First Official Blog

Well, this is my first Official Blog....I've spent the last hour or so playing with this new (to me anyway) Blog site.

The earlier blog postingss are historical cut and paste articles I wrote as we started this Journey of a Lifetime...it's been fun already and we're now officially at the beginning of this great loop trip.

I will hopefully write the rest of the 2007 Shakeout Cruise story from my logbook on the boat and try to finalize it using some of the remaining brain cells that have not been washed away by those red liquids.

The boat TWINS has spent the summer at our dock on Spring Lake and has only really started to recieve due attention the past few weeks building up to this week as the provisioning got serious. Our son in law Gary finished putting the screen porch on the back of the boat this week and we're thrilled to have the aft upper deck now screened in. Gary is in the custom canvas business (Ann's Custom Canvas in Grand Rapids) and has helped us get boat in shape with new upholstery, canvas, screening etc. even bumper covers and a couple of sea anchors!

The refrigeration was turned on last Sunday Night and that seemed to really crank things up. Freezer goods, canned goods, dry goods, clothing, propane, refrigerated goods, red liquids, kayaks, .....basically you're moving aboard and lowering the boot stripe!

At this stage we don't know when the boat will get back here....we expect it will be a few years anyway. This first leg will take us to Chicago, down the Illinois River Sytems to the Mississippi, to the Ohio there going upstream and finding the Cumberland. Then we expect to enjoy fall on the Cumberland by Land Between the Lakes...maybe cruise up to Nashville and then back to the Tennessee River.

In a couple of months we hope to find a place for the boat along the Tennessee River and take a break to see the grandtwins (Ben and Mia) and look for antlers in the northwoods of Michigan.

After that?........