A busy month

When we last posted we were getting settled in and the past few weeks have been busy and fun. The day after our last post Jill and I took our first overnight trip since we've had the boat here. We went about 40 miles up Kentucky Lake to Paris Landing Marina in Tennessee. Not a very exciting adventure but it was good to get out and explore a bit and practice docking in a new marina. We enjoyed "crazy chicken night" at the state park lodge before returning to the boat to listen to the Jimmy Buffett concert from Cincinnati on our Sirius radio. We had some fun during the concert by texting friends who were there and some who were listening on the radio like us.

Friends at the show

Radio listeners

We had a nice stay and got moving early the next morning for the trip home. We pulled into a cove on the way back where Jill took some time at the helm getting used to maneuvering the boat using the transmissions only in preparation of learning how to dock the boat. She did a great job and is ready for the next lesson for sure.

Paris Landing

I noticed the DeLorme didn't track this trip so I'll have to figure out what the issue is with that. I'm sure it's operator error. When we got back our new freezer had arrived and the next day was spent installing it. A great addition and much more sense than the dishwasher that used to fill that space.

The following weekend a group of boaters from our pier took an overnight trip up Lake Barkley so we took the opportunity to wash the ceilings of the vacated slips. It helps keep the spider and bird droppings to a minimum. We couldn't go on the trip since we were heading to Cincinnati on Sunday morning but I enjoyed dusting off some old fireman skills....

After a few days in Cincy and several rounds of doctors appointments we were back on the boat in time for a visit from Jill's sister Amy and her boyfriend Alyn. We had a great visit and they got to enjoy the marina and lakes at there finest over the 4th of July weekend. A homeowner near the marina put on a fantastic fireworks show that lasted over 45 minutes and we had a great view right from the front of the boat. Not sure why but I didn't get the camera out all weekend so there is no proof that the visit actually happened....it did.

The following week was taken up with boat projects and we got a bunch of things checked off our to-do list. Nothing very exciting or blog worthy but we're happy they're done.

This past weekend my sister Kathy, brother-in-law Ron and their whole clan came down for a visit. They rented a very nice house here at GTB and seemed to really enjoy the place. We got out for boat rides on Friday and Saturday and actually took advantage of their visit to get the boat naming ceremony done. You can Google the process if you're interested but it involves giving a bit of libation to the gods of the seas and winds as well as some for the crew!

Sunday was spent saying our "so longs" as well as installing a new AC unit in the upper salon. Sunday is usually "funday" but the forecast for this week is all upper 90's so it seemed prudent to get the job done. As I type this it's a lovely 73 degrees in the upper salon and a heat index of 102 just outside the door. 

We're making another quick trek to Ohio this week so I can visit the pension board. I finally have a retirement date of September 13!!!! Next trip is a boat trip to Nashville the end of the month with some friends from E dock...looking forward to that. I'll remember to get out the camera and will post again after the trip.

TTFN

Settling In

In 2 days we will have been living on the boat for 2 weeks. I know this doesn't sound like much...we've taken longer vacations. We spent most of the first week getting the boat organized and putting away the rest of what we brought from the house. The boat now has a 2 degree list to starboard, we're going to have to work on that!! It hasn't been all work and no play. The temps here have been in the 90's since we've been here so we get most of our work done before lunch and cool down in the afternoon at the pool or a dinghy ride. We did get the boat out for a few hours last Monday to give her a shake down and all was well. We found the Kentucky State Prison. Seems they have a nice view if nothing else. If you click on the Locate Us link on the right you can see the track of our round trip.

Do not pick up swimmers in this area!!

Later that evening we were sitting on the front deck and got to see a baby hummingbird take it's first flight from a nest down the dock. It made it as far as the front of our boat and plopped down to rest for about an hour. He didn't seem to know what to do next. Mama kept coming with a bit of nourishment and encouragement. This past week the 2 baby's seem to be getting bigger each day and are definitely better flyers.

Now What?

Dinner!!

This past Saturday Pier 5 had its first dock party of the year. Man do they know how to throw a party around here! The grill had to be floated in by barge after being hauled here behind a car.

Russell and Jerry man the mangrill

Since we had cleaned out our bars at home when we left we felt it was only fitting that the McMullen's do what we do best, serve drinks! I think our bar was a hit but a few folks were eyeing our blender a bit too fondly!!

Jill chats with Capt. Bill

There were over 70 people here with everyone bringing a dish. I doubt anyone left hungry (or thirsty)

The party went well into the night. The live entertainment and dancing had to end at 11:00 to respect the neighbors but the last I remember looking at my watch it was 1:30...not bad for old folks.

Tomorrow we will be heading out for our first overnight road trip. We are only going about 45 miles up Kentucky Lake to Paris Landing State Park but you can follow along on the tracker if you have nothing better to do. 

We'll be heading back to Cincinnati next Sunday for a couple of days for Dr's appointments and to meet with the fire department to set an exit date. July is already looking busy with family coming down for visits and a trip up the Cumberland to Nashville with some friends at the end of the month. 

We'll keep posting, you keep in touch!

Dawn of a new Day!!

