.... and other Bucket List trips!
Welcome to Dave and Joyce’s blog. This blog was initially created to capture our Great Loop adventure. However, it has now transformed into our “Bucket List adventures” blog. Many people followed our Great Loop blog and have told us how much they enjoyed it. That somewhat surprised us … and totally pleased us. So we decided to continue the blog with post Great Loop trips … i.e. “Bucket List”. We hope you enjoy our new adventures!
A note about navigating the blog: Since the beginning, the blog was an active journal, updated daily whenever Internet service was available. The latest information is always posted at the top of the blog page to make it easier for viewers to see our daily/weekly progress. However, when viewing it later, the format is a little awkward. For example, to see the pre- Great Loop blog, scroll down to the archive section and click on the last link July 2010 . After the page is displayed scroll down to the bottom and begin viewing by scrolling back to the top. This will give you a better sense of the trip since it is the true time sequence of our travels … we hope this makes sense … Enjoy!
Cell: 317-403-0128
Email: davejoyceajohnson@gmail.com
And now to regress a little back to Christmas. Granddaughter Kayla
sent some pictures that we had to publish:-)
Emily, Kayla and Chelsie ... grandpa's babes!
Bradley, Aaron, Chase, Andrew and Jerry ... grandma's dudes! Missing are Brandon, Michael and the Belgiium dudes.
Angie, Keith and Pam hamming it up.
Last Christmas was celebrated at Keith and Lori's home in Wallace Junction ... home of the soon to come Iron Horse Lake.
To the left Joyce laughs because she knows Dave doesn't know he is
standing beneath the mistletoe!
This place is paradise ... except when you have to sit in a dentist chair several hours. Root canals aren't fun even in paradise ... ask Dave, he knows!
Note: Joyce didn't fish ... she was our photographer.
Time to go to work!
This evening we visited Steve and Linda aboard "Yesterday's Dream". When we did the Loop, we did a lot of buddy boating with Steve and Linda.
For dinner Steve cooked beet burgers, corn and salad ... hey, Dave hates beets ... but loved Steve's beet burgers! I guess the saying " don't knock it until you've tried it" holds true. After dinner a round of Euchre ... the guys dominated of course :-)
Yesterday and today we were asked to join the "Committee boat" (i.e. Reflection) to help out with sail boat racing (or regatta, if you prefer) . The races were for Catalina 22's only. It was really neat! Dave was assigned to the stern of Reflection to place flags at the start of each race. There is a Prep flag, a Class Flag, a flag if one sail boat gets an early jump on the race, a flag to stop all boats for a restart ... and they even have a flag to stop the race if the committee screws up ... and, yep, we had to use that one once! Really not bad for six races (more complex than my simple explanation). Lots of fun and really nice to be back on board Reflection with Pat and George.
The races on Sunday were in the morning ... a little cooler and breezier than Saturday.
We found out that we were not positioned right under the bridge ... we needed to be more south/west. And, Walla!, we (actually Steve) caught a couple of keepers. After running out of chum, we ran out of fish ... which was really not a problem because the tide switched on us and the current under the bridge became almost unbearable ... time to leave!
Sorry Linda, we had to keep a few grunts to fill out our catch:-)
We left Indiana (and the snow) arriving in Marathon New Years day after spending New Years eve with Joyce's sister Judy and friend John. It is sooo nice to be back in the Keys! Above Joyce stands in front of our condo overlooking a channel that leads to the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf.
The condo that we are renting for 3 months is nice ... but doesn't match up to the view from Banana Bay. Above we join our Banana Bay friends for the customary 5:00 pm Happy Hour.
We are planning some fishing trips and look forward to fresh fish ... which we already have, thanks to Jim and Betty aboard Mimi. Jim went fishing today and caught a ton of yellow tail. More later ... gotta fire up the Weber grill!
Nice parade ... a real nice turn out ... Joyce was dreading it, but later admitted that she really had fun!
She's going to kill me for this!
Sunday morning Dave decided to hunt down the road from Angie and Rob's farm, behind Keith and Lori's home (okay, okay, Catholics, he went to church Saturday night). They have a nice home, and anyone who knows Keith, it stands to reason he would have a nice tree house for Dave to hunt out of. It doesn't get any better than that ... oh but it does! After shooting a deer, Dave walked back to the truck to get some knifes. Chase (right without hat) and buddy Clay came by. Not only did they help field dress the deer, they dragged it out of the woods and loaded it into the truck. Easiest hunt Grandpa every had ... talk about getting spoiled ... I think this is the way it should go every year :-)
First day of deer season at Wallace Junction. Above son-in-law Rob with back end of Polaris Ranger ATV full of deer.
Son Keith (in tractor) and Rob prepare to "prepare" deer. Heard of "chick magnet"? Well Rob was a deer magnet this morning. Dave saw a lot of deer this morning ... all going toward Rob's tree stand. Rob shot a doe and a buck ... he could have shot 3 more. Dave got zero deer ... but it was nice seeing so many (unfortunately out of range) ... but hey, there is always tomorrow!
Dave has been busy researching RVs and trucks. He finally settled on a lightweight 30' 5th Wheel RV from Heartland. Both Joyce and Dave looked at used stuff ... but strangely everything looked used. So we bought new. We again sought a used 3/4 ton truck, but they also were too used, thus a new "gas guzzling" truck. Sorry kids, money is going fast!
After Christmas we head for Marathon. We can wait to see our boating friends! Leaving the RV behind this trip and have rented a condo in Marathon close to Banana Bay marina. We plan several test cruises this spring in preparation for an early fall RV trip out west.
Note: Most of you know Pat and George Hospodar. They live in New Jersey on the ICW. They are one of the lucky ones. They lost two cars and had garage damage ... not bad compared to neighbors ... we are praying for them for the return of electricity.
Grandsons' Brad and Andrew with mom Lori, inside the RV. It looks
cramped ... and is because we can't extend the slid-outs because of the
narrow slip we are in. Not only does Captain Dave still have his
sea legs, but language also.
RV covered for winter.