From the Shores of Lake Michigan

It’s been 3 months since we last posted. Since then we’ve transited the Erie Canal all the way to the Oswego Canal, then north into Canada. Once in Canada we headed west on the Trent-Severn Canal, then crossed Georgian Bay on the small craft channel to Killarney. Then we crossed the length of the North Channel and re-entered the United States at the top of Lake Michigan. We are now working our way to Chicago.

Rather than post a day by day journal, this posting will again just be pictures and descriptions of things that were of particular interest or that tickled our fancy, divided into topics. I've made each one of the topics a separate post since there are so many pictures. That way you can click on each post on the Archives section on the left side of the screen. Otherwise, when you get to the bottom of this page, be sure to click on "Older Posts" to see the rest of the posts this time. The topics are as follows:

· First and Foremost!! New Baby!
· Strange/Interesting Things Seen Along the Water
· Flowers Flowers Everywhere, and Fauna Too
· “Art” Along the Way
· People
· Boats
· Homes, Boathouses and Other Abodes
· Miscellaneous Pictures
· Obligatory Sunrise/Sunset Pictures

Enjoy!

First and Foremost! New Baby!

First and Foremost!! New Baby! Our first grandchild was born on June 29. Risa Violet was very early and only weighed 3 lbs 9 oz so she had to stay in the hospital for 45 days. She is now home and weighs about 8 lbs and is doing just fine. Risa means laughter or light-hearted in Spanish and Latin. So we start off with pictures of Risa and her mom, Flo, and dad, our son Josh.

Strange/Interesting Things Seen Along the Water

Truck in Air in Albany NY

While we were stopped in Waterford, NY we went geocaching with Linda Womer. This crooked bridge was along the way. It seems that the bridge wasn’t built that way purposefully, just ended up that way with the weather. That's Trish "walking" along it.








Canadian Alligator

A Confederate flag here? In the backwoods of Canada??

Summertime Basketball












Fireplug here??

Sign at ice cream store in Penetanguishene Ontario















Real classy restaurant sign in Gore Bay, Ontario

"Art" Along the Way

American Eagle along the Erie

While staying in
Henderson Harbor, we
took a road trip with Dave and Polly Brown to the Clayton NY Antique Boat Museum, an extraordinary museum of refurbished antique boats. I particularly liked these two antique posters.





























Giant fish carving along the Trent Severn

















Bulldog…don’t know the rest of the story there.

The sign by this bear statue said “Please do not feed the bear”

The Watchman, carved from an old cottonwood tree in DeTour Village

Flowers Flowers Everywhere, and Fauna Too

Flowers in the water















Shoreside display












Paul went exploring in his dinghy while we were anchored on the Bad River and returned with these water lilies for me














There was an explosion of sunflowers in this garden at Killarney






























Mackinac Island was awash in flowers everywhere. These are two one of many, many gardens.




The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island also had wonderful gardens, but we only saw them from a distance because they charged $5 per person just to walk around the hotel grounds, and if you wanted to go on the porch, it was $12 per person! Even though the Grand Hotel has the largest porch of any hotel in the world, it was more than we wanted to spend. But we were able to see this nifty carriage and horses topiary.








A pair of loons shared our anchorage.


















A big heron watching over his domain












Solitary Loon

People

Pics of Us and Others




















At the beginning of July Stan had a birthday, so Ned baked him cakes in his electric skillet, of all things, and then Bob decorated them. The round cake reads “Stan the Man” and the rectangular one reads “LXIII”. There was a real nice picnic area along the wall where we tied up for the night, so that’s where we celebrated.







Dave and Polly Brown live in New York on Henderson Harbor on the shore of Lake Ontario. It is on our route to Canada so we decided to stop and visit with them again. We’d last seen them while we were in the Bahamas last February. We ended up staying with them over a week and doing lots of sight seeing.

Here’s a picture of Dave








And a picture of Ned with Polly.















Beat Cop in Kingston, Ontario—it was rainy when we first entered Canada and when we caught sight of this cop walking by in his coat, he looked way too much like he was a flasher! What a photo op….
















