Main web sight is www.shefveland.com

Below is the daily information about our 4 week trip taking our boat from Detroit to Lake City. It is listed in reverse order.

July 4, Wednesday

Happy 4th of July!! Bob and Renee, Gwen, Ashley, Brandon (Ashley's beau), Kip, Kobi and I took a cruise to Red Wing and then dropped anchor at Long Point. We cooked up pork chops and hotdogs, along with a bunch of other food Renee and Gwen brought along. Some of us swam to cool off. Kip got the dinghy going and took Ashley, Brandon and Kobi in to walk on the point (and for Kobi to go potty). Kobi looks smashing in his new orange life jacket!! On the way back, a cloud rolled in and it was so colorful and bright... like God was sending down a message.

Renee, Bob and Gwen left, and the rest of us walked up to the park to eat dinner. They have food booths set up and we snacked on deep fried ravioli, fries and cheese curds, along with ice cream (of course). At 10:00, the fireworks began. We sat on the bench on the front of the boat and watched. Ashley and Brandon have to leave to go back to work tomorrow, so they left. We had another beautiful day.

July 3, Tuesday

We found out that the big boat parked at the end of our dock belongs to Stanley Hubbert (Kare 11). They are driving it to Hudson or somewhere to deliver it to him. They said this is his 80th boat!!! Go figure.

Austin and Britt drove down today. Ashley and Gwen are here too. We took the boat out to Hok-Si-La and went swimming and ate hamburgers and pork chops (courtesy of Stanley Hubbert). Bob called and came out to meet up with us (Bob's boat can be seen behind him in the picture -- it's called "Bob'n Along". Britt and Austin left at 5:00, and Brandon arrived at 8:00 and is staying overnight with us. It was a great day.

July 2, Monday

Our first night in our boat in our slip, and neither one of us slept very good. It was an extremely windy night, and one of the lines was sqeaking and kept us awake, and neither one of us got up to fix it. Kip met the guys at the Galley for breakfast. Ashley and Kobi came down, and it was nice to see them. We did a bit of shopping and took a long nap. Gwen stopped by to visit too.

It's a cloudy day in Lake City. It's also a sad day because there is a funeral today for Tony Hebert who was 19 and was killed in combat in Iraq. Many stores were closed and the streets were lined with people and cars. The Patriot Guard (motorcycles) was here making certain that anti war protestors do not disturb the funeral. To read about the Patriot Guard, go to http://www.mnpatriotguard.org/past.asp

Parked at the end of our dock is this 1968 68’ Director that makes our Roamer look small……….. it is also made out of aluminum. The 4 man crew on board are bringing the boat from Florida and taking her to Hudson, Wisconsin on the St Croix river. They were no longer on need of their provisions so that gave them all to us (fresh veggies, pork chops, salad fixins and such). One of the crew said nice Roamer…”you don’t see many of them anymore especially up here”

We will use this week to "wean" you off of our blog... haha

July 1, Sunday

Today's the day we arrive in Lake City. How exciting, and yet, how sad. We are loving this journey and, if we didn't miss everyone so much, we would love to keep going!

Tunz of Fun made it without a hitch. Kip did notice that the engines were running a bit hot, so he checked them, and the green stuff in the picture above is what was blocking things up. Now, all is well.

We only have 59 miles today, and 3 locks. We got in every lock quickly and without incident. There are so many boats out that it looks like Lake Minnetonka (and some of them drive like they do on Lake Minnetonka).

We arrived at the marina, and all of the great people on our dock welcomed us back and checked out the new boat. It was very nice to have such a warm welcome. Friends of ours from Blaine, Al and Wendy, drove 1 1/2 hours just to see us on our day back. We had a bite to eat and took them on a ride to Long Point where we sat and talked. While we were pulling out of our slip, one of our fenders pulled off of the rope and went floating away.

We got back to the marina (and Kip pulled in just like he'd been doing this for weeks). Kip and I took the dinghy around the marina to find our lost fender. Lo and behold, it was over by the 700 dock (4 docks away) floating there. Yippee. Kip was worried that the new fender we would have had to buy would not match our current fenders, so now all is well.

At about 9:00 Kip decided he was hungry, so we went to Papa T's pizza for a small deluxe. Tomorrow Kip is meeting the "guys" at the Galley for coffee at 7:00 am, and I will still be snoozing away.

Ashley (our daughter) will be here tomorrow and we will be shopping, reading, swimming, and sleeping! Fun, huh? I can hardly wait.

We want to thank everyone for their support and for being interested enough in our trip to read our blog. This trip has been an amazing experience, and we would do it again in a heartbeat. We hope all of you are following your dreams. It is worth it.

