By Mike O'Neal

Staff Writer

Visiting the third annual Hales Bar Marina Fall Color Cruise on Saturday was more like attending a homecoming than a fall festival for John Edward Hale, of Gallatin, Tenn.

"My dad, aunts and uncles were raised on that hill," Mr. Hale said, pointing at the steep Raccoon Mountain bluffs rising above the marina. "Both sides of my family are from here -- we're the Hales that Hales Bar is named after."

Mr. Hale, his wife, Rosilan and son, Dylan, were among those enjoying the crisp autumn air alongside the Tennessee River.

"Mom and Dad moved to Gallatin when I was 4, but we came back every weekend," Mr. Hale, 51, said while thumbing through a history of Marion County. "We just lived there, this is home. It's changed a little, but not that much."

Now in its 39th year, this festival has changed -- but not that much -- and in some ways also revisits its roots.

For more than 30 years, the annual Fall Color Cruise drew crowds -- sometimes more than 100,000 over its two weekends -- from near and far and was widely recognized as one of the Southeast's premier autumn festivals.

Over the years attendance dropped to the point that the Fall Color Cruise, which had become a Shriners fundraising event, was canceled in 2002.

It was in 2005 that the most recent incarnation of the Fall Color Cruise returned to its small-town feel and its first home.

"We'd like to bring it back to what it was," said Jill Oaks, a festival volunteer and someone who lives on a boat at the marina. "To make it fun for the public and make it the end-of-summer blow-out for Marion County."

Greens leaves peppered with the reds, rusts and yellows of autumn surround the venue Saturday where about 25 vendors displayed crafts and offered foods while musicians provided nonstop entertainment on a stage set near the abandoned power plant.

This year's event includes helicopter rides that provide a bird's eye view of the river and surrounding woodlands.

"It was really awesome," said Houston Webb, 13, after taking a flight upriver aboard a Robinson R44 helicopter. "I'm bringing my friends tomorrow."

Today and next weekend, everyone is invited to step back to an earlier time when the Color Cruise was less of a commercial festival and more of a family outing, though perhaps not as personal as for Mr. Hale.

Before leaving, the Hales planned to visit a small area where marble stones bearing time-worn engraving sat across a parking lot from boat docks and campsites.

"My granddad helped build the dam," Mr. Hale said. "He's buried at the riverside."

E-mail Mike O'Neal at moneal@timesfreepress.com

If you go:

* What: Fall Color Cruise at Hales Bar Marina

* When: Today from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. EDT. Next Saturday from 10 a.m.-7p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. EDT.

* Cost: Free

* Info on the Web at www.halesbarmarina.com

* The Southern Belle at (423) 266-4488 and Blue Moon Cruise Line at (423) 993-2583 are offering cruises from the Chattanooga City Pier at Ross's Landing to Hales Bar Marina with return by bus. Both should be contacted directly for reservations.