Elks Club

At Brown's Diner, Jim was formally voted in as camp cook for the fall trip and immediately announced that the featured entree for Saturday night's dinner will be elk. Unable to resist a possible theme trip, and being deep into the third pitcher, we immediately decided that our fall destination will be the Elk River. So it's elk on the Elk, October 21 - 22, 2006.

The Elk runs through Fayetteville, Tennessee near the Alabama border. It is perilously close to Lynchburg, the location of that other distillery, the one that spells whisky with an "e". In fact, the Elk's largest tributary, Mulberry Creek, is to Jack Daniel's what Cascade Creek is to George Dickel. Once again we will be floating on water that could have been charcoal filtered.

On the Elk River itself, on the south bank, is the unlikely Prichards' Distillery , a small batch rum distillery in Kelso, Tennessee. We won't have time to visit Prichards' or Jack Daniel's, but we will definitely have time to vist the equally unlikely Elk River Coffee Company on the way through Fayetteville Saturday morning.

The best, floatable part of the Elk is between Tim's Ford dam and Fayetteville. Discharge from the dam requires advance planning and some flexibility (more on that later) but it also makes this river a first-class trout stream because of the cold water being released from the bottom of the dam. Here is a map of the watershed (click on it)...






Here is the Elk River in October, about the time we will be on it...







Here is an elk loose on a downtown street...











Here is another Elk loose on a downtown street. Notice the canoe trailer....

















Here is a fraternal organization just like ours that used to meet at the Elks Lodge in Nashville. This is probably how our club will end, too....