June 30, Saturday

The sinking boat shown on Thursday's blog is the oldest shipping paddleboat in the United States. The guy that owns it lives in Louisiana and he has owned it for 23 years and he fixes it up each year. It sank once last year and twice this year. The guy puts money into it to fix it, but he's losing ground instead of moving forward with fixing it. This information is from a guy that Kip talked to at the marina.

We got up and had may flies, so we washed off the boat, again.
We left late today, at about 9:30 am, because we are only traveling a short distance.
We went through locks 7 and 6 without any waiting.
Some of the boats in the lock and dams are crazy.
Did laundry and took a nap (some of us did.. Ok, I did). Kip watched the lock pull a barge through.

Tyler (Kip’s cousin) and his wife Angie stopped by via boat from their camping spot about 10 minutes away.
Greg, Christy (Kip’s cousin), Griffin, Andrew and Benjamin (their kids) visited. They are on their way to Winona and then to Minneapolis to visit Christy’s parents. The boys (now 5) got a ride in the dinghy and they loved it. They also had their first taste of Orange Crush pop. Benjamin, 3 months old, is adorable.

We walked a short distance to town and ate dinner at the historic Trempealou Hotel. This place is hopping with people and the food was excellent. A definite YES for anyone traveling in this area -- make sure and stop.

From our spot on the back deck, we watched all of the boats go in and out of the water on the ramp. How funny it is. One boat had all guys and one girl, and she was standing up dancing all the way in shore. We watched the sunset and a parasailor, and then tucked in. We now remember what we had talked about last time we stayed at Trempealou marina, and it’s the train noise. We are right next to the tracks!!! No sleep for us tonight (ha ha). I somehow hurt my shoulder, so Monday I will be visiting the Lake City doctors. We went 20 miles today. We are hearing fireworks already in the area. Tomorrow, we are home! Lake City, 59 miles, here we come!

June 29, Friday

After spending an hour cleaning and scrubbing the boat, we woke up to millions of may flies. Kip had done some touchup painting on a seam last night, and now all you can see are may fly parts stuck to it. ISH. I wouldn't even go outside to unplug the power... Kip had to do it. We were thinking that they would fly off if we went fast enough, but that didn't work either. They stick like glue. So, I earned my "First Mate" status by taking a broom and sweeping them all off as the boat was going 23 miles per hour!

At the first lock (lock 9), we got in right away (along with another million may flies). After the 9' lift, we had to scrub the may flies off of the boat again. Nice. Lock 8 was quick too (11') and we were quickly in LaCrosse at Pettibone marina. We are familiar with this marina because we take a boat trip each year with Hendriksens to this marina.

We decided to clean the boat (again) because Gwen (Kip's mom) and Bob H. (Gwen's brother-in-law) were coming soon. Bob drove Gwen to LaCrosse so she could go with us on the rest of our trip. Thanks Bob!! While we were chatting, Steve and Lori (the guy who bought our 31' Roamer) stopped by and updated us on the progress of his restoration. We are glad to hear someone is taking good care of her!

Gwen, Bob, Kip and I went to eat at the Pettibone restaurant, and then walked around looking at boats in the marina. There are three Roamers in this marina, so Kip had to take pictures for the Roamer Club. Kip took Gwen on a dinghy ride (yes, the dinghy again). He fixed the leak and the motor actually ran this time. It was a very cool and bright day, and the evening is very breezy and calm. It will be good sleeping tonight. Please, Please.... NO MORE MAY FLIES!

We went 75 miles today. It is easy to tell we are almost home because of the changing landscape. We miss our family and friends, but not work! Also, someone fess up... who smashed the green can on the river?

June 28, Thursday

Almost all of the deadheads are gone now, thank goodness. We went to the Richmond restaurant for breakfast. This is a hometown place with hometown food. They even had the table of guys having coffee, just like Lake City at the Galley.

It seems like at every lock there is a blue heron bird sitting on the cement watching what's happening. It's so fun to watch them.

We had to wait for a lock, so we stopped in Dubuque, IA and went for a quick walk. There was a Chris Craft woody bow sticking out of the restaurant, and Kip wanted to know if the captain drove it there or if someone stuck it there.... A park was made for a businessman named McDonald, and it was very nice. There was also a Veteran's Memorial in town that was very nice, and a Catholic church that was beautiful!!

