MIDORI ADVENTURES

We arrived in Ninette, Manitoba, last Wednesday night, July 2nd.

It has been almost four weeks since my last posting and what a busy time it has been.

The "haul out" was changed to Tuesday, June 17th , and we were finally ready, but as we prepared to leave the dock, the shift cable on the port motor broke. Before we even had time to think too much, our dock neighbor, Bob, on TULUM III lowered his dinghy into the water and borrowed our dinghy motor and tied up to our port rear cleat -the idea being to act as the port motor! Chris, from ZULIA accompanied us to the "haul out" dock and all went very well. (We met Chris and Liz at Green Turtle Cay in the Abacos and had not been in touch until they arrived in Brunswick about three days after us). In the meantime, Liz and Bob's wife, Gail, drove our truck from the marina to the boatyard. Many thanks to Gail and Bob, Chris and Liz for their assistance.

MIDORI's keels are resting on blocks and four boat stands have been placed under the bridge deck as per PDQ guidelines. All that remained to be done was the shrink wrap and Chris and Liz offered to send us photos when it was done.

We departed Brunswick, GA at noon and stopped in Wyethville, WV at 7:00 p.m. and were amazed at what good time we made. I'm not sure if it was because of our GPS Navigator or because we were accustomed to traveling at only 5 mph!

On our second day, we crossed the border at Buffalo, NY at about 4:00 p.m. and decided to stay in Niagara Falls overnight, as neither one of us had been back there since childhood. The following morning, Brian had to search in the bottom of his luggage for some long pants as we found the temperature quite cool (15C /59F) And when we walked through the touristy "amusement park" area (which was not there when we were kids), we wondered if we had made the right decision, but when we got to the beautiful park and walkway on the riverfront and caught our first glimpse of the Falls, we were very pleased about our decision.

We traveled on to Kitchener and had a great visit with my Mom, sister Dana, and brother-in-law Paul. We also got to see my Aunt Estelle and Uncle Don, cousin Linda and her daughter, Jennifer at Karaoke night on Saturday where Paul performed in his usual great style and Dana, Linda and I even attempted an "oldie" (do any of you remember the Shoop Shoop song?)

We departed Kitchener on Monday, June 23rd and traveled North to Sudbury to visit our son, Chris, daughter-in-law, Melissa, and our youngest grandson, 3 � yr old Matthew. Matthew did not attend Day Care on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday giving us the opportunity to bond with him again. Needless to say, we were pretty pooped when evening came ! We actually moved to the "camp" (Ontario word for cabin) on Thursday evening and had a full day with him at the lake on Friday. Chris & Melissa joined us on Friday night after work. We then spent three full days at the camp enjoying all the water activities and Grandpa Brian even helped Chris put up some siding. Although the weather was good, Brian and I were still feeling a bit cool.....

We departed on CANADA DAY - July 1st, hoping to give Chris, Melissa and Matthew at least one day to themselves before going back to work. Of course, we were also starting to get eager about getting home because we had never anticipated returning so late - my goodness it's July already! We spent the night in Ironwood, Michigan and on the following day traveled through Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota and arrived in Ninette at approximately 5:30 p.m.

It's nice to be home and in spite of all the chores that come with putting a house back in order, seeing the peonies and poppies in bloom was wonderful and, the grass seed we had planted in the Fall actually turned into a lawn! Pelican Lake may not be pristine, but it has a special beauty that we value.

The welcome home greetings, waves and toots as people walk or drive by as well as the hugs and kisses from special friends is really appreciated.

We plan on returning to Georgia in October, so that doesn't give us too much time to get things in order. I hope to continue on with the blog over the summer, so stay tuned.

We hope to have a new photo album posted in the next couple of days.

Lynn and Brian