Helping Other Loopers, Chores, and Some Civil War History

Wednesday - Thursday September 25 - 26, 2019

Days 40 - 41 on the Loop – Grand Rivers, KY (Green Turtle Bay Marina) (0 miles)

Wednesday

Kathleen went to downtown Nashville early to meet a cousin and I joined her later in the morning.  We found as music studio tour near to the Starbucks where we met, and walked over there.  However, once we arrived we found a sign on the door saying that tours of the studio were part of the Country and Western Hall of Fame experience and tickets had to be obtained from there.   We just decided to walk back to Starbucks and have a coffee, since Kathleen was going to meet another cousin for lunch. 

I dropped Kathleen off at a barbecue place to meet her cousin and got a haircut.  I realized that the Downton Abbey movie had recently been released and so found a nearby cinema where it was playing and enjoyed the movie immensely.  It was then a 2 1/2 hour drive back to Green Turtle Bay Marina, and I arrived just around dark.

Shortly after I arrived I joined a group of Loopers who were waiting to help other Loopers who would be coming from Barkley Lock.    It was after dark when the group of about 10 boats arrived.  We helped the staff member from the marina to communicate with them by radio and then met the boats at their assigned slips to take their lines and get them tied up.

Thursday

Tom from Gemini Gypsy called because he realized, once he got back to New York, that his business cell phone was still on board.  😱  His boat was over at Lighthouse Landing marina so I drove over and picked it up and went to the post office to ship it to him.  What a joy to walk into a post office with no line of people and to have great service!

My rental car had been making scraping/banging sounds on the way back from Nashville and I found loose piece of plastic hanging from the front left bumper.  I drove to the Hertz car rental (which is also Lamb's Auto Body) and one of the mechanics got out a drill and a couple of screws and reattached the plastic.   Good to go!

I decided to drive into Paducah to explore that town a little more, since our time there had been limited.    On TripAdvisor I found a recommendation for the Lloyd Thilgman House/Civil War Museum and decided to check that out.

The museum is the former home of a confederate general.   I learned that Kentucky was officially neutral during the war, but that it had a large presence of northern soldiers and that Paducah was strategically important because of its frontage on to the Ohio River, and the nearby Mississippi River.

I was the only one in the home for about 45 minutes and so got an extensive private tour.  I learned that the union army had and extensive fleet (seven boats) of ironclad gunboats on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

I also learned that the "confederate flag" that is such a controversial symbol now was actually not the officially adopted flag, but rather a portion of different flags that were adopted at various times during the war.   

One version of the confederate flag.  The portion at the top also had a religious connotation, with the blue cross supposed to represent the cross of St. Andrews

Downtown Paducah was having a big barbecue festival, and parking was limited so I decided to head back home, via the very nice grocery store (the Village Market and Cafe) in Grand Rivers.   An add on to grocery store (enter by one door instead of the other) is a liquor store and I decided to get a bottle of Makers Mark 46.  I toured the distillery with Matt and June a few years back, and it was fun to buy a bottle in the home state!