignets are very popular in New Orleans. They are like a square doughnut with way too much powdered sugar on them.   OK tomorrow we head back to Columbus,MS marina and pick up the dogs. Things have been going well don’t know what tomorrow will bring. 

 Happy Thanksgiving from the captain and first mate of the J Dawn! We are still in Columbus, MS. The weather is sunny and high today of 56 degrees low last night of 35. We are very thankful for our heater! The marina filled up last night. I guess a lot of boaters are staying here for Thanksgiving. The big excitement for today is we get to go to Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving dinner. That’s about the only place open here except fast food. Hope everyone has a wonderful day with family and friends. We have so much to be thankful for…

 Well the part has not come for the motor yet so we remain at the marina in Columbus, MS. We used the courtesy car they have here at the marina and went out and rented a car Friday. Saturday we drove up to Chattanooga,TN to pick up our truck and trailer. Stayed at Nick’s house then came back Sunday evening. Not much to do around here…Walmart and Lowe’s are the big entertainment. Last night we had a huge thunder storm…thunder, lightning, and buckets of rain all night. Luckily we stayed nice and dry in our boat. Checked around here to see what was open for Thanksgiving dinner. Well it’s McDonald’s or Cracker Barrel…I guess I’m voting for Cracker Barrel. Very damp and dreary today. I guess we’ll be watching TV and reading. Hope the part comes soon so we can be on our way to something new. Hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving. 

  Have now now turned down the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway heading south.  The river is getting much busier now. Lots of barges and when we go through the locks we have lots of boats in there with us. We are getting pretty good tying up in the locks now without always running into the side. It’s pretty challenging being the first mate-lots to do.  Have had some rainy weather and also some very beautiful weather. About every other day we spend in a marina and get gas and then the rest we just anchor along the shore. Wednesday we hit something in the river and did something to our prop. We could still move but very slowly so we limped into the marina where we are now. We are at Columbus MS. Yesterday we ordered a new prop to be delivered here so we’ll be spending some time here until repaired. We’ll stay anchored at this marina until after Thanksgiving is the plans for now. We are renting a car and tomorrow we plan to drive to Chattanooga, Tennessee and pick up our truck a...

  Tuesday we found a nice little cove along the Tennessee river. We stopped early at about 1pm and anchored for the night. Since it was very isolated the dogs were able to run free and swim to their hearts content. When they came in for the night we discovered they were covered with ticks! Gross!  We spent a lot of time ‘deticking’ everything. We hate ticks!

 Finally have some internet access. We are in Florence, AL on the Tennessee River. Stayed at a marina last night with a nice area to walk the dogs. Nights are still cold and we have to use our heater. Yesterday the temp got up to 64 degrees but mostly cloudy. Today we should reach 71 degrees with some sunny. Didn’t make much headway yesterday because we had to wait 4 hours to go through one lock. A huge barge took forever to get into the lock. Will be turning down the Tenn-Tom Riverway tomorrow. All is well. 

 Well our blog isn’t going so well. We haven’t had the internet to down load anything. We arrived at Nick’s house in Chattanooga, TN on Monday afternoon. Nick brought us the truck and trailer so we have the boat parked in the parking lot of their warehouse. We’re still using the boat as our home since we have the two dogs and Nick has his own two dogs. The weather has finally turned warm….80 degrees yesterday and supposed to be 80 degrees today. We had several little repairs to do on the boat but nothing serious. With the cold weather earlier we had the shower freeze. It was so cold anyway I wouldn’t have showered. It’s been fun seeing Nick,Anca and baby Nova. So far the trip has been very pleasant…no bad weather. Very scenic trip. Have navigated 3 locks on river so far. Plan to do laundry and buy more supplies then probably leave Friday. Dogs are doing better than we expected. 

 Decided to stay at marina today  weather is warm.    Last night stayed tide up to a tree on an island all is well   Going to upload pictures of past few days maybe 

 we stopped at jungle Jims international market , suppose to be largest  in the world, in Fairfield OH to fill our galley. Spent the night in Walmart parking lot.   Froze no heat dropped to 27 degrees in  the morning.  Yes it froze our shower so we had to make walmat repairs.   enjoyed sleeping with two cold dogs who happened by morning to actually climb inside our sleeping bags. Day two yes we bought a heater at Walmart. then spent the night I Walmart Knoxville TN woke up to 32degree weather

On our way thanks to Frederick for watching the house