OR  OMG-WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!?!?!

If you've been following our blog from the beginning or at least went back and read the first post you know that Jill and I have had a bit of a plan as far as this boating thing goes. Buy a boat big enough to live on (check) sell everything we own in order to live on said boat (check) retire and start traveling (pending).

We have spent the past few weeks getting the house sold, giving away or selling most of what we own and moving onto the boat here in Grand Rivers, KY. Last year the house was on the market for 6 months without much of a nibble...this year we had an offer in 6 days!! Needless to say we were caught a bit off guard and spent the last month rushing around to get everything done. Well, yesterday at noon we took our last trip down the driveway headed toward the future. I'm glad we were in separate cars because, to be honest, I had a tear in my eye for a few moments. We had a great 15 years there on Thompson Rd. but I'm sure that will be nothing compared to the next 15!!.

Last Party at TRCC

 Next stop was at our good friends house where Mike took possession of my beloved Avalanche leaving Jill and I to travel the next 4 hours in a heavily overloaded Mini Cooper, our only car now.

Rolling Entrapment

Sooooo after all the chaos and rushing around we are now truly homeless, at least in the dirt sense. I will also have to admit that after the 4 hour drive I had a huge grin on my face as we came into the marina. I think (hope!) we are really going to enjoy this next chapter of our lives. Everything we now own is on the boat, in the parking lot or in a 5 x 10 storage unit in Cincinnati. We call that our starter kit for the next house wherever that may be. 

Room to spare

Today was that dawn of the new day. We woke up on the boat without having to think about "when do we have to go home". We still worked our butts off today like we only have a few days here. We will have to get better at that for sure! We still have to make some trips back home to tie up some loose ends (like retirement) but the reality of it is we are full time boaters now and for the foreseeable future. I'm OK with that. We will miss our friends and family for sure but hope they follow along and plan a visit or two. We have had several volunteers for any excursion to the Bahamas, go figure.

One last shot as the sun goes down over Green Turtle Bay. You should really plan a visit. Just call first, we may be out boating ;)

Wish us luck!!!!!!

 
     

A bit of explanation

It seems that all of my best ideas (not that I've had many) are started with some notes on a bar napkin over a few cocktails. These ideas have always seemed brilliant at the time and some have even turned out that way. Well, that's the way the name of our boat came about. A few years ago we were sitting at the Thompson Road Cabana Club with some good friends thinking about our future, specifically, our future on a boat. We began talking about names for our future home and began putting a few down on said bar napkin. Before long I was hit with a bolt of rum infused inspiration! Chasing 80!! As in degrees!!! That is where we always want to be. No more snow and ice and cold and wind...well, you get the point. Mind you, this was long before we had even begun looking for our dream boat but we had a name and that was a good start.

Why, you may ask, am I telling you this now? Well, it seems that when we tell people of our plans and the name of our boat 80% ask; "Oh, 80 years old"? While that's not a bad goal (mine happens to be a bit more) that's not the reason for the name. To hopefully make things a bit easier on people when they see the boat Jill came up with a little mascot to help get the point across and last week we officially had the boat lettered.....

Chasing 80 (degrees)

 Sorry for the poor picture but we are excited to finally have the name on the boat! Now it is time for the re-naming ceremony!!

It was a short trip last week to take some more of our personal items to the boat and celebrate my birthday then back home to keep working on the house. Hopefully the boat will soon be our home. Please keep your fingers crossed for us.

On another note, we have figured out why our marina is called Green Turtle Bay...

Not sure if they're green but they sure look hungry!

For those of you that have signed up for updates using the link on the right, I understand that it sends the whole post, not just something telling you to go to the blog. I imagine this could be a problem if we make a post with a bunch of pictures. I will see if there is something I can do on my end to change that.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for some exciting news from the home front (we hope).

Spring!!

Now this is more like it! We got back to the boat in early April and found much better conditions than our last visit. The trees were budding (allergies went into overdrive), the marina was getting ready for their spring boat show and the weather was perfect.

Boats for sale

We got a few more projects checked off our list. One nice addition are the new name boards we had made for the running lights. Before we could add the boards we had to perform the official boat "un-naming" ceremony. Not as much fun with just 2 of us to do it but it had to be done before we could move forward. If you're interested in the process just do a quick Google search and you'll find plenty of hits.

Another spring project was to get the dinghy inflated and the motor mounted. We hadn't had a chance to blow it up since we had it repaired last fall. Everything seemed to be working well. We took it out for a couple of trips to make sure all was good and it was. As we were leaving the marina we were greeted by an eagle keeping an eye on things.

That's about it for this update. Once we got home we headed off for a 12 day trip around the Southeast. A family wedding in Isle of Palms SC and then over to NOLA for the first weekend of Jazzfest including a Buffett performance to end the weekend. Since then we have been working on the house to get it back on the market so I can finally retire (for real) and we can get started on our adventure. Hopefully we'll have some good news to share about that in our next installment. I'll leave you with one last picture of Chasing 80 nestled in her slip waiting to get moving. Soon, very soon...

Can we go somewhere?

This ain't Chasing 80!!

