no, in case you were wondering, we didn’t sail away on the boat and that’s why i haven’t written.
and no, we didn’t even launch the boat at nine a.m. on sunday, like we were going to.
here’s mollie, with no idea of the GREAT EXCITEMENT in store for her…
but then, kevin came in and said we wouldn’t be going at nine…maybe in fifteen minutes. he had to put these drains in the bottoms of the boat seats, so water wouldn’t collect in them.
after a while mollie and i went outside to see what was going on.
kevin had to do a lot of crawling under the boat.
my job was to push down on the drains so that he could install them below. i had to take a picture of how covered in stuff the carpeting is.
here’s the newly-installed drain; it’s the white thing right there in the middle. SO DIRTY. i have to thoroughly clean the boat.
here’s the view from the boat in the driveway. it’s a great place to hang out, way up there on the boat looking out at the circle, and one that i rarely see. it was fun to be up there sitting on a comfy seat.
mollie was being very patient, but she clearly was ready to go.
well, we didn’t leave at 9:15…or 10:15…or 11:15…after finally getting all the drains put in, kevin then started looking for the anchor and the bumpers – those are little floaty things that attach to the sides of the boat, so it doesn’t crash into the sides of the dock.
he looked…and looked…and looked…and finally decided that somebody had stolen them. i was sure that they hadn’t been stolen. yes, he thought they were in the outside little tarp-covered structure along with the mower and stuff, but why would anybody want some bumpers and an anchor? plus if you for you for some reason were desperate to steal bumpers and an anchor, would it ever occur to you in a million years that they would be there? or did somebody enter the little hut and decide to take them since they were the only things light enough to carry off without too much trouble?
he found a couple of old bumpers, and i still don’t know what we were doing for an anchor on that maiden voyage.
then he started looking for the boat registration. have i mentioned that we have many, many, many pieces of paper lying all over the house? there are piles in the office, plus papers stuffed into various holders in the kitchen and all over the place. we both looked…and looked…and looked. we found a couple of good coupons, and i found a stack of christmas cards, and registrations for other vehicles, and maps of the lake, and many many many return address labels that kevin gets all the time from places he donates money to…but no boat registration.
he did find some piece of paper that listed us buying the boat from mom and dad, and he decided that would suffice.
so finally, at noon, we headed for the boat launch. he had wanted to go early to beat the crowds. when we got there the place was filled with pickups with trailers attached – must have been the morning fishermen. there were only a couple of people actually launching their boats, though, so that was good.
i went in to the office to register and heard the guy there telling the end of a story to some people…he was saying “you couldn’t even see the boat carpeting because of the layers of beer cans. that guy went to jail.” wow, i wish i’d hear all that story. but maybe i heard the important part. that would be a lot of beer for one person to drink.
we got our new sticker, put it on the boat, and mollie and i climbed aboard. mollie was anxious because kevin wasn’t with us.
the boat is old (but looks new because of the new seats and stuff), and the boat trailer is very old. there are pieces of carpeting on the bottom rails of the trailer, to help the boat slide off. unfortunately the carpet was all shredded, and the boat did not want to detach.
i kept gunning the motor and kevin kept pushing on the front, but it just wasn’t happening. the boat died a couple of times, which didn’t bode well.
finally, though, kevin pulled the van up then backed up really fast and slammed on the brakes. the boat was in the water! yea!
kevin had to go park the van and mollie was quite agitated.
but he didn’t abandon her after all, we set out…and the boat kept dying. we putt putt putted along at about one mile an hour, and every time i tried to push it just a little bit faster, it died.
at least it was a gorgeous day for putt putt putting along the lake.
kevin said it could be the carburetor. he’s going to pull it apart and clean it or whatever one does to make a carburetor work right. maybe this will make the motor work.
here he is, enjoying the ride.
this is the house they’re building down the way. that middle section is curved and should look quite cool. i wish we knew those people, so we could ask them why they tore down their old house to build a new one. i can hear the truck there right now, and this morning when we ran we saw them all working like crazy. great weather for it.
here’s the back of our house and amy and jim’s. i don’t think i’ve ever been out in the water this early in the year, and the trees still look so bare from the lake.
mollie enjoyed herself, but it was warmer and we didn’t have the top on the boat, so she was a pretty hot dog. we didn’t have the top on because we didn’t know where it was.
so, the boat launched. it’s nice to see it down there in the water and pretend that we can go out. the problem is that kevin is very very busy, and seems to be getting busier by the minute. in addition to his music classes, he has all kinds of shooting things coming up – this weekend is a cowboy shoot, next weekend is some weekend-long civil war shooting competition somewhere up in northern illinois, plus some events with the 114th. all of these things involve making many many many bullets and blanks and lots of stuff to do.
BUT WHAT ABOUT GETTING THE BOAT IN THE WATER???!!!
maybe i should take a car mechanic class, so i could fix the boat myself.
yesterday i was sure i could find the boat bumpers and anchor so i started looking and looking. kevin has a sudden flash that they were all “in something.” i looked in different little storage things, and then there was a garbage can sitting next to one of them and i opened it up…AND THERE WERE THE BUMPERS AND ANCHOR! i was quite pleased to have found them, and kevin promises to buy me an ice cream cone as a reward for the return of the stolen boat parts.
he also found the bimini boat top.
plus he realized that the boat registration was inside the little floaty thing attached to the boat key. a smart place to put it, unless, of course, you forget it’s there.
oh, and here’s a bonus video…kevin took this when we were on out bike trip along the danube in austria. i can’t figure out how he did it and why you can just see part of his ear. he must have been holding the camera up over his shoulder.
that must be me there in back of him. i remember now that i took some video with the video camera while we were biking. i must start cutting some of that together…plus the footage of scotland…plus…plus…
but i have to go outside now.
ok then,
tuesday grace.