Looking back through the fuzzy tunnel of time, our first official Looping month is in the books. We haven’t regretted it for a second. 768.8 nautical miles. Five states and one district. Two bays and one ocean. Twenty-three canal locks. One Statue of Liberty. Only one major docking embarrassment. Only four or five overflowing junk drawers. Zero lost drones. Zero dogs overboard. Dozens of new friends. Those are darn good numbers.
As surreal as we find thinking about what we’ve done so far, we find it surreal-er to see how little we’ve done compared to what’s left. We have a wall map in the pilothouse on which we place a numbered red dot at every stop. It puts things into sharp perspective.
What we have regretted, however, is the WiFi situation. One of the many things we took for granted in Arizona was fast and consistent internet access. Marina WiFi as a general rule is not good, bless their hearts, and internet access is quite important for resolving arguments and watching videos of baby animals. We bought a Redport WiFi booster well before we started but until now hadn’t found anybody competent to set it up on the boat. We haven’t configured it yet but at least it’s installed.
The first night in Brewerton we settled in at dusk to watch an episode of Downton Abby we downloaded before we left Washington. Almost immediately the volume was drowned by what sounded like an army of digeradoos in the boat. Fifty thousand digeradoos. (That’s the last quote from Walk Hard you’ll read on this blog. Promise.) Turns out the Brewerton Speedway—1/3 mile of banked clay—is just across the Oneida River from where we were docked.
Ample sunlight remained to allow a short drone flight over to film some action, but in a democratic vote the idea soundly rejected by a landslide margin of 1 to 1.
Dana’s sister Liz arrived on Sunday from Texas. Given the shockingly high number of Texans on the Loop, hopefully she feels right at home. Except her home in Austin is much bigger, of course. The Stagg sisters took the Hobies for their maiden voyage while the rest of us cheered from the deck. Actually the boys were sleeping but Doug cheered from the deck.
Loop or no Loop, this is the time of every year when we find ourselves woefully behind on the Continuing Legal Education credits we need to make the State Bar of Arizona happy. That meant a couple of days watching videos of lawyers rather than exploring central upstate New York. The clouds and scattered showers at least provided the proper dreary ambience. We did walk to the local Mexican food restaurant. Not a Chuy’s but passable, even with the Spanish version of Achy Breaky Heart on the soundtrack.
On the way back from our next dinner at the seafood place that unreasonably charges for seasonings we stopped by the car show/local band/ice cream stand.
All small towns are pretty much the same, although this one was cold. In late June.
It’s customary for boats traveling in foreign waters to fly a small courtesy flag to honor the host country. We aren’t much for customs, but we also figure Customs might be less likely to hassle us if we show proper respect. Kind of like putting a sticker supporting police on your car in an effort to avoid tickets. We picked up our Maple Leaf and will install it when we reach Canada.
Tomorrow we head to Oswego to wait for a good window to cross Lake Ontario. We have no interest in the 14-foot waves that blow up when the storms roll in from the west.