After a fairly mild start to this winter season February has really kicked it up a notch! We had another 5+ inches of snow today and I'm getting a bit tired of all this. The forecast 2 days ago was for upper 30's and rain but (surprise) the weather dudes got it wrong again. I know, I know...it could be worse. We're not in Boston after all but this is a bit much for me, I'm ready do be done with winter. Folks are even complaining in the Key's because it's only in the 60's and windy...aww shucks.

2/21/15 totals

The Thompson Road Cabana Club is officially closed today. Note the diving board for the accumulation for the week.

Closed for the season

The real reason for this post is to point out a few new features we added to the blog. If you look at the bar on the right of this page you can see the following.

1. Added a link where you can enter your e-mail address to get notified when we add a new post. This way you don't have to just check the blog to see if there is anything new.
2. Added a link called Follow Us. If you click on the link you will be taken to our Delorme page with a map showing where we have been and where we are now. I left the In Reach on when we left the boat and it looks like it lasted about 4 days before going dead. Hopefully the boat didn't move around as much as it looks like on the map. I can only assume the signal is degraded a bit by being under a metal roof. It should be more interesting as we begin to travel.
3. I also created a map that shows where we have been. If you click on the map it will open in a larger page where you can click on a marker to get info of where we were and when. I'm looking forward to filling up the eastern US with our markers.

So that's about it for now. Pretty sure I haven't done 2 posts in the same week when not traveling. Not much else to do on these snow days. I'll leave you with a few pics from our trip to the Key's (where it's now only 70 degrees). The first 2 are from the Sunset Grille in Marathon.

Seven Mile Bridge

Sunset over Moser Channel

Next is another attempt to be artsy. This is a shot at the Green Parrot bar in Key West. We were there for Jill's birthday and Glen David Andrews from New Orleans was playing. The artsy part was of his bone resting on the table, I only later noticed the picture of Fats Domino keeping an eye on them.

Do you see Fats?

Until next time....

Two fer One!

Well, not really but I thought I'd give a quick update on what we've been up to for the past month or so.

After Christmas our next regular trip to the boat would have been mid January. The restaurant was closed for the month and no real projects were calling us so we opted for plan "B". My sister Kathy's birthday is mid January and she expressed an interest in getting away for a bit since it was a special birthday (the kind where you change numbers). I suggested our friends Mike & Gretchen's condo in Panama City Beach as an option and she was all in! The plan evolved to a few days in New Orleans since she had never been there and then a few days in PCB before a stop at the boat on the way home to check her out.

Sorry, no pictures to share from NOLA as it was a bit cool and damp. We covered a lot ground in 2 days, saw the Quarter of course as well as some time uptown, Magazine St,  and dinner at one of our favorites Jacques-Imos and a Ramos Gin Fizz at Tujague's. It was a short stay but I think Kathy will be back. I know we will...in April!

Next we headed East along US 90 on what we like to call the Gulf Coast pub crawl. I had the bright idea to take the Dauphin Island Ferry to get over to Gulf Shores and lunch at LuLu's. Turns out we got to the island just before the start of their Mardi Gras parade and wouldn't make the ferry until 3:30 if we waited...we didn't. Took the long way around Mobile Bay and got to LuLu's for a late lunch after a stop at Billy's seafood for a few pounds of Royal Red shrimp (taste like lobster!)

Eventually we made it to the condo and crashed pretty hard. We spent the next couple of days checking out the area going as far as Apalachicola and having a few oysters at Boss Oyster House.

Sister Kathy & Bro-in-Law Ron at Boss

After the oysters we walked around town a bit and along the waterfront. We saw an eagle across the river although I couldn't get him to look at the camera. I also tried out my artsy side with some shrimp boat pictures.

Shy Eagle

Artsy Shrimp Boat

We also found a nice lunch spot back in Panama City and right on the water called Bayou Joe's.

Bayou Joe's

We are definitely looking forward to seeing these places again when we head that way with the boat in the fall.

Back at the condo we got to spend a bit of beach time as well as a fantastic dinner with the Royal Red's. The sunsets are pretty spectacular in this area as the beach faces west/southwest.

Pelican looks for dinner

Alas we had to head north but spent a night at the boat on the way home to show our guests the new digs. All was well at the boat and they got introduced to the fantastic food at Patti's 1880's. It was a bit cool and damp at times but all in all a great trip. Happy birthday Kathy!

Jill and I weren't done traveling just yet. Since her birthday is the 31st we decided to fly down to the Keys for a long weekend birthday celebration. We spent a couple of days in Marathon and checked out marinas we hope to be docked at this time next year. We also met several fellow boaters (and Bloggers) living the dream in the Keys. Next we went to Key West for Jills birthday and checked out a few marinas there as well as several bars...it's what we do. I'll dig up some pictures of that trip for the next installment.

We made it back down to the boat for a long Valentines day weekend. Not much going on but the restaurant is back open and we met some more dock neighbors. Really looking forward to Summer down there. In fact, I'm looking forward to Summer anywhere! I've shoveled snow the past 3 days and the high tomorrow is expected to be 7!! This sure ain't Chasing 80!!

Till next time....