Category: Summer 2022

Here’s a map of Tumbleweed’s stops during 2022, when we headed roughly west through Canada and four of five Great Lakes.  As always, pressing one of the little red balloon-looking thingys will load up our blog posts related to that spot.

So we love our Arizona desert.  Gorgeous winters.  Sunsets on the mountains.  Cholla Pickleball.  Dana’s rescue dogs at Home Fur Good.  Great friends.  Funky desert plants that look normal to us but strange to East-Coasters.

What we don’t enjoy, however, are 100° temperatures that only will climb from there.  That’s not even a joke, even though it’s barely mid-May.

Summers here suck almost as much as Nick Saban and serial killers.  Thus it’s a good thing we also love oceans and rivers and canals, and sleeping on a boat, and sunrises over the water, and a different set of great friends.

The point is, tomorrow morning we leave Scottsdale and head back to Connecticut.  Oscar is older and slower, but we think he must be looking forward to inherently unstable surfaces since he hasn’t voiced any objection.

PSA No. 1:  Rental cars are insanely expensive these days.  Cargo vans, however, are $26 per day.  And as an added bonus, loading doesn’t require much more than just tossing stuff in since the cargo area is huge.  So we bought a bunch of provisions here since, what the heck, we have a huge cargo van reserved.

PSA No. 2:  The Hertz place on Bell Road sucks almost as much as a Phoenix summer.  They tell you your cargo van is ready to be picked up, except when you go way over to the west side to get it not only do they not have one, the frazzled girl at the counter keeps taking walk-in customers rather than focusing like a laser on your needs.  Then when she finally has one delivered from Tempe hours later, the AC doesn’t work.  And it’s roughly 140° inside the van so ain’t nobody taking it.  Even more hours later she finally admits that Hertz in fact has no cargo vans—or mini vans—in the entire Phoenix metropolitan area.  “How about a 12’ box truck?”  Um, no.  Ten miles per gallon in an uncomfortable cab across the entire United States doesn’t work for normal people or Oscar.

Just moments before Doug’s head exploded like one of those pressure-cooker bombs the Tsarnaev brothers set off in Boston, Hertz’ final option was a SUV which isn’t nearly big enough to hold all our stuff.  Screw it.  Hunt down a car-top carrier and we’ll ditch all those things we felt smart for buying in advance.  So no, that isn’t a cargo van.

All we know is that Tumbleweed better be ready to go, because we have big summer plans and those plans require leaving Mystic Shipyard.  In the immediate future, we’re counting on Dave and Becky cruising a bit up the Hudson with us.  If we get through a few dicey bridges intact, we’re picking up Brent and Karen—who by force of habit we collectively call Second Wave even though that boat has new owners and a new name—in Burlington.  Then to Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, and Hamilton for the Great White North portion of the summer.**  Ultimately we hope to be somewhere south of Tennessee by the time the Arizona winter calls us back, with a bunch more guests along the way.

Special thanks to Jack and Sharon for the wonderful last meal and for gathering our mail and checking on the house until we return.

——————

*We won’t catalog all our stops between Scottsdale and Mystic, but assuming we aren’t swallowed up by forest fires along the way we’re heading first to Santa Fe to see Dana’s dad and stepmom.  Hence the Don Williams song title.  As an aside, we once saw him in concert.  He was cranky and unpleasant.

**Take off, eh.

We’ll have more about Essex next post, but for now the important thing simply is that we’re in Essex.  Remember when it was over 100° in Arizona?  Since then we made it past huge forest fires in New Mexico, 4” of snow in Wyoming, 40-knot winds in South Dakota, and what seemed like two months of boredom across a bunch of silly states before we got back to Connecticut, where everything was perfect.  Woooo!

Actually not everything was quite perfect.  Tumbleweed was in the water, but the good folks at Mystic Shipyard and New England Bow Thruster still had her in a state of minor disarray.

Setbacks like this are why God blessed us with Marriott points, however, and another night in a hotel wasn’t all that inconvenient.  And the good folks at the shipyard were pretty efficient all-in-all.  Great place.

By today everything was buttoned up and Tuesday’s sea-trial with the new fins was uneventful, so off we went.

Oscar needed all of about ten seconds to remember that he likes cruising days.

The Sound was too calm for us to test the new stabilizer system, which on balance was okay with us.

Heading up the Connecticut River, we passed on by the place we stayed in Old Saybrook a few posts and eight months ago.

As we anticipated, Next Stop, Christmas was pretty hokey.

Which got us to Essex.  Yesterday the nice dockhand at the Safe Harbor Dauntless marina said their diesel fuel was $5.14, which was about $2 less than anyplace else.  But, she warned us, a new shipment was coming in and the price would go up.  This morning the nice dockhand said they were expecting the new shipment today.  Grrr.  We tied off on the fuel dock literally as the Dennis Fuel truck pulled in, but got what in these absurd times counts as a deal.  Woooo!

That fuel savings allowed us to have a great dinner at the Griswold Inn.

