Aquaholic: 6/23/18 - Saturday - Florence Harbor Al to Joe Wheeler State Park Al (anchroage)

We awoke this morning to what appeared to be another questionable weather forecast (80% chance of storms) and the radar looking pretty dicey. It did not look like it was going to rain for several hrs though so we got the bikes down after a bowl of cereal for breakfast to explore Florence a bit. There were very nice fishing kayaks paddling around all over the harbor and river because of a kayak only fishing tournament. Crazy the gear and setups that these kayaks had.
We rode up the hill through a residential neighborhood and into town. Some very interesting homes and yards. The trees and landscape are very different here; almost tropical. The grass in yards and parks etc all appears to be ‘bent grass’....very short and green.
We rode by and stopped and looked around (peeked in windows because they were not yet open) a Frank Lloyd Wright museum house. As with all of his homes/architecture it was very interesting. It was not a home with crazy angles like I’d have expected but instead a mid century modern vibe. Pretty neat.
We then stopped by the childhood home of WC Handy, legendary blues musician (father of the blues). The house/museum was not open yet so we just read the historical markers about him and his life and looked at the outside of the old log home. It started to drizzle steady by this point so we decided to head back toward the boat. We had a nice ride. We would like to come back and stop here to explore more. There are many points of interest such as Ivy Green (birthplace of Helen Keller) and many famous musical (mostly blues) sites in Muscle Shoals and the area.
At the boat we experienced a couple hrs of hard rain downpours (poor kayak fishermen!). We took the rainy downtime opportunity to update the last several days worth of blogs. About 1pm it appeared that there would be at least a several hr break in the weather so we decided to shove off upriver towards Joe Wheeler State Park. A short 3 miles up a canal from Florence is the Wilson Lock and Dam which put us into Lake Wilson. The locks is enormous (tall) with almost a 100’ lift up to the lake! The pics really won’t do its height justice. It was a very quick lift (10 mins or less to go up 95’). The exit on the up side was very interesting and like nothing we’d seen before on a lock. Instead of two large hinged doors that open up to allow boats in/out, there was a single wall/gate that stretched across the entire entrance. The entire door drops down beneath the waterline to allow boats to navigate through. Lake Wilson is a fairly small (14 miles or so long) but deep lake with nothing spectacular of interest.
Next was Joe Wheeler Lock. We locked up and in only a few more miles we arrived at Joe Wheeler State Park. We docked at the lodge and got off the boat and went exploring. The lodge is similar to most state park lodges. Beautiful views, nice pool, interesting architecture, and a very large Hatteras cruiser met us at the dock. After talking to the owner of "After Math" for a while (I LOVE the name!!!!)we walked over to the marina and explored some more. After a little exploring we got back on the boat and headed back in to a cove to anchor for the night. Once anchored we ate and relaxed a bit. Well....kinda relaxed. The tornado sirens going off did not help with the relaxation part! We kept a close eye on the weather apps and it did not look like the storm would get close enough to affect us. The storms seemed to pass and we got to sleep pretty quickly.