Ready for the wedding and ready for more boating

VALOIS, New York, USA - It's a cliche to say that life has been a blur since we hit the ground in New York.

So there, I said another cliche.

But among the clean-up, paint-up, fix-up, eat-up, cook-up of getting ready for Saturday's wedding of Dustin and Cami, we did manage to get the Spirit of Louise pontoon boat launched. There was a minor miracle associated with all this: the trailer and car lights all worked.

Anyone who has ever done much trailering knows the odds on that happening when you have a new trailer and and old car doing the pulling.


Spirit of Louise ready for transport to Seneca Lake


Roger and the Admiral on the foredeck going up the lake

We took a nice boat ride/tour from Watkins Glen up to Valois, using about three gallons of gas in the thrifty 35 hp Mercury engine. (We've starting to keep track of such things much more closely now.) Along the way, in the 90-degree heat, we saw some early season swimmers. I say early because the lake water is barely 60 degrees, though because it is cold, not a weed has started growing yet.

The air however has warmed up - in the mid 90s several days and the hottest sale item at the local WalMart was not beer (though a lot of cases of beer and ice were sold this week), the hottest sale item were small window air conditioners.

When you combine the 90-degree temperatures with 90 percent humidity, it gets, as my mother used to say ' a little sticky.'

Little indeed.


Swimming in Watkins Glen


Ready for the plunge

We also spotted someone who has taken this converting-to-solar-power thing quite seriously. It made me wonder about dragging down more solar panels to Mexico for our Arroyo Seco compound. Electricity in Mexico is pretty expensive, so every amp-hour you can produce yourself put you ahead.

Still, at somewhere around $400-500 per panel, I need to ponder more.


One serious solar array

We also took some time out to purchase a new table and chairs for the house - very vintage, very cottage furniture stuff. The table is just the kind of artifact that the Admiral's late mother used to drag home - and then try to figure out where to stuff it in the house.

And at the same time Sylvia got to pet one of her favorite dogs here in this stretch of the state, the pet of the owners of the furniture store where we bought the set. Sometimes the dog will sing for us, though the pooch was pretty quiet this time.

Maybe on the next furniture run.


Just one song?


A table set even Sylvia's mother would have loved