Voyages of Annie, Florence, Alabama, February 26, 2008
February 26, 2008 by whistledoc
One of our friends emailed me and wondered if we had sunk, or been abducted by pirates or whatever and I realized there has been a two month hiatus in “The Voyages of Annie”.
Carol and I are back on Annie in Florence Alabama . I went home for Christmas and left Annie in care of a good friend in Florence. Jay Martin is a professional Captain who kindly volunteered to watch Annie for me while I was gone. My daughter had her first baby on January 1 so I wanted to go back home for the great event. So now I am a grandfather of little Kate. I worked at the ranch for a while and then decided it was time to come back to the boat. I had fallen in love with Florence before I left and told Carol about this wonderful little town that I had found on the Tennessee River. When we got here it didn’t take her long to share my views. We have found some land here and plan on building our retirement home here. We stumbled onto a 47 acre tract of land on Cypress Creek which flows right through the city limits of Florence. It’s sort of a little hidden paradise where we can keep the donkeys have our own little hide-away five minutes from downtown. What they call a creek here is more like what they call a river in Texas. Annie is berthed in Florence Harbor which is no more than 10 minutes away from where we will build.
The water is clear cold and runs pretty swiftly year round. The land is heavily wooded mostly with hardwoods that are probably 100 years old.
Found a spot to build the house on a limestone bluff about 100 feet above the river.
Plan right now is to head back to Houston and get our lives organized and slightly less complicated and try to get ready to make the transition to Alabama later this year if all goes well. It’s a major change in our lives but Florence offers so much in the way of boating than the Gulf coast. . It has a good marina and there are places to go in the boat. There are numerous state parks within a half day of here where there are good anchorages. Chattanooga has a spectacular waterfront is and probably two days away and the Ohio River is just a few days down the Tennessee. And if we want to head back to the Gulf of Mexico and play with hurricanes, we’re only a matter or four or five days away down the Tombigbee Waterway. So Florence has a major advantage over where we were on the Gulf Coast for boating. Have picked up a few whistles here and there in the Florence area via running ads in the local papers. Next posting will be in a month or so when I come back to the boat to close on the land and catch up on Annie’s varnish. When the weather warms up a little we will head up the Ohio. May make a side trip up the Cumberland to Nashville or may leave that for later since it is not terribly far from our new home base.
Ron and Carol on Annie,
Florence, Alabama
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