Monday September 23: Cleaning Up Yesterday's Dream

It was a fun time in Phoenix where my brother Tom met us for a few days. There is an animal wildlife attraction that also included an aquarium. Nice place to visit.

Other than a quick trip to a nearby casino, we spent the time relaxing around the pool or in the hot tub. It's the first time I ever went in a hot tub to cool off though: temperatures while we were there where over 100! And we though CA was hot ....

Matt and Wendy picked us up at the airport in New Bern Thursday night and then Friday morning it was off to see how Yesterday's Dream fared after 4 months in the hot, humid summer of North Carolina.

The new shaft log replacement was done and one coat of bottom paint on. Now to start cleaning up the inside and we'd be good to go.

This boat looks huge after being on Guppy for four months!

There definitely needs to be some cleaning up though!

I spent my time wiping down all of the surfaces with a cleanser/bleach solution while Steve used the Kirby to clean all of the upholstered materials - including the front cabin cushions.

There were lots of bubbles around - guess that means he cleaned the floor as well :-)

Dave the fiberglass guy showed us the leaky shaft tube which was removed from the boat. It had the major holes we were able to see with the small camera but the rest of the tube would have been having issues before too long as well so good call to replace it with a fiberglass shaft which should hold up for a LONG time.

The fiberglass tube is quite a bit larger but that wasn't an issue and should work great.

And once the boat is back in the water, there will no longer be water coming in!!!

Tuesday September 17: Great Trip to LA!

It was a great trip to LA - lots of project done and lots of laughs and fun.

If you want to see the projects - just click here to view them.

Friday: it's back to NC and Yesterday's Dream.

Thursday September 5: Buffalo, New York

Yep, we are definitely in Buffalo - we spotted two of them as we approached our hotel for tonight.

It's been an interesting day and all in all 'the plan' worked as well as we had hoped - maybe even better, really.

We had returned to Fenelon Falls Tuesday under cloudy skies and lots of wind. Someone turned off the sun and turned on the fall like weather. Definitely was time head south.

Arriving two days prior to our scheduled leaving would give us plenty of time to get stuff together and to get Guppy ready to be put away for the winter.

Bags were packed, laundry was done. A last lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Now if the wind would just quite blowing so we could get into the dock in the marina more easily.

First thing Wednesday morning, we moved from the lock wall to a dock at Fenelon Falls Marina - a whole mile away! Wind were to be 20 km per hour gusting to 40 kph - who needed that?

All that was left to do was finish packing, winterize the water system and make a trip to the library to finalize our travel arrangement.

We cut off the red canvas on the flybridge and aft deck - new will be made next time we're in Cleveland. What we had was inexpensive and faded badly - but it filled our needs for a couple of years and gave me a pattern to make new. The new canvas will be Sunbrella and will last for many years.

So the plan was to minimize what we needed to take back - taking only what we would be permitted to take on a plane.

And it pretty much worked! Steve has the two duffle bags and his backpack. I had the computer bag and my backpack. Ready to go.

Guppy is all cleaned up and ready for next year!

We prepared only the water system (because we have 3 pumps and several extra - and unusual - hookups that would be easy to miss) and the marina will do the rest: change the engine oil/filter, winterize the engine, change the lower unit oil and empty and winterize the septic system.

Now that is how I like to put a boat away for the winter!!

At the bus stop in Fenelon Falls by 8:50 for the 9:15 bus to Toronto. But time for coffee at the small coffee shop nearby.

The challenge was to figure out how to get from the Union Bus Station in Toronto to the Greyhound Bus Station there.

And do so in time to catch the bus to Buffalo. In theory we had 45 minutes. In reality, we ended up getting in early and had just over an hour.

Oh no - construction. That's always bad. And they don't know about escalators apparently. Really??

After asking numerous folks, we finally made it to the subway station and the Greyhound station - with about 35 minutes to spare.

And wifi on the Greyhound! What more could a person that has been deprived of instant internet for 3 months ask for??

Customs went smoothly - fortunately there were only about 12 people on the bus as we crossed back into the US over the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Fall.

Best view of the falls ever! Usually it's impossible to see over the sides of the bridge in a car but not in a bus. Wonderful.





And we even had one last great sunset on our last night in Canada. What a great place to spend three months.

So now it's off to California to see Becky. We haven't been out there for a while (ever since Matt and Wendy ended up in NC). Spend a week or so there. Drive to Phoenix to spend two days with my brother Tom and finally back then to NC and Yesterday's Dream.

Blog will continue when we are back to NC at the end of September ........ Thanks for traveling with us!!

Monday September 2: Bobcaygeon

After the kayak ride at Lovesick, it was time for dinner on shore. The Coleman stove works great and with the locks all having picnic tables, it makes it easy to have a nice place to cook.

The rain clouds continued to roll around the area but in the end it rained only a little bit sometime during the night. And no visits from the local racoon population! The lockmasters advise all of the boaters to put any bags of garbage in the restroom to help avoid having racoons climbing all over your boat as they search for food. It's a great idea as in the past we actually had racoons slide our glass windows open so they could reach in and grab our hamburger buns sitting on the counter!

The numbers of houseboats locking through was amazing. With this being the last summer holiday, it seems many were rented for Friday thru Monday. We couldn't figure out where they were all going to stay as there was limited dockage beyond this lock.

Then we looked out over lock at the small islands below Lovesick – and there they were! Four in total just tied to an island. Nice and easy to do in a houseboat and often the way to go.

The sun finally made an appearance – just before it set for the night!

Steve called me out to the aft deck to see this really cool thing. Yikes! Get it off of the boat – so he caught it in a glass and put it on shore. Swell. Guess I'll be stuck on the boat the rest of the night …..

Monday's travel was still under very overcast skies with tornado warnings for Fenelon Falls and areas north of that. Fortunately we were enough south that we were able to arrive to Bobcaygeon without any issues and with just a bit of rain as we pulled in below the locks. Rain overnight but really? It went from summer to fall in a day!

The place was empty by Monday night. End of the long holiday weekend and so it seemed also the end of summer! Jeans and sweatshirts again?? I guess that' appropriate since we went to the hardware store to get the antifreeze for winterizing the water systems on Guppy.

One last night at Fenelon Falls and then over to the Fenelon Falls Marina where Guppy will be stored for the winter.  

Tomorrow: packing up and getting ready to leave!