Saturday and Sunday, October 11-12, 2014

Saturday, October 11, and Sunday, October 12 2014

Tony and one of his service men showed up relatively promptly Saturday morning.  First order of the day was to move Sea Fever down the dock, and away from the fuel pumps.  Tony brought his utility boat over to the gas dock to give us a push.

Horror showed on Tim’s face upon its arrival.  It is very hard to push a boat that has two pointed ends! Tony’s staff hooked up a line to Sea Fever, sat at the front of the utility boat and held on to Sea Fever to keep it from hitting the utility boat. Let’s just say that it wasn’t the most effective method to keep from scratching the paint on our boat!

The second order of business was for Tony to tell us that they only worked until noon on Saturdays. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to do anything about fixing Sea Fever until Monday morning.

We were still two days (75  highway miles) away from Joe Wheeler State Park, the site of the Looper Rendezvous. Waiting until Monday meant we would not get the boat there in time. Tim decided to see if he could find and fix the problem.

On Saturday he inspected the fuel system, installed a new fuel pump and replaced the day-old fuel filter with the last of his fuel-filter stash. Surprisingly, the engine started up after some coaxing. Perhaps it was fixed.

Meanwhile, Kathy did the laundry.  There was no Super Walmart nearby, so she was deprived of her latest favorite shopping pastime.  

Folks that we had met at Hoppie’s several weeks previous were at the same dock, lending comradery and advice.  Randy and Sherri introduced us to another delightful couple, Lou and Ann, who joined into the comradery and advice! Another dock mate and his dog we had met in Grafton were also tied up, waiting for work to be done on his transmission.

On Sunday morning, we got up. The motor started up.  But there was a considerable puddle of diesel fuel in the engine compartment. The third and last fuel filter was leaking. Tim suspected that the problem had to do with the age of the filter.  Being Sunday, we have little choice but to wait until Monday morning when the shop opened up to get new filters.

We weren’t going to get the boat to the Rendezvous. We were very disappointed because we pushed very hard to get the boat down there on time.

But that didn’t mean we couldn’t get there. Tim got online, reserved a car from Enterprise to transport us by highway to the Rendezvous. We would use the marina’s courtesy van to pick up the car on Monday.

One of the great things about this marina is the availability of a courtesy van.  Randy, Sherri, Ann and Lou stopped by and told us they were heading to Corinth, MS on an adventure, and invited us to come along.

The adventure included stops at a Lowe’s, automotive stores, but the highlight of the trip was a stop at the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center.  It is a part of the Shiloh National Military Park.

200,000 fought here.  Corinth was at the crossroads of two railway lines.  Supplies were transported to the north, and to the east and west from this junction.  To read more about this site, click here.

The center was fascinating.  On the walkway up to the center, bronzed artifacts were laid in the cement,



Bullets and other artifacts from Corinth Interpretive Center sidewalk

Bronzed bag from Corinth Interpretive Center

Civil War pistol

We watched a video that had pictures taken at the time of the series of battles.  It brought tears to our eyes. The exhibit was really well done, and so worth the trip.

We returned to our boat, made a light supper, and, of course, headed to bed.