CRUISING TELLICO LAKE WITH DOUGLAS

I decided to take Douglas on a boat ride today, just him and me.  The other dogs create diversions for him that distances us when we all go together.  Today he had all my attention and I feel we worked together just like earlier times.  He stood on his place at the bow of the boat and sniffed the air with his muzzle pointed slightly above level, just like the old days.   I wanted to float onto Citico Creek, which is across the lake.

 I have been on Citico Creek numerous times the past few months in the canoe and had no problems.  But, today we found the water in the center of the lake only 8 inches to a foot deep.  The Gheenoe is good to 6 inches but there were some amazingly large stumps just under the surface that I was afraid of even at idle speed.  We almost made the creek mouth when a line of stumps appeared sub-surface that made me think better of the attempt to float over them.  We turned the boat back and retraced our path to deep water.  Once in deep water we put the throttle on full and ran to the dam and made a 90 degree turn and followed the bank back toward the boat dock.  Along the way we passed the new Smoky Mountain Harley Davidson outpost.  It's a new store located on Route 129 at the Tennessee end of the Dragon.  The store offerings are primarily clothing items.  It's a beautiful place and doing quite well.  Our whole run today took no longer than two hours.   As I said before;  I wanted to get some fresh stabilized gasoline through the engine..  Cold weather will be upon us and I don't know when the Gheenoe will be in the water again.  I'm sure she will get a few more runs in upon the lake when the leaves change but, the canoe will probably see more use.  Douglas had a great time and we did beach the boat so he could chase squirrels awhile.  That's a funny thing to witness.  The Squirrels mock him from their lofty perches in the trees and all he can do is sit and look up at them.  He's so funny!