Tennessee's Grand Canyon

It is the only large river canyon bordering a mid-size city... Chattanooga. The Tennessee River Gorge is carved out of the Cumberland Plateau and encompasses 27,000 acres.  We cruised it later in the morning than our first time through it so the light was different and we enjoyed it even more.

Here we are leaving our secure protected dock space... on the inside or bank side of this dock you get rolled less by the passing boats & tows.

Just out side of Chattanooga on the river bank was this mansion... how did I miss it the first time?!

We traveled today on a quiet river.

In the gorge we saw many houses on the ridge above the canyon walls.

And then this one all alone.

As we suspected, hardly any color change yet.. wonder if those tour boats give refunds on their “color cruises”?

Here is a half & half tree in someone's yard.

The only tug boat we saw today and it had a light load of 6 barges ..... hope this means we won't be waiting tomorrow to get through locks.

We came to this massive rock quarry at the end of the canyon.

Tomorrow we are planning a longer day with at least two locks. Going down river is faster of course... there was some debris in the water today plus we actually had to go around spots to keep the floating weed islands out of the engine strainers.   Just about every time the Captain took a break and left me at the helm today, I had to take Miss gg out of auto pilot to avoid something..... NO, really I did!!.....which is a lot more FUN than just sitting there watching gauges!  Wahoo!