We spent the first three weeks of July at the condo. I ordered the fabric for the new dodger and set to work with the help of a DVD I had purchased from sail rite on how to make one. We had already decided a prototype made out of inexpensive material would be a good idea. There is a JoAnn Fabric just down the street form the condo and I found some cotton duck at 4.99 a yard. Following the DVD instructions I added seam allowances to the pattern and laid out the pieces. The material wasn’t as stiff as Sunbrella which made it easier to work with and I could sew it with my less expensive and much easier to use sewing machine. (Yes I have two). Once I had it assembled we took it up to Indiantown and tried it on the boat. Of course there were adjustments needed but the overall fit wasn’t too bad. We brought it back to the condo where I worked on it and adjusted the original pattern. As we suspected the traveler and front edge were going to give us a b*tch of a time. We made two more trips up to work on the prototype before stashing it for the summer with some notes. It was time to head north.
We had decided to take our time driving north this summer and see some of the country that where we had never been. We had hoped to stop and see our sailing friend Janet, just North of Atlanta on our way up but she was traveling. We were headed to Tim’s Ford State Park in Tennesee which was too far to travel in one day so our first night out was spent in a hotel in Tifton Ga. We pulled out of Boynton On July 22 with the car packed to the rafters and a new “Just In Case” strapped to the roof. We were definitely a sight to behold!
We spent a wonderful week camping at Tim’s Ford. I had seen an episode of Lake Front Bargain Hunters on HGTV that had featured the park and decided I wanted to go there. It’s actually a damned river that makes the lake which is beautiful. Our campsite was perfect nestled in the trees. The park has hiking, swimming and golf course. Scott played one round and I enjoyed the trails. We both enjoyed the lake. The park is only 14 miles from Lynchburg TN home of the Jack Daniel’s distillery. We took the tour which was interesting and fun. It’s quite the process to make Jack. Hightly recommend the tour if you are in the area. Strangely enough Lynchburg is a dry town to this day.
On July 30 we broke camp loaded up the car and headed North to Ohio. We had picked this park because it was located half the distance to our final destination Rochester. Bucks Creek Park in Ohio is located North East of Cincinatti near Yellow Springs. It is also on a damned river and has a large lake. We saw several deer while we were there living up to the parks name. The sites here are grassy and open. We spent 5 nights here and explored the area a bit. We visited Youngs New Jersey Dairy. They’ve quite the operation set up with the ice cream made on the premises using milk from their heard of Jersey cows. They host birthday parties have some rides for the kids, a play area, batting cages and some goats for the kids to pet. It was packed with families and the ice cream was outstanding.
We also visited the town of Yellow Springs home to Antioch University with a large population of artists. We poked about in the shops but found nothing that we needed to buy.
We pulled into Rochester on August 3 where we were enthusiastically greeted by Jessica and her family.

The picture is of Tim's Ford Lake behind our campsite where we could swim. It truly is a beautiful place.