A good picture of Stan

















And a good picture of Paul
















Another picture of Stan—Had to include it because I don’t know what he’s gesticulating about!




While we were in Peterborough, Ontario, we lucked into TWO free concerts in the park. The first one was a tribute to the BeeGees by a group known as Staying Alive. It had been rescheduled because of rain on the original date. It was attended by about 2,000 people and was really good.

The next night was the Wanted Man group, doing a tribute to Johnny Cash.
And that was really, really good! It was attended by 8,000 people. We felt very luck to have happened upon two free concerts and to have both of them be exceptionally good—and the park was right there at the marina. Afterwards, Bob and Trish had us take their picture with the Wanted Man group. We tried to buy one of their CDs after the show, but the line was long and dang if they didn’t run out of CDs about 10 people in front of us! Oh well.















Bob’s “new” Canadian hat—a couldn’t resist purchase at the local thrift store...














Here’s Stan and me atop a mountain by Gore Bay. We’d climbed the mountain to find a geocache and were amazed at the incredible view. It was a multi-cache that we did with Ned, and it was by far the most challenging terrain we’d ever done on a geocache.















While weathered in in DeTour Village, MI, we met Bob and Beth Uehlein on S/V Island Time. We met them again on Mackinac Island and in Mackinac City. Then again in Charlevoix, where they have their slip. And they became our new BFFs.

Boats and More Boats

When we arrived in Waterford, NY, we found that there was to be a steamboat festival while we were there. Well, steamboats bring to mind big paddle wheelers on the Mississippi, but that’s not the kind of steamboats these are. These are two typical steamboats. I particularly liked the one to the right because they just used umbrellas instead of the more typical covering as the one above had.



This one was rather unique because it was an aluminum canoe(!) that had been converted to steam power.












The historic Erie Canal tug Urger was also there.



Here we are all headed out of the Oswego Canal into Lake Ontario

Our boats at Dave and Polly Brown’s dock, with Koko anchored out because it was too shallow at the dock for our keel.

One of the display rooms at the Clayton Antique Boat Museum. This is one of the most enjoyable museums we've ever been in and it is a real classy place. We really drooled over some of the boats displayed.

This is a rocking boat instead of a rocking horse that we saw for sale at the Antique Boat Museum. Hmmmm. Now that we have a grandchild……wonder if she’ll be needing a rocking boat.

Dave and Polly have an antique boat of their own and while we were visiting with them, there was an antique boat show in Henderson Harbor, so of course Dave entered his.

Polly and I got to ride with Dave back to their boathouse in Snowshoe Bay after the boat show over in Henderson.

Touring Motorcycle with Boat trailer

All of us in a lock on the Trent-Severn, Snappy rafted to Pogo, Rozie rafted to Koko.

Koko and Rozie on a foggy morn on the Trent-Severn

Our flotilla (left to right: Snappy, Pogopelli, Kokopelli, Rozinante) along the wall in Campbellford. Note the giant coin monument in amongst the trees. It is of a Toonie, the Canadian two dollar coin. The designer of the coin was from Campbellford.

Koko in Lock 43, gates opening. This was one of the bigger locks on the Trent.

Pogo and Rozie at anchor

This was a really nifty boat that shared our anchorage at Byng Inlet. Sure wouldn’t want to take care of all that gorgeous teak though!

Raft up in the Bad River of Rozie, Koko and Snappy. Pogo had stayed behind in Pointe au Baril Station and didn’t catch up to us until the next day.

This trawler passed us while we were in Killarney. A trawler using a sailboat as a dinghy???? That was a first. Name on the sailboat: Hot Tub

The Benjamin Islands in the North Channel are big granite boulders with water pathways surrounding the boulders. So you’d come around a corner in your dinghy while exploring and find what appeared to be a boat aground. Not. The water was deep and the boats would wiggle their way into a spot and tie off on pitons hammered into the rocks.

We are all previous or current Catalina 22 owners, so we were most impressed and interested when we came across this very well-canvassed Catalina 22. Gave us lots of ideas for our Catalina 22s.