Too hot! Too wet!

The rains have been on a monsoon scale. The Woman likes a good rain, especially if it is a thunderstorm – makes her feel toasty warm inside Colectiva listening to the thunder rumbling and the patter of rain on the roof. But this has been way beyond that – high winds blowing sheets upon sheets of heavy rain. Every place we go is completely flooded – standing water is everywhere – telephone poles and fences and picnic tables all standing in lakes. It’s impressive and just a bit creepy!

And it’s hot! We have had a couple weeks of degrees in the high nineties, with pretty much matching humidity. When we decided to visit Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area we had visions of hiking and biking and such, but we have been holed up inside Colectiva with both AC units running continuously. This morning we decided to try a bike ride at 7 AM figuring we would get it in before it got oppressively hot. Well, about half done with what I planned, the Woman got heat stroke and we had to cash it in! You can see why folks in the park have invested in swamp fans – massive beasts but about the only defense you can attempt.

We ended up seeing something here that we have not seen before. We are amazed at times that the RV crowd has an intense need for their TV programs. While we make due with whatever we can get over the air, and then supplement with videos if needed, most RVers seem to need to drag along satellite dishes to bring in their needed fix. But honestly, just how much TV and internet does one couple need!

Land Between the Lakes, locally known as LBL, is interesting. This area was home to thousands of homesteads, towns, businesses – a normal US rural setting. In 1933, the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) was established by Congress with the focus on taming the Tennessee River while also stimulating the economy in an area hard hit by the Depression. Several dam projects flooded areas of existing residential occupation, and those displaced folk were compensated for their losses. However, the TVA, in its wisdom and with its governmental authority, did not stop there.

The TVA decided that all the land between the lakes created by the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, some 170,000 acres, needed to become public lands. At first the TVA used their federally mandated authority to just take the land, and provide its rightful owners a “fair” price, as determined by the TVA. When landowners brought legal action, the courts agreed that the TVA had way overstepped. So the TVA entered a new phase – when they took a residents rightful land, they appointed a 3 person panel to determine the “fair” value. Of course, the 3 persons in the panel were appointed by the TVA.

Finally, in another of the continuous legal battles the rightful owners to the land waged, the courts upheld that landowners being displaced by the TVA had the right to a jury of their peers’ trial to determine the “fair” value. Unfortunately, most of the 170,000 acres had already been unfairly taken, so very few residents were actually afforded the ability to get “fair” compensation. I guess we don’t just do it to Native Americans. To give you some idea how many Americans lived on and owned this land prior to the TVA’s land grab, there are still over 200 cemeteries on the “island” that are being cared for by groups who have decided to make it their mission to make sure these holy grounds are not forever lost.

We did make some more connections in our American history quest that we try to work into every one of our trips. When we were in the Galena area, we visited a number of sites that were visited by, lived in, or used by Ulysses S Grant. Well, not far from the southern tip of the Land Between the Lakes NRA is fort Donelson National Battlefield. During the Civil War, the early encounters left the Union in bad shape. Apparently the Army Generals that Lincoln had at his disposal were slow acting and not very aggressive. Accordingly, the early skirmishes between the North and the South generally did not favor the North. Apparently Lincoln was even quoted as saying “Well, if General McClelland is not planning to use his army at all in this conflict, perhaps I could borrow them for a while!”

The Confederate army recognized the need to protect Nashville both from the risk of invasion by land, but also control the waterways that would supply Nashville and the surrounding area. So the South built forts on both the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers – Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. In February 1862, an unknown Union General, Ulysses S Grant, planned to take these two forts in an effort to break the Confederate ranks along their northern boundary, and open up Tennessee for land invasions by the North. Grant also believed that controlling the waterways would eventually strangle the South by cutting off its supply lines.

Grant used ironclad gun boats on the Tennessee River to begin the attack on Fort Henry on February 6 1862. The attack was so well planned and overpowering that before Grant even began marching his troops in to follow up after the gunboat assault, the white flag of surrender was up. This was the very first decisive victory by the Union army, and Lincoln took notice.

Grant then proceeded to attempt the same at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. We visited the remains of Fort Donelson high on the bluffs overlooking the Cumberland River. The elevated position of Fort Donelson compared to Fort Henry resulted in the ironclad gunboat assault being relatively unsuccessful – in fact, 3 of the gunboats had been damaged so badly that they were floating hulks on the Cumberland. However, the ground assaults by Grant were well planned and aggressively carried out. On February 14-16, his aggression eventually resulted in the Confederate forces surrendering. The General in charge of the Confederate forces at the time was Simon Buckner – Buckner had been a classmate of Grant while at West Point. When Buckner asked his former friend what the terms of the surrender could be, Grant responded that he would only accept an unconditional surrender – from that point forward, it was said the US Grant stood for Unconditional Surrender Grant. Shortly after these tide turning defeats for the Confederacy and victories for the North, Lincoln put Grant in charge of all the Union armies.

We visited the Dover Hotel in Dover Tennessee. It was at this hotel that Grant met face to face with his former classmate General Buckner to accept the document of surrender. The 1840 era hotel is right on the bluff overlooking the same river that Buckner faced his greatest defeat on not that many hours earlier.

Our final venture was to the LBL Elk and Bison Prairie. The Forest Service manages the Land Between the Lakes, and other than providing recreation to the American public, you get the impression they struggle to identify their purpose there, other than maintain campgrounds, parking lots, picnic tables and boat ramps. So, one of the things they have decided to focus their activities on is flora and fauna population. One of their projects is a natural prairie of several hundred acres where they are housing populations of Elk and Bison. They have a drive through option that we took advantage of that we thoroughly enjoyed.

The Woman laughed at me – it cost me $5 to get into the drive through prairie. When we had been through about 70% of the area, I rattled off the number of Elk and Bison we had seen. I said that we were well below 50 cents and animal at that point, and I was hoping before we left that we would come in somewhere around 30 cents and animal. She laughed and said something like “Only and accountant would think in those terms!” Seemed just logical to me.

We had seen this phenomena before but can remember what the symbiotic relationship is. Some water type birds always seem to hang around Bison. There is something either in the way they rut around that stirs up what the birds want, or there is something that grows on the Bison that the birds eat. I can’t remember exactly, but regardless, the water birds were here – funny!

 

Talk to you soon!