Tennessee River Thru Paddle - Day 13 (4/23/21)

We Love Scottsboro, Alabama!!!

Start: River Mile: 403

Finish: River Mile: 386

Day Total: 17

Trip Total: 267

The morning broke overcast and chilly, with an overnight low in the low 40’s, way better than the night before. We did our pack-up and had our boats loaded in the in the water by 8:25am. Just as we paddled away from the boat ramp, it started to rain. The rain continued for two hours. Just as I was starting to feel a bit chilled, the rain stopped. Another 30 minutes of hard paddling and I was warm and comfortable. 

Paddling into the rainy morning

Today was going to be a crap shoot. With rain and thunderstorms  predicted for tonight, we really wanted to get off the river and someplace dry. There are 3 budget hotels in Scottsboro, AL. There is a boat ramp at the base of a highway bridge that crosses the Tennessee river and leads to the town. Our plan was to get to the ramp, find a place to store our boats and get a ride with all our gear to a hotel in town. When we started paddling today, we didn’t know how this was going to work, but we trusted that we could figure out a way. 

The paddling was not bad, even with the rain. We had a very gentile tail wind and cloudy skies. The highway 35 bridge was at 16.5  miles (RM 386) ahead, so we hoped we would have time in the afternoon to get our logistics worked out.

Last night Jon made extra Mac & Cheese for dinner. I had the bright idea to save the leftovers and use them to make Mac & Cheese Burrito’s on the boats today for lunch. Well, that is what we did. Let’s just say they tasted less awesome in real life than they did in my head last night!

The last mile before the boat ramp at RM 386, Jon started working the phone with the hotels to see if any of them had a shuttle that could come and pick us up. As he was doing this, I called Milla Sachs, the Exec Asst to the  Mayor of Gunthersville, AL whom Brad Collett had put me in touch with last week. Milla was not able to help as Scottsboro is not her town, but she was able to contact Sarah Stahl the Tourism Dir for Scottsboro. Sarah was very friendly and super helpful. She was able to get us a free night at a beautiful cottage at the county park, then she and her husband picked us up at the boat ramp and drove us, our boats and gear to the cottage. Talk about going above and beyond. When had no plan or options when we landed at the boat ramp, and an hour later Sarah had everything completely handled. 

So, let me tell you about the cottage we are set up in. This park has eight of them, each with a nice big living room with a fireplace and TV, a full kitchen and dinette, two bedrooms with queen beds and a nice big bathroom. The front of the cottage is a full with porch, with nice outdoor furniture. A 5 minute walk around a little cove is KC’s BBQ restaurant, which has great BBQ and a really nice beer list. We invited Sarah and Daniel to join us for dinner at KC’s at 6 pm. We had a great time sharing stories. Meeting people like Sarah and Daniel is what makes this trip so enjoyable. 

Our new house for the night..

Tomorrow we will pull our loaded boats from the front yard to the boat ramp which is a couple hundred yards from our cottage, and launch. Sarah wants to come to take pictures of our departure for the cities social media. 

Just so our heads don’t get a chance to get big, we will be paddling out for an all day rain. The storm will pass overnight on Sunday, and then the week ahead is starting to look better.