Huntsville Area

July 31 - Aug. 2 - We arrived here at Ditto Landing Marina south of Huntsville, AL. The marina waters had lots of ducks, and they immediately came to the boat to extend a warm welcome. You have never heard such quacking!!

Ditto is believed to have been the earliest settlement on the Tennessee River in this area, established around 1804, even before Big Springs (later Huntsville). Colonel John Coffee, along with Davy Crockett and a force of volunteers, crossed the river here. They were the advance team for Andrew Jackson's army, which was engaged in ending Indian hostilities.

John Ditto ran a ferry across the river here.

There is a campground and a dry boat storage unit on the property. It is a very popular place on weekends for Huntsville area boating and fishing enthusiasts. Nearby is a nice walking/biking trail.

We offloaded our scooter to do some exploring. It was too far to go into downtown Huntsville, but we were pleased to find a church to attend and Wal-Mart (who could ask for anything more???)

Had lots of rain Saturday evening and Sunday morning, but it cleared just in time for us to ride to church. We left shortly after lunch and headed upstream on Wheeler Lake (elevation 556 ft). The mountains are getting higher as we proceed. Pictured below are several views of Painted Bluff, a famous riverboat landing and one of the Tennessee River's more spectacular cliffs, towering more than 550 feet about the river. Awesome!!

Not far from Painted Bluff, we went through Guntersville Lock, which lifted us another 40 feet. We dropped our hook at Pumpkin Hollow on Honeycomb Creek, one of the most picturesque anchorages that we remembered from our cruise on Voyageur in 2002.