On our way...

We'd stayed here at McKinney Campground before and we also stayed at a military campground on the other side of Lake Altoona just north of Atlanta, GA. It's about a 6 hour ride from home, so it's a good stopping point.

So we adjust to the camping routine. It's been a while...

We had a nice site.

 
We took a short hike and loved the spring wildflowers. This was red buckeye (Aesculus pavia), which can grow into a small tree but the ones we noticed were shrubs.

The red buckeye flowers are striking.

As we walked along the shoreline, lots of bright yellow flowering plants were growing right in the water. Beautiful!

 
We used a plant ID app, which identified it as butterweed (Packera glabella) in the aster family.
It was covered with insects, small and large, but it's toxic to humans, pets, and livestock.

Our next campground was located in The Land Between the Lakes National Recreational Area. We drove the length of it on our 2014 Mississippi River trip, but did not stop. This time we stayed three nights and one more on the way home after the eclipse.

Huge barges moved through the dammed lake, which is part of the Cumberland River. Our campground was at the northern end on the western side of the island and we had a good view of traffic through a channel between the two lakes.

This one was 3 barges wide and four deep. Others had even larger loads including barges loaded with white gravel.

We took long hikes each day we were there. Spring wildflowers decorated the woods.

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) is a spring ephemeral, which appears before the leaves on the trees emerge.
The plant, including its fruit, are somewhat toxic.

 
Jack in the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) and a flowering tree branch, which may be an ash.

 
Wild blue phlox (Phlox divaricata) and a rue-anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides).

This hollow log is someone's dining room.

Butterweed was also present here.

Fire Pink (Silene virginica) was beautiful.

Paducah, KY

April 8th was eclipse day, so we left early to drive the last hour to Paducah, which is in far western Kentucky and is located on the shore of the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. We parked the van in the Riverside Park lot. There was plenty of room when we arrived, but an hour or so before the eclipse at 1pm, the lot was overflowing. We raised the roof of the van, checked our email and eenjoyed a second cup of coffee. Then we began to explore the town.

A dew-covered spider web on a bald cypress (Taxodium distichum).

This was a good sized tree, which was outside the flood walls of the town.
The town is to the right and the rivers are to the left.

An old engine and train was on display on the inside of the wall, as seen to the left here.

The panels on the inside of the wall had been painted with murals showing the town history and more.
We took a lot of photos since we thought that they were interesting and well done.

Here you can see the extent of the wall and each panel has a plaque.

There are doorways and gaps in the wall that can be closed off when flooding is predicted.

This break shows the level of flooding in various years.

Paducah has the last uranium enrichment factory in the US, which supplies nuclear power plants and probably the military.

This panel shows the viewpoint of inside of those huge pusher tugs for the river barges.

When the barges enter the locks along the rivers, the tug pushes them in place, but then backs out of the lock and comes through separately.

A history museum is across the street from the wall.

We liked the trompe l'oeil of the kid with the chickens seeming to use the bottom panel frame as a seat.

The strawberry festival...

This reminded us of Lily Tomlin's phone operator routine.

Alben Barkley, a Representative and a Senator from Kentucky and then a Vice President of the US under Harry Truman,
was a from Paducah.

At this point, most of the fog had burned off and the parking lot filling up.

 
This was a bike rack and tool kit, including an air hose to fill tires just outside the public restrooms.
The town was holding a street fair, which included a couple of fancy carriages for rides around the town.

A couple of bounce houses were set up near the wall. The local roads were closed in this section.

Main Street...

This was the market building that was depicted on the wall--now it's an art gallery.

 
We met Sue, of the Rock Shop, who said that this street fair was her idea. This jelly and jam vendor's trailer/shop was topped with a piece of an old silo.

 
Some of the town's buildings seemed almost European. Painted animals sat in front of the market/art gallery.

This horse posed nicely for the camera...

Some of the town's forefathers in this installation in front of the quilt museum.

We walked along the river walk outside the wall. Hundreds of people were set up for the spectacle.

Lots of people set up in the shade of the wall. A police drone panned the area.

There were gatherings on the roof-top venues.

 
Using a pinhole system, we could see that totality was approaching. We'd made our way back to the van and pulled down the top so we'd be ready to roll after the total eclipse to beat the heaviest traffic out of town.

We were ready with our eclipse glasses.

This was Dean's best shot using his camera and the eclipse glasses as a filter.

Here's my best shot use my phone camera, which shows Venus in the lower corner. Other planets and stars were also visible.
When totality happened and again during the diamond ring just after, thousands of our new best friends cheered from every part of town. It was quite something.

We managed to get out of town fairly quickly, but the traffic was heavy and instead of traveling on the interstate highway,
we stayed on the local roads and stopped at the Kentucky Dam.

This is one end of a lock. The dam produces hydro-electricity, so there were lots of towers and power substations.

The water on the down-river side of the dam was quite turbulent, and the fishing was quite productive.

We stayed in the same campground that night, but a few sites over. The campground was much emptier. We were off early the next morning, then back to Lake Altoona, but it rained all the next day, so the driving was more tedious. We were home by midday on April 10th! This was a short, but interesting trip.

The next total solar eclipse is in August 2026 in the North Atlantic, so we're thinking of taking a cruise there to witness that one as well...