Days 162 – 168 ; Oct 29 – Nov 4: We arrived at Green Turtle Bay (GTB) Resort in Grand Rivers, KY on 10/29 around 3:15 pm and were grateful to get plugged into power and the heat on, after about a 7 hour run in the cold and rain. Green Turtle Bay is a very nice facility with restaurant, gift shop, bar, spa and courtesy car on site. We stayed 4 nights in GTB, mostly due to a bunch of meetings Carol needed to attend, but it also gave us time for a big provisioning trip to Sam’s Club (first time been in one since we left Annapolis) and Kroger (grocery store) leveraging the courtesy car and rental car that Boris and Mayli rented (SAGA). We go to dog sit for Flash (SAGA) while they took a side trip to Nashville and Gary caught up on tons of paper work and other stuff.
Of course Carol made time for a manicure, pedicure, massage and facial – we all have our priorities! Now don’t imagine a 5 star spa like the Ritz or Waldorf Astoria….. imagine a 2 star converted building that gets and “A” for effort with some amazing ladies with southern charm.
The big attraction in Grand Rivers is the Patti’s 1880 Settlement – a destination built around a restaurant that features a 2” thick pork chop and mile high meringue pies, amongst many other things! Okay, so we ate their twice! First time was with the crews of Beachside, Sea No Evil, Into the Mystic, Sundancer, Red Pearl and Coconuts (below); second was with Saga and Lil Sudden. The place is already decked out for Christmas.
Patti’s looks like a rustic 1800’s town but offers modern conveniences – hotel rooms, mini golf, gardens, moonshine shop, other boutiques, ice cream parlor, panning for “precious gems” and more.
A little history: In 1975, Bill and Patti Tullar stopped in Grand Rivers, fell in love with the little town and purchased the Grand Rivers Motel. In 1977, Bill, Patti, Chip and Michael Lee, started Hamburger Patti’s Ice Cream Parlor. The restaurant was part of the building that was the 6-unit motel, but the motel units quickly gave way to becoming dining rooms. The upstairs rooms were the Tullar’s personal living space. Patti’s 1880’s Restaurant was on it’s way.
Bill got tired of being called Mr. Patti, so built a second restaurant in 1990. Mr. Bill’s was designed with added entertainment to accomodate bus tours including Honky Tonk piano players and the hostess and servers dressed in period costumes. Today Mr. Bill’s and Patti’s have the same food, servers, etc, creating quite the compound. The two restaurants, in a tiny town of 350 people, serve over 350,000 people each year with 25% of that happening in November and December due to the extensive Christmas display. We slipped in before the craziness of Christmas kicked in…. We just wished for warmer jackets as the weather hovered in the high 30’s to low 40’s and the town was about a mile walk away. Patti’s will drive you back and forth, which we did take some advantage of, but we also wanted the exercise of the walk after indulging in their offerings.
On 11/1, we celebrated 3 boats crossing their wakes (finishing their loops) with about 30 other loopers. This is also known as “going gold” since you exchange your white burgee for a gold one. Congratulations to Red Pearl, Cavalier and Ottysey. A round of little beers was highlighted by the looper toast, adopted from an old Irish proverb: “There are good ships and wood ships and ships that sail the sea; but the best ships are friendships and may they always be.”
11/3 (Friday) we left GTB on Kentucky Lake around 9:15/9:30 am after all 3 boats pumped out. We were headed to an anchorage in Standing Rock Creek, TN where Matt and Tonia were making chili for dinner and some spirited board games were planned. It was a beautiful, yet chilly evening capped by a pretty sunset. The morning of 11/4 was a leisurely morning with a planned 9:30/10:00 am departure with an approximate 4 hour cruise to an anchorage near Birdsong Marina in Camden, TN. The only excitement came as we untangled the anchors of SAGA and Legacy that had crossed over night as we swung with the wind and current.
Having crossed into Tennessee, that makes 12 states, 1 Canadian province and 1 foreign country we’ve visited so far. October was a big month of travel, covering a lot of ground (over 800 miles) including crossing Lake Michigan, spending some tourist time in Chicago and finally starting down the river system once the locks were re-opened (see below).
We are looking forward to getting south to warmer weather. It looks like Thanksgiving will be in New Orleans, but neither Sarah (and Richard) or Michael (and Kylie) can really get away from their responsibilities to join us. We will need to figure something out for Christmas, but didn’t think ahead to bring warm clothes needed for a trip north; all of that is in storage…..Hoping they may be able to come south. Miss them all and would like to share some of this adventure with them.
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