If we weren’t so tired and the Vols weren’t playing Vandy in the SEC baseball tournament on TV we’d discuss the lengthy history of the Inn, along with a bit about Clark and Ellen and Aunt Edna.  Maybe next time. We’re staying in Essex until Monday so as to avoid Memorial Weekend boating knuckleheads and crappy weather, so there’s plenty of time.

Scoring what counts these days as a good deal on fuel—following a most excellent first day of cruising this summer—should yield a great night’s sleep.  Waking up to rain at 2 a.m. and remembering that the one of us who was supposed to put the cover back on the dinghy failed miserably at his job so had to go out and do it in the dark rain, however, tends to ruin any such plan.  But the Friday morning fog on the Connecticut River was pretty, mostly because we had no plan to go out in it.

Now, as promised, a bit about Essex, Connecticut, a town steeped in American history.  First, Essex has a store that only sells rubber ducks.  This has nothing to do with American history, of course, but we’ve never seen such a place before so we bought four ducks for Shannon.

Second, as previously noted, the night we arrived we had dinner at the Griswold Inn.  Turns out it’s the oldest continuously operating inn in the country, or so it claims.  The British ate brunch at the “Gris”—as the locals call it—after sneaking up the Connecticut River in 1814 and torching a bunch of wooden warships right about where we docked Tumbleweed.  We’re old enough to vaguely remember Dark Shadows, a weird soap-opera partially filmed there.  Mallory and Shannon are old enough to remember The Bachelorette, which at some point featured the place.  Other historical stuff and movies and whatnot also involved the Griswold Inn but we’re not cataloguing all of them in our blog.  What we do know for certain is that the potato cakes were unbelievably delicious.

The point is, Essex is a dang charming town, despite the periodic rain showers we encountered.

In addition to history, Essex has lots of flowers this time of year.

Because of the amazing experiences we enjoyed aboard Misty Pearl, we’re quite attracted to Pearl names.  We’ve met Red Pearl and Mystic Pearl and maybe a couple others.  Pearl the Gem car gave us a ride in Rock Hall that time her owner saw us lugging watermelons in the heat.  Tumbleweed very nearly was Desert Pearl.  This Pearl, however, is by far the most pitiful.

Beautiful boat.  Gloomy owners.*

Sometimes we bumble across things that defy explanation.

A couple of final notes about Essex, which we’re leaving tomorrow morning:

Turtle—which everyone will recall was the first submarine and which thus led in a direct line to Sean Connery defecting from Russia with the Red October—may have been built in Essex, although the sources we tapped were moderately equivocal.  At a minimum, there’s a really cool operational Turtle replica hidden in a back room at the really cool Connecticut River Museum.

Turtle reminds one of us of that time Doug and Brad hunted down and purchased a full set of plans from an eccentric inventor who designed a DIY personal submarine back in the 50s.  Sadly, the notion of building a sub went nowhere, along with The Great Sedona UFO Hoax and several other things that seemed brilliant whilst discussing them over beers at Pomeroy’s.

Back to Essex, where every October the town holds a Dogs on the Dock Festival.  The event includes numerous dog competitions we’re confident Oscar would dominate if only (1) he was fourteen years younger and (2) sport wasn’t beneath his dignity.  Our boy’s a sleeper, not a fighter.

Essex originally was called “Potopaug” by the natives that the nice English colonists shoved off the land in 1645.  “Potopaug” is way more fun to say out loud than is “Essex.”

Hey wait, the title of this post mentions possums.**  What’s that all about?  It’s about the lil guy who provided some Sunday excitement on the docks, that’s what.  At least to our knowledge he didn’t go into the bathrooms.

Bonus scenery!  Bonus animal!

Tomorrow off to Branford.

——————

* UPDATE:  Pitiful Pearl’s owners aren’t gloomy sad-sacks after all.  The boat was named after a really bad cartoon character from some 90 years ago that neither of us are old enough to have heard of before Friday.

The dude who created Pitiful Pearl later in life created Shrek, which we assume he viewed as a much bigger point of pride.  We would.

**Before we get any comments from smarty-pants, we acknowledge that in scientific literature “possum” is supposed to be spelled with an “o” at the front.  However, this isn’t scientific literature.  It’s mostly nonsense.

Before leaving Essex Monday morning we popped over to Main Street for the Memorial Day Parade.  No floats or cheerleaders or clowns on unicycles. Basically it was a few veterans and a smattering of fifes and drums, strolling through town to the various cemeteries to honor fallen service people.  The entire parade passed by in about three minutes.  And absolutely was amazing.  Very moving.

Yup, even the view pulling out of Essex is cool.

Then west to Branford for the night.  On the way out to a flawless cruising day we passed by Old Saybrook again, where Old Saybrook Light was draped Old Gloriously.

A quite pleasing four hours later we pulled into the rather oddly-named Bruce & Johnsons Marina for the night.  The most we can say about Branford is that of all the many New England coastal towns we’ve visited, Branford is one of them.  Nothing significant nearby the waterfront, mediocre restaurant, and no decent place for Oscar to wobble along before Dana picks him up and carries him.   About the only excitement was finding a non-pitiful Pearl to add to our list.

