Hard Job On A Hot Day

They say that the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life are the day he buys it and the day he sells it. They also say that BOAT stands for Break Out Another Thousand because there is no question about it, boat ownership can be both joyful and frustrating at the same time, and it also can be darned expensive. But the thing nobody told me about before I bought my pontoon boat was that it also takes a lot of work to keep them in decent shape. Especially when you use them in saltwater, as we do.

As soon as we get home after every outing, I spray the pontoons and the underside of the boat down, as well as the trailer, to wash off the saltwater residue. Then I flush the engine with fresh water. But over time, salt spray gets all over the interior, as well as fish slime and things like that. So yesterday, Terry and I decided that we needed to clean the boat up before we put the cover back on.

The upholstery had lots of white blotches on it from saltwater, and using a Simple Green solution in water and miracle cleaning clothes, we attacked the stains on the seats, as well as on the dashboard, steering wheel, live wells, and the inside panels. That stuff is hard to get off! We scrubbed and scrubbed, and as soon as it dried off, some of the blotches were back. I think we got the worst of them eventually, and then Terry cleaned the vinyl deck.

It was a warm day, somewhere around 80 degrees, and by the time we got done and then got the cover put back on, the boat looked good, but we were both feeling the effects. Terry laid down on the bed with a fan on her to cool her down, we both drank a lot of water, and I took a tepid shower. It all helped, but we were both pretty wiped out for the rest of the day.

I still managed to knock out another 1,000 words or so in my new book, and I’ll be darned if a couple of my characters didn’t come up with something new that left me going, “What? Are you kidding me?” I darn sure never saw that coming!!

In yesterday’s blog, I told you about getting the Oculus Quest virtual reality headset and getting familiar with it a little bit. After cooling down with the shower, I spent an hour or so with the Wander app, and the more I use it, the more impressed I am! One of the characters in my Tinder Street series owns an automotive garage. That garage is a real place that I remembered from my teenage years in Toledo and using the Wander app, I was able to visit it again, and it looks just like I remembered and described it in the books.

Then I went to Astoria, Oregon, and crossed the Columbia River on the Astoria-Megler bridge that always scares me in a car or motorhome, and being on it in 3D is almost as frightening! I spent some time in Long Beach and Ilwaco, Washington, popped into Seaside, Oregon, for a few minutes, then wandered down the Embarcadero in Morro Bay, California, where Terry and I spent our honeymoon and a place we have visited several times since then.

It’s amazing to travel and see things just like you were standing on the sidewalk looking at them, but you never have to leave the house.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. When we saw this car at a local business, and I was taking this picture, the owner was walking up to it. I told her I just had to have a picture, and she laughed with us about it and said it gets a lot of comments. I didn’t realize until a few days later that it belongs to one of our neighbors who lives just a block away. It really is a small world.

Thought For The Day – I’m no magician, but I once turned a back rub into a kid and a mortgage.