Chattanooga

Yesterday was a short travel day compared to lately.  None the less, we pulled anchor out of Jones Creek at 6:30 a.m. so that our friends meeting us aboard "Doug Out" would not be waiting on us since they would have the luxury of going downstream.  At about 11:00 a.m. we were in Tennessee, on the home stretch now.  At 12:45 p.m. we were in Nickajack Lock for about a 36 foot lift from a real nice lock master.  We knew we were almost home.  We dodged some rain that went behind us at the lock, but just started to drizzle shortly after exiting.  A half an hour later we were anchored at Little Cedar Mountain with lots of other weekend warriors and bass boats in the cove.  Every time we wiped things down from the rain, another shower would come.  "Doug Out" rafted to us a couple of hours after our arrival.  We did some catching up, then all headed out in dinghies and kayaks.  We came back in just in time for another rain shower, then went to head out again when another shower came.  We finally gave up and just left the windows closed.
We told "Doug Out" that we would pull up anchor around eight o'clock this morning.  We forgot to tell him that we meant Central Time.  At 7:15 a.m. we both pulled out of there because the forecast was for more rain chance in the afternoon than in the morning.  Wrong again of course.  It rained on us for about the first hour, but after that turned out okay.  We have been fortunate and not had much rain this whole trip, but of course now that the zipper broke on the back piece of Isinglass, it has to rain for the last two days.
Fairly early on we started talking about the Mellow Mushroom and decided we could not pass it up on the way by without stopping.  About the time we made that decision, friends text to ask if we were going there for dinner.  Nope.  Late lunch.  So they drove down and met us there shortly after 2:00 p.m. 
Service was a little slow so we were not back underway until 4:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.  We passed into the Eastern Time Zone just after 11:00 a.m.  Just over an hour later we were all tied in Chickamauga Lock, however a couple more boats had to make their way in.  One of which took about 20 minutes to get tied in.  We forgot how entertaining this lock is.  Even the bass boat ended up turned the opposite way by the time we got lifted up another 36 feet that seemed to take forever.  This poor old small lock is so much different than the others we have been on, but we have to take care of it.
So it was another hour before we were finally tied into slip CR05 at Gold Point Marina where Stuart and Sharon greeted us with party horns.  A quick settling in and we were off in a borrowed truck to go pick up our Pimpala we acquired while in Florida.  The brothers are going to be all over Linda driving that around Chattanooga this summer.