Conan and Jaina hosted nine other Happy Bookers on their sail boat “Mistral” for a cruise up the Tennessee River on 29 Oct 2022. When we pulled out of Ditto Landing it was rather cold and breezy, but the weather improved rapidly into a beautiful day by the time we reached our destination — Painted Bluff, just upriver from where the Paint Rock River enters the Tennessee.
Our main objective was to view the pictographs on the bluff that were painted over 600 years ago. We were all very impressed with the bluff but were not absolutely certain that we were actually seeing the pictographs. However, we definitely saw some obvious examples of graffiti.
During the trip we also saw a number of birds including two bald eagles, a couple of kingfishers, many great blue herons, and several large venues of both turkey vultures and the less common black vultures.
There was only one “overboard incident” – Pat’s hat blew off and appeared to be a goner. Fortunately, it stayed afloat long enough to be rescued.
It was a wonderful day on the river, and we all really appreciate the skipper and his first mate for this delightful experience.
