Living Under The Bridge

Did that get your attention?  A few years back I brought the boat up and when asked where I lived that was my answer.  I didn't exactly live under the Henley Street bridge, but I was very close to it!  This year I'm closer to the old railway bridge than Henley.  A bit of trivia - did you know that the stone piers supporting the railway bridge were constructed in 1850?  It was a wooden bridge until 1903 when the structure was changed to steel.  The steel structure you see there today was placed in 1940!

We decided to leave Chattanooga on Labor Day to start the trip to Knoxville.  It's 130 miles from Gold Point Marina in Chattanooga to Ft Loudon Marina plus 2 locks to transit.  That takes about 8 hours to do.  On September 2, we left Ft Loudoun and traveled the last 45 miles to our spot on the Vol Navy dock.  Regina suggested that we come up a bit earlier than originally planned and it was a good thing that we did!  I got the last open spot on the inside, right beside our friends on Miss Tenn-A-Sea and Cheers Dude. This will be our location until we leave in mid-November.

Made the news on WVLT

Most people's reaction to living on a boat is "WOW that must be so much fun".  Well, I got to admit that I do enjoy it.  Probably more than Regina does.  But it isn't always fun.  With the move to South Carolina, we hadn't used the boat much this summer.  If we had been around, I think we might have discovered a few things that could have been addressed sooner.  On the way up, I began having issues starting the starboard engine.  Turns out that the alternator on that engine failed and I had old batteries.  Seems like the surveyor should have noted that my main batteries were 6 years old, but he didn't.  So the first few weeks here have been spent replacing batteries, installing an invertor, trying to figure out why the air horn trips the circuit breaker, replacing the starboard alternator, replacing the shore power cord, setting up the generator with it's own battery, trying to get the outboard motor on the dinghy to run and servicing the generator.  I still need to get some electronics updated, but haven't been able to make any progress on that. So these are the not so fun parts!

Finally got the new name on the boat

The Vol Navy has made a a great showing so far.  Lots of boats came early to get a good spot for Georgia weekend.  It's so much fun to get back together with old friends and meet some new ones.  Tailgating on the river is a different experience.  We've had bands, tv shows and lots of boat parties and that's just the first three games.

It has been a few weeks since I started this post.  The season has progressed and I left to go back to South Carolina for about 10 days.  In the past, I never did anything like that because the refrigerators and freezer onboard were always full of food which would have spoiled pretty quickly!  This year there wasn't much so I just emptied everything and turned off all the power.  My friends live on their boat which is right beside me, so I felt confident that everything would be fine and it was!

Can't have a post without a night time bridge picture.

Part of the Navy is always at Calhoun's.

For the Arkansas game, we were invited to go sit in the Chancellor Emeritus skybox on the east side.  I've been in one of UT's skyboxes on the west side many years ago, but nowhere else.  That was back in the early 2000's and it was a very formal, jacket and tie, kind of event.  Thankfully, all that has changed - at least on the other side of the field - and it was a very casual atmosphere.  We went down to on the field at half time to get an up close view of the band which was a lot of fun.  Game was a bit too close, but the Vols got a "W" so all was well.

There are only two more home games before I leave to start the voyage to South Carolina.  My new electronics are installed so that is a blessing.  Almost everything else that needed updating or repair is done or will be in the next couple of weeks.  Now I can focus on learning how to operate my new chart plotter!  Seems like it might be a little more complicated than expected.

If you happen to be walking down the Greenway beside the river and end up under the bridge, stop by and say hello!

A New Beginning

Moving day

It has been almost six years since my last blog.  When I finished that one I was pretty sure it would be the last, but I have a few friends who have continued to push me to do it again.  Adventures and explorations are starting to begin again and this might be a good thing to add to the mix.  We'll just have to see how it works out!

So many things have changed since 2019.  I have a hard time keeping up with them and keeping them in the correct order or sometimes, even remembering exactly when they happened.  I'm sure it must be because of Covid or global warming - you have to find some ridiculous idea to blame things on - right!!  But let's keep it real, at the point in life that I have reached, I believe most people have settled down, found their groove, are enjoying the "golden years" and are planning the next early bird special.  Well, somehow, I missed the memo.

During Covid, most of my buddies in Marietta were still meeting at our local bar and grill for our regular happy hours.  None of us got sick.  Governor Kemp of Georgia one day announced that anyone over 60 should stay in their house and not leave.  Well, I left and went to Tennessee to live on my boat.  Chattanooga didn't have Covid and we continued on as normal a path as possible. This also got me closer to Knoxville and I visited Mom regularly.  The place where she lived had big warning signs on the doors, but they never kept me out and I was able to get Mom out to restaurants and rides through the countryside.  Her favorite, besides dinners at Ruth's Chris, was to go to Gatlinburg.

