Going with the flow
on the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway.
So here’s the story: Huck Finn, Al Gore and Donald Trump decide to take a float trip together. Donald says, “I want a place that’s great for business.” Al says, “It has to be ‘green.’” Huck says, “But it’s gotta be fun.” And now here’s the part where you dive in…
Okay, so the story of Huck, Al and Donald is complete fiction. However, the amazing fact of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway is that while nobody sees the same thing, everybody sees something great when they look at this 234-mile water route linking the Tennessee River in southern Tennessee with the Tombigbee River in central Alabama.
Business sees the Waterway as an advantage—a trump card, so to speak—that saves $90 million annually in reduced transportation costs, while also lowering local rail costs by as much as twenty percent. Environmentalists see that barge shipping slashes annual fuel use by as much as 20 million gallons over truck shipping, with nitrogen oxide emissions cut by two-thirds, hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions squeezed to a mere one-seventh and one-ninth what they would be with truck traffic—quite a convenient truth.
Good for the economy, good for the environment, the Tenn Tom is an idea that people like Al and Donald could get on board with. But what about our last mythical passenger? Would it meet his standards for adventure and fun?
Well, let’s put it this way: when you head for the
Tenn-Tom Waterway, you’re in for a Huck of a great time. Whether you make it a lazy float trip, or you light out for land attractions along the way—whether you boat, fish, camp, hunt, hike, sightsee or shop—the Tenn-Tom is the perfect getaway, stretching through the Mississippi Hills from Pickwick Lake in the north through Columbus in the south, with lots of great starting points in between.
Because the Waterway is the preferred route for large pleasure boats making the trek from the upper Midwest down to the Gulf Coast, marina development along the Tenn-Tom is superb, including America’s largest freshwater marina at Aqua Yacht Harbor. You may want to start your adventure there, where you can go north to explore the monster lake of Pickwick spreading across three states, or you can head south for the Mississippi Hills.