Goodbye Illinois

We left Paducah and headed up the Ohio river a bit to catch the Cumberland River into Lake Barkley. If you look on the map it is closer to take the Tennessee river into Kentucky Lake but we were warned by locals that there is more commercial traffic on the Tennessee and wait times at the lock to get into Kentucky Lake will eat up any time savings on the shorter distance.

The other reason we did the Cumberland is Green Turtle Bay resort, the marina we’ve been staying at, is on Lake Barkley. While here, we were able to get laundry done, top off our diesel and fresh water, and use their courtesy car to go Ace hardware and Walmart. They also allow us to have packages shipped.

You may have noticed that we anchored in a bay just north of Green Turtle Bay. The reason is we had a long upstream trip to make and a lock to go through. We were not sure when we’d arrive and thought it best to anchor for the night and arrive at the marina the next day. It also gave us an extra day to have our packages delivered.

Now back to the title of this post, Goodbye Illinois. Illinois is a big state. I don’t have the figures, but I’m guessing on the Loop, only Florida has more travel miles than Illinois. Once we headed up the Cumberland river, we left Illinois for good. We’re in Kentucky now but in one travel day, we’ll be at the Kentucky – Tennessee border. Another 2 days and we’ll be at the Tennessee – Mississippi border.

And yes, we did visit the National Quilt Museum while in Paducah. It was impressive. If you happen to be in the area, we’d recommend you stop for a few hours and visit it.

More to come.