But hey, the marina is nice enough despite the odd name, the dockhands were great, and the free pumpout boat arrived about fifteen minutes after we tied up.  Plus, Branford isn’t a no-drone zone.  Even collectively, however, those aren’t enough to make us want to stay longer.

So we didn’t.  Instead, we had a third-straight exceptional day on the Long Island Sound.  The new fins did their job.  Beautiful.  Flybridge weather.

The only plot twist came in the form of Stacie Frances, who seemed rather intent on ramming us.  We understand that as an active fishing boat she’s the stand-on vessel.  However, every time we turned away from her, she turned towards us.  We’re nearly certain that the dude doing the Crazy Ivan was looking down at his fishfinder and never even saw us.**

Anyway, the rest of the trip—at least as far as the Sheffield Island Lighthouse—went more smoothly.

The Sheffield Island Light—finished in 1828—was intended to warn mariners of the numerous rocks and shoals at the mouth of the Norwalk River.  It’s a cool limestone Victorian building and all, but apparently someone quickly figured out that the rocks and shoals extended way out another mile or so, so as to necessitate a different lighthouse that actually gives mariners an appropriate warning.

Now Sheffield Island has no lighthouse but instead has a cool Victorian museum made of limestone, which is of no use to mariners unless they’re taking their kids out there for an educational visit.  Either way, we didn’t hit any rocks or shoals so something is working.

About the time we turned past the more useful Greens Ledge Light into the channel to Norwalk, Dana remembered that the Norwalk virus causes diarrhea and vomiting.  That’s some unpleasant word association right there.  Unpleasant, and something of a bad omen.  Because the dockhand fielding radio calls knew nothing about our slip assignment and the dockmaster who did know something was absent.  After we bobbed a bit in the current they finally directed us in.  To a slip without a working power pedestal.  The hottest day of the year so far and we couldn’t turn on the air conditioning.  Grrrr.

As usually seems to be the case, however, nobody died and everything worked out.  A cold front rolled in.  The scooters took us down to the beach and then through well-kept neighborhoods to a most delicious dinner.  Yup, Norwalk has a beach, where people were sunbathing as we rode by in sweatshirts.

Sunset back at the boat may not have been the most spectacular, but what the hell, we’ll include it anyway since we didn’t take any pictures of Tumbleweed.

Turns out Norwalk also had great places for Dana to run in the morning while everyone else exercised on the recliners and cat beds.  Norwalk is way better than diarrhea and vomiting.  We’d come back for sure.

Wednesday brought another short travel day.  A bit breezy and cloudy and wavy, but the stabilizers smoothed out the two- to three-footers that periodically crossed our path.  After only minor dock confusion we tied up at Minneford’s, again in the shadows cast by ghosts of Confederate POWs who died out there on Hart Island.

The swans welcomed us back.  Dana is sure they’re the same ones who played in our hose shower last time we were here.  Maybe, maybe not.

Minneford Marina is on City Island, which is one of the Pelham Islands, which once were their own thing until the Bronx gobbled them up.

The island is a mile-and-a-half-long crowd of houses and apartment buildings, and Italian restaurants, and seafood restaurants.  Between the three of us we walked or were carried up and down the entire length of  it.  Red Buttons was born on City Island.  For a guy with a successful career as a comedian, Red Buttons was only moderately funny.  There’s also what sort of passes for a beach, although no sane person would sunbathe on it regardless of the weather.

But here’s the thing.  Although there’s nothing objectively awesome about City Island or Minneford Marina, we really like them both.

Anyway, in order to time the East River, we turned our backs to New Rochelle at 12:30 this afternoon.  Sadly, in this blog we’ve already used up our allotment of observations about Rob and Laura Petrie and their exceptionally bland son Ritchie.  So much for New Rochelle.

Since we’ve now posted about trips through New York City multiple times, we’ve also used up all the applicable lines from Warriors and The Godfather and Seinfeld.  We’ve mustered all we can about Riker’s Island and the United Nations complex and the rest of the cool stuff that sits between Long Island Sound and Jersey City.  But here’s the Brooklyn Bridge and a tiny Statue of Liberty one more time, because we just can’t help ourselves.

As we reached the narrow channel into Liberty Landing, a ferry zoomed by right as the dockmaster was changing our slip assignment at the last minute.

Shenanigans aside, the view from this joint never gets old.

Turns out we aren’t the only Loopers who like Liberty Landing.  Seems we’ve finally joined the peloton, although for some reason we were stuck out where God hides his socks, well past the range of Wi-Fi and cell service.

On a final note, tomorrow is the third of June.  We hope everyone will join us in a moment of silence on the anniversary of that sleepy, dusty Delta day that Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.  Now pass the biscuits, please.***

——————

*Special Memorial Day thanks to our buddy Lt. Col. Jim Tucker, who gave us one of our favorite Loop experiences.

**How cool is that?  Back-to-back posts containing references to The Hunt for Red October!

***Maybe it’s just coincidence, but June 3 also apparently is National Donut Day.