After 2 months of living with our kids, we decided we better head out before they threw us out like yesterdays smelly trash.  Besides, we checked the weather down south and it sounded like the worst of the heat was over :).  We certainly enjoyed the hospitality of our daughter and her husband and we’ll miss seeing them and our Grandson and Granddog everyday.

Aren’t they cute???

Before we left, we decided to let Smokey stay with his big brother in his new house till we come back in December.  We are still planning on scoping out some marinas for next summer, we figured it would be a little easier getting into hotels without having to sneak Smokey in.  He looks like he is pining away for us, doesn’t he?  Ungrateful wretch. 

We always enjoy road trips when ever we travel.  We always see so many new and interesting things on the road.  Like this…..

Follow Me Truck

The “Follow Me” truck.  We were on a two lane road and they were doing some kind of repair work.  This guys job was to lead traffic back and forth between the two stop points on the road.  What a sack job!

After 2 leisurely days of travel, we arrive back at the boat on September 3rd and guess what?  It was still floating!  We were so happy!  As we walked down the dock we did a double take…..what?  There are two Navigators there.  The slip next to us had a Navigator in it.  The people who owned it are taking their Navigator from where they bought it in Punta Gorda, FL, to their home in Arkansas.  They didn’t have any experience traveling this route so they have hired a couple of Captains to help them take the boat home.

Another Navigator

Theirs is a 51 Navigator, 2007, so a few years newer than ours.  A little different hull design and cooler sliding glass doors in the back with a big “N” as the door handle.  They also have a kitty on board by the name of Mr. Sir (I think).

Mr. Sir

This is what he looks like, too bad Smokey isn’t here to meet him, I’m sure they could have been good friends 🙂

After we were done checking out the new neighbor, we found our boat in pretty good condition.  A few bugs here and there

Dirt by cockpit

Drain by side door

and a little spider poop.  Gary sprayed the cover of the slip this spring to keep the spider population down and it looks like it worked pretty well.  We did find this bug up front.

Big Ugly Dead Bug

Man I am glad I didn’t find this thing crawlin around.  I get the willies just lookin at it!

While we were gone we kept one air unit on hoping it would keep the boat from getting stinky and full of mildew.  It worked and the inside of the boat smelled good and there was no mildew.  We did find that one of the toilet bowls was dry.  A few of our friends in Minnesota have homes down south and when they come back to Minnesota in the summer, they put a toilet plug or saran wrap over the toilet bowl to keep the water from evaporating.  I think someone needs to come out with instructions for all the stuff you should do when you leave your home for an extended period of time.  Who’d a thought the water in the toilet would evaporate.

Gary had put half of the cushions in the VIP room while the guys here were working on the hoist.  The rest he kept covered on the flybridge. When we got back he took off the covers and found this

Mildew on Cushions

It looked much worse but Gary had started to clean it before a took the picture.  So all our cushions that were covered looked like this.  Crap!  He just got done cleaning them before we left.  I guess this is another lesson learned.  Either take your covers off or take the cushions in if your going to be gone during the hot and humid summer.  Luckily he found a cleaner and a mildew block by 3M to put on after he cleaned them.  Hopefully the block will do the trip to keep the mildew away.  It was sure a bugger to get it off.

We decided we better also look under our Bimini which also had a cover on it.  No mildew but it had mud bees that had started to build a nest in there.  Luckily they were gone and just the mud pack was left, no harm, no foul there.  Whew, dodged a bullet there 🙂

It took us a week but we have finally gotten the boat ship shape and we are back to our regular routine.  Gary, being the good husband that he is, helps me with the dirty dishes.  Sometime I wash and he dries and sometimes he washes and I dry.  Can you tell who dried these dishes?

Dry dishes all ready to be put away

We have a few more weeks before we leave on a road trip to Branson, MO with my brother and his wife.  We’ll keep you posted on how that goes, in the mean time we are hanging out at Aqua, at G52.

G52