Getting ready to leave

This was a familiar sight on our dock this weekend as people unloaded their boats before they left for winter storage. We only came up with two small boxes but there will be many more before we take our last cruise of the year.

Frances has been living on the boat since May and we've accumulated a lot of stuff that won't take freezing well. It doesn't really seem like work, though. We've done this many times before.

As you can see from the brief video, Saturday was gray and soon after Bill arrived it began to rain. Somehow, that didn't make much difference because we read and chatted in our nice warm cabin while the rain and wind blew. We thought we were the only people on our dock but we learned later that at least one other couple preferred their boat to home even in the rain.

Our trip to Monson

Sunday morning dawned cool and beautifully sunny. Our plan was to drive to Monsan, Massachusetts and pick up a tire at the the home of dock mates John and Joanne, neither of whom would be home.

Why we needed a particular tire will be left unexplained. It's too complicated, but trust us, we needed the tire that John had offered and we were going to go get it. We'd never been to Monson but how hard can a 30 mile trip be?

After a good breakfast at Olde Times in Norwich, off we went, equipped with Google Map directions and a Magellan GPS unit that Frances sometimes uses in her car. Things went really well as we drove north on Route 32 and "Thema," the name we assigned to the female voice on the GPS, warned us of every turn, just as she should.  Near the Massachusetts border, Thema got a little confused and decided that we should drive west, not north where we wanted to go. We followed her directions and finally stopped in the parking lot of a little hospital. We fiddled with Thelma's few controls and decided to backtrack. Thelma liked that and eventually, guided us right to John's driveway.

We collected the tire, left a thank-you note and headed back, now that we knew where we were going.

At this time of year, a drive through this rural part of Connecticut is just wonderful. Thelma, we found, liked to be near the windshield where she could see the satellites. Maybe that's why she got confused.

When we got back, we unloaded a few things and started up the engines and let them warm up.

We only have a week or two left before Frances and Pooka, the boat cat, move back to their winter home.