Rita getting caught up on my posts! I have been only posting on Facebook and I want to get everyone caught up who are only following us on the blog!

We have some down time waiting for a lock to open so I thought I’d share a story.

On our way from Kenosha to Hammond, a pin came loose where our dinghy caddy sits on the swim platform (pics below). Then the arm that this pin secures wiggled forward with the movement and vibration of the boat. We’re not sure why, but for sure we’ll be watching this more closely here forward.

While attempting to get the arm back in place to secure the pin, somehow we managed to bend the bracket that hold the other arm Apparently we don’t have enough boat projects already

Scott locates a place that’s like a boat stuff donation center. It’s about 3 miles away. We know right where it is because we drove there the day of or day after our arrival. How did we drive? Well one of our fellow loopers had rented a car for the week and was letting us all use it. How nice is that?! I cannot believe I didn’t mention that earlier!

SIDENOTE: Loopers are so nice! Another guy let us borrow his 30-50 amp power adapter chord (I think that’s what it’s called) while we waited for ours to be delivered If not for we would have had to run our generator for power for important things like making my morning coffee, blow drying my hair, and the other niceties like AC, cooking, etc.

Back to the story. Well we didn’t want to hog the car, and I love walking, and it was a beautiful day so we decided to walk. Heck! It’s just a little further into Illinois.

We get to the boatyard, and they open three storage areas that look like big metal shipping containers, and they are jam packed with goodies. It’s a dirty job digging through all this stuff, but my years of garage sale experience has prepared me well Even though items were pretty organized, it’s important to look everywhere just in case. You might find something you need that you didn’t even know you needed.

They didn’t have a bracket, but they did say they had a guy who could straighten our bent one so we could use that until we can get a replacement. Hallelujah I say! I was not looking forward to having to tow the dinghy behind, especially not through locks where I have no idea what I’m doing anyhow. So, we leave our bracket there and will be back the next day to pick it up.

We took a more leisurely stroll back and detoured to walk along the shoreline more. Then we walked Jazzy and walked to get groceries. By the end of the day I had 27,402 steps which equals 12.14 miles Praise the Lord for the ability to do that!! However, in the interest of time, we may consider buying some foldable bikes. Maybe. Maybe not. I’m still undecided.

I almost forgot, we had a visitor Tuesday morning! A tiny little birdie flew into our boat! I talked her through how to get out the door and out the window in the helm. She was so cute! She paused to sit on the zipper of the window, admire the view and feel the breeze before flying off. Jazzy didn’t care though; she just looked at the bird and laid down. Clearly she’s not a bird hound.

Well I think our time hanging out waiting for this lock to open is almost done. I hope you enjoyed the read and the pics. Make it a great day! Be a blessing and be blessed