The fourth of July festivities began early at Middle Bass Island. We awoke to find one of our land neighbors shooting skeet off of his deck. Now I am not a rabid anti gun person, but it is a bit disconcerting to see someone aiming a shotgun at you when you peer through your binnoculars to see what is going on! So I callled the local police station and they sent someone over to check it out.

After that we had a quiet day lounging and Chris grilled hotdogs. We took a nap then got up for the fireworks. They were spectacular and we had the best seat in the house! It was a rough day for Dorito though, and he spent it buried under the covers.

We used our new Honda generator to stay out at anchor for a total of 7 nights! We alternated between charging the batteries and running the AC. Very civilized. But it was time to pull into a marina. We chose a marina in Detroit, the William G. Milliken marina, run by the state, as it offered a free laundry. And we had a lot of laundry.

We did stay in Middle bass Island one more day after the 4th. On the 5th we put our bikes in our dinghy and went into the island. I'm afraid we looked a little bit like the Beverly Hillbillies, as our dinghy is a little small. We rode all over and it was so pretty. And a nice bike ride, all flat terrain. We had lunch at a great little place, EJ Walleyes and went to the little grocery store.

We left the morning of the 6th. We stopped in Put-in-Bay for fuel and to pump our tanks. I was a little sorry we didn't get a chance to walk around and check the town out, but it was mostly bars and it would have been loud and rowdy to moor there. And it would have cost 65 dollars a night!

The trip to Detroit took 7.5 hours and we had horrible bugs again! Little cruncy ones this time that seemed to flock toour boat to die in the cockpit. We passed the Red and Blue Battle of Lake Erie buoy. It's hard to believe it was the scene of a fierce naval battle between us and the British.

I admit that I was not looking forward to our stay inDetrit, but ended up pleasently surprised. The marina was very noce, a little north of downtown. There is a long riverwalk and much revitilization on the waterfront. We did 5 loads of laundry! Every Monday in Detroit they have a bike ride called the Slow Roll. We estimated at least 4500 bikes went by! When it got dark, they put neon lights ont he bikes and had a big party. It was something to see. The next day it was rainy so we decided to stay one more day. We walked about 1.2 miles to a grocery store and then took a taxi home. It didn't feel terribly unsafe and everybody was nice. The taxi driver even said, see Detroit isn't as bad as they say it is! (And after reading about all of the murders in Milwaukee and Chicago...well its just terrible) Then we rode our bikes downtown to the liquor store. It takes a lot more energy to get supplies then it did in New Berlin!