We got shots!  That's one thing that I wish I could undo.  But what was the alternative?  You had to show your card to get into some restaurants or on a plane!  We sat six feet apart, sometimes even outside.  People wore masks riding alone it their car, jogging and probably sleeping.  We were brainwashed.  Yes, I know people died, but that happens every year during flu season.  Finally, we're pretty much back to "normal".

During all of that craziness, I went to Alys Beach in Florida for a wedding and I met a girl.  She was officiating the wedding.  After the mother of the bride almost gave me a heart attack screaming out het name, she sat across from me at the rehearsal dinner.  Her name is Regina - how was that even possible - it's not a common name and yet there she was.  We started dating not too long after that even though she was living in Augusta, Georgia - far away from my home in Marietta.

In the summer of 2022, I sold the home in Marietta where the first Regina and I had lived and raised our daughter, Brittany.  It had been 29 years since we had bought that house.  Oh my, the things I found as I worked on getting it ready to sell and moving out.  But where was I going?  I had been hurting for somewhere to live since Covid hit.  Everything was selling the day it was listed and I didn't like any of the houses anyway.  Then one day, my realtor took me up on Signal Mountain and I found a house.  It hadn't been listed yet and that's probably the only reason I was able to buy it.  

Signal Mountain home

I should have consulted with the new Regina before I bought that house.  It was a nice house, but it had a huge, well over an acre, lot and was on top of a mountain!  I was still having a rough time and the need to get away from Marietta was just too strong.  Thankfully, she was understanding and we ultimately got engaged and she moved from her little Augusta bungalow to the top of the mountain.  We joined the golf and country club, played on the boat, spent one fall in the Vol Navy living onboard, traveled abroad, but the top of a mountain can be tough - especially in the winter!  So we started talking about moving somewhere else, but where was the big question.

Living on the boat for 3 months, began to inspire another change.  Mine was a 2007 Sea Ray 40 Motoryacht.  That's a boat with a master bedroom in the rear of the boat and lots of steps to get in and then down inside.  I've had it since 2013 and I've gotten tired of steps too!  So we started talking about maybe getting a different style that had more social space and less steps.  Lots of choices, but which one and where could we find one - more questions.

Blue Ayes on Chickamauga Lake

Mom continued to do well.  We celebrated birthdays and went out for pedicures and dinners.  She was moving slower and wouldn't object to getting a ride on her roller/walker, but she could still climb in the car to go out!  Regina had gone back to work with her former boss from the Golf Channel to launch the new TGL league in January 2025.  We were going back and forth between Chattanooga, Orlando and Palm Beach Gardens.  I was in Orlando when the call came that Mom's blood oxygen level was dangerously low.  It took until the next day for me to get to UT Hospital.  After meeting the doctors and hearing the diagnosis, it was obvious that we were very close to the end.  Maybe you read my Facebook post - 39,251 days - 107 years, 5 months, 6 days.  She lived an amazing life and I was blessed to have her as long as I did, but you are never prepared to lose your Mom.

After Mom's passing, the realities of my own life became glaringly apparent. We spent days/months talking about doing things and wouldn't it nice to change this or that.  One of those days, I said "enough talk, time to do something".  We met with our realtors and listed the house with no idea of where we were going.  A boat broker friend listed his 2006 Sea Ray 52 Sundancer and I called him to discuss a trade.  The house was under contract in 10 days, I had a "new" boat and we still needed to find a home.  Regina's family lives in Charleston, I've always dreamed about doing more cruising on the east coast and luckily, we found a beautiful place in Bluffton, SC.  Now if the pieces all fall into place, I'll keep the boat at a marina on Hilton Head Island about 20 minutes away.

Bluffton, SC home

With new beginnings and new adventures comes good times and bad, happy times and sad.  So many changes.  The move was a nightmare from the depths of hell.  I've said never again before.  This time I mean it.  We'll be back in Chattanooga in a couple of weeks to get the boat and ultimately get it here.  But first, one last season in the Vol Navy.  I'm really going to miss all my friends there.  Knoxville in the fall is a special place and I've had season tickets for football since around 1995.  In mid-November, it will be time to start the trip to Florida.  We'll stop in North Palm Beach for TGL season 2.  When that's done, it will be time to head north, up the east coast, to Hilton Head and back to our new home.

Time will tell how this all works out and if I feel like there is a story to write.  I'm hoping/thinking that there should be.  After all boat trips are always adventures.  By the time we reach Hilton Head from Knoxville, we will have traveled about 2,100 miles on the water.  Can't wait to get started!