Back on the Boat

 We had a wonderful holiday season, lots of travel, spent lots of time with our kids and grandkids and got re-acquainted with snow, ice and sub-zero temps. Yikes! After a quiet New Years celebration with Jana and Jeff we loaded the car to the gills again, loaded in the animals and set off.  We spent a couple of nights in Kenosha with Kate, Riley and Ian and then a couple with Johanna in Nashville.  It broke up the drive into tolerable segments and gave us one more chance to see the girls.

We pulled up to the marina late Monday afternoon and as Tom had feared, the boat was not ready for our departure.  In fact, it was still tied up in the lift well. Bill, the owner, helped us move it back over to the long dock in front of the restaurant so we could move back onto it and plug into some power. In the two days that followed, there was a lot of unloading, hauling, re-arranging and cleaning that happened! We had our rental car until Wednesday at 5 pm, so there were also many trips to Lowe’s, Petsmart, Target, Costco and Publix. More hauling….  But I think we are re-provisioned now and will be self sufficient for a couple of weeks.

The generator is fixed, but they are still “waiting” for the parts to repair the windlass (which runs the anchor).  My guess is that they were not ordered soon enough, and together with supply train issues - there you go.  We had hoped to leave today for Florida, but now it’s looking more like Monday.  It’s not a bad place to be and the weather is sunny and in the 60’s - it’s just that without a car you are marooned here and can’t even take the dog for a walk…. But - I have puzzles!! The extra down time has also given us a chance to clean out and re-arrange lots of things so we have more efficient use of our space. They also have decent WiFi here, so Netflix can happen.

It is a bit lonely here, especially since we just spent so much time with family, and there are no loopers here.  Everyone is either just coming down the rivers, have parked their boats for time off or is ahead of us in Florida.  We have corresponded with a few of our friends and are hopeful we will connect again in FL.

I will be blogging with regularity now and can’t wait to tell you that we have moved on down the water!

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