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.