We got through lock 10, and we are staying at the Wingar Works Marina in Guttenberg. Walking to town, we saw an old paddle boat that looked sort of in rough shape (see picture 1). We walked over one mile to get to town to shop, and there were NO gift shops open. None. Zilch. What the heck is that about? So, at a gas station, we found out where the one grocery store was, walked there, and walked back to the marina. I left a note with the lady at the gas station to give to my relatives who live here (even though they don't like me much). haha The old paddle boat we talked about earlier was sinking now... (see picture 2). Before we ate, Kip insisted we clean the boat. The fenders were black from all of the locks.. ISH. The people at the next boat asked us if we were "clean freaks" because they said that the boat already looked beautiful.

We drove (and probably walked) 60 miles today. The may flies (or fish flies) just hatched, so that is really nasty. Gas was $3.29.

June 27, Wedneday

Today was a very weird day. We walked into Davenport for coffee and then decided to keep going since the weather was bright and clear. We were going to try and make it to Debuque and stay there tonight, but it wasn't meant to be.

Lock 14 was really fast, and they even had a Green Bay bench on the lock...

Lock 13 in Clinton, IA.... JERKS. We waited for over an hour without hearing from them on the radio. Then we waited another hour for a barge to get through. Then a dark cloud wall / storm came in, so we turned around before locking and went back to a Marina in Clinton to stay until the storm cleared. We didn't want to get caught on the other side of the dock which is like a big lake. We snapped and got everything set, had a grilled cheese, opened the vee windows and slept for a couple of hours. When we got up and went back to the lock, we had to wait again for another hour! We pulled into the lock, and nobody was there. I grabbed two lines and threw one up to Kip in the bridge, while the bow of the boat started to hit the wall and Kip nearly fell. ARG!

The picture of the marker is there because it is called the Elk River Light marker... my girls will think that's fun. Kip also spotted three eagles and a huge nest in the tree.

We arrived at Bellvue and Lock 12 said it would be an hour and it was already 7:30 p.m. We got a spot on a local gas dock for $20 and walked up to get supper. We walked around the town, which is really nice, and then called it a day. There were so many fireflys that it looked like fireworks in the grass. The sunset was beautiful.

While I am writing this blog, Kip is cleaning the refrigerator. What a deal. Tomorrow we hope to get to Guttenburg or somewhere in there, so that we can make it to LaCrosse by Friday evening.

In the picture of the back of Kip's shirt you can see our boat on the gas dock. We traveled 85 miles today.

June 26, Tuesday

Kip let me sleep in until 8 am today. I'm so glad. We grabbed coffee and left, heading to Davenport, IA.

We stopped in Muscatine, IA and had lunch. We also stopped in the hardware store for ice and met Pearl and another lady who were cashiers. They were so nice. They went through the post card rack and handed us one and told us "to tell everyone we talked to two nice old ladies in Muscatine." We were getting ready to leave the slip, and two men came down and asked us if we were the people on the long boat trip. He said that the ladies at the hardware store told them to come and talk to us. One of the guys runs the Muscatine boat show that is in May. The web site is muscatineboatshow.com, if anyone is interested.

Ashley: We went through a town called Montpellier, Iowa today. It didn't look like France though! We also went past Walnut Grove!!! We didn't see Laura Ingalls though.

There weren't as many deadheads today, which was good. The temp is in the 90s and very, very humid. When underway, we are traveling about 23 mph and the breeze feels good. Once we stop, we sweat!

We went through 3 or 4 locks ranging from 5 feet to 12 feet. Everyone has been very nice to talk to. People in the lock observation deck wanted to come with us! We had to wait one half hour at the last one, and we were baking... so we jumped in the river for a few minutes to cool off. The lock master told us that the locks were only supposed to last for 40 years, but it has been 70 years now and some of them need repair. The bad part is there is no money to make the repairs, so one side of the Davenport double lock is idle. There was a 50' Trawler style boat from LaCrosse traveling southbound on the river, and they told the lock master they were heading south for the winter, and that didn't make any sense to us or the lock operator (especially since the best part of summer just started). We also ran into a pontoon boat from Wisconsin and chatted with them for a minute.

We stopped at the Lindsay Yacht Club in Davenport, Iowa to meet up with Chris F. (Productivity, Inc. - Iowa) and his wife Rita. They took us out on their very nice 35' Chris Craft. We ate at TGI Fridays and they gave us the tour of the city. It was very nice, and Kip was happy that he didn't have to drive for a while. Thanks Chris and Rita. We had fun today. They have many casino boats here for you gamblers. We got gas at $3.49 a gallon. We went about 85 miles today total. Tomorrow there is a 70% chance of rain, so we put the canvas on the bridge and the back deck so we are prepared. If it is bad weather, we might just stay here another night since traveling is no fun in the rain.

An update about Carlo: he went to the dr. today and found out he does NOT have to have surgery on his knee or leg, but he has to wear a cast for one month. We are happy it is not as severe as we first thought.