Day 23 - YIKES

Miles cruised 21, Fuel purchased $0, Slip fee $ Daily high temperature 75*F

Ava, the owner of the Florence Marina, befriended us and drove us to the City Hardware restaurant in downtown Florence. On the way she gave us a brief tour of North Alabama University. It is a lovely campus. They have a large fountain near the entrance that is illuminated at night. They also have two lions on display as mascots for their football team the North Alabama lions. NAU is a division 2 school with aspirations of joining division 1. They list 44 notable alumni. I only recognized one of them.Freddie Dalton "Fred" Thompson is an American politician, actor, attorney, lobbyist, columnist, and radio host. Thompson, a Republican, served in the United States Senate representing Tennessee from 1994 to 2003.As usual the walking directions to anyplace from any marina are 2X to 3X longer than we are told. It was a 15 minute cab ride to go back the "one" mile to the marina from the restaurant. That was $10 well spent. The City Hardware restaurant drink specialties are the rusty nail, velvet hammer and the screwdriver. Dinner was excellent.We had rain over night but today is another bright and sunny day. We are getting spoiled. Dale and Andy were off on a morning walk when I called the Wilson Lock and asked the lock master how his traffic looked for the day. He said he had 10 PC's entering the chamber, then after a down-bound commercial tow he was closing for the day to conduct maintenance. YIKES!!! I called Dale and suggested a hasty return to the boat. I unhooked the power cord and reeled it in, returned the dock steps we borrowed from a boat down the dock, untied the port dock lines and started the engines. Dale and Andy returned and tossed off the remaining dock lines. We had 20 minutes from the time I made the call to the lock master to go three miles up the entrance canal for the lock. Turbo diesels don't fail me now. Fortunately there was only one small fishing boat in the canal. We slowed way down so we would not rock him then blasted off again. We arrived at the lock and the other 10 Loopers were tied up and waiting for us. We rafted up to Chasing 80 and rode up 93 feet in the lock to the top of Wilson Lake. Dream Catcher and Nuclear Fishin' were in the lock with us.We stayed with the herd for the 14 mile cruise across Lake Wilson so we can transit the Wheeler Lock with them. We assume the lead boat was is contact with the next lock and is setting the pace to arrive at a time when the lock is open. So far we have not heard any chatter on the Looper VHf channel 71.We waited one hour tied to the outer lock wall and were locked through with the other 10 Loopers. It was only s few miles to Joe Wheeler marina.Joe Wheeler State Park Marina is in Rogersville, Alabama. This is the host location for the America's Great Loop Cruisers Association fall rendezvous. This is our dock. CL is second on the right. Boat next to us is a Beneteau fast trawler 52 and the boat across is a Chris Craft 54. We are in slip 623. The couple on the Cris Craft are from Arlington Heights, Il.Carl (Chef) Wooden - quote of the day:"There is nothing-absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." - Kenneth Grahame, Writer