Swap...

Seems like getting settled back in at home has been a challenge. The day after we pulled in, I broke a tooth, which meant trips to the dentist for a root canal and a crown. In between that, days of getting the HitchHiker unloaded. Then some kind of nasty upper respiratory bug kicked my butt. As the philosopher Rosanna Rosannadanna says, "It just goes to show you, it's always something."

We have had the coach unloaded for a couple days, so today it was time for "the big swap." Yep, the Love Shack goes into storage, Wild Blue comes out. We had checked on the boat a couple days ago - filthy dirty, but otherwise in good shape; Joan aired up the tires, I checked the batteries... we knew we'd be ready for the swap.

It's more than just pull one in and pull the other out: once at the storage lot, we have to drop the 5th wheel from the truck, hook the truck up to the boat, pull the boat out, drop the boat trailer off the truck, go back and hook up the 5th wheel again, back the 5th wheel into the storage spot, unhook the 5th wheel from the truck, pull around to the boat again and hook up, and now we can head for home. Whew!

Here, we have pulled the boat out (you can see it in the distance) and are getting ready to hook back up to the 5th wheel...


The Love Shack goes in...


Then back to hook up to Wild Blue...


Backing into a site on the island, that poor boat is really dirty...


Looks more like Dirty Brown than Wild Blue...


I was hoping most of the dirt would blow off on the way home. You can see that didn't work out so well. Rather than hose it off and wind up with a bunch of mud in the bilge, I decided to try a new tack: I vacuumed the exterior of the boat...


The cockpit was the worst, since it acts like a big bowl catching all that dirt. On the top of the boat, you can see the part where I vacuumed - that's how bad the dirt was...


It was pretty sad. I try to keep her looking good, but she got pulled from the water and put away under tough circumstances last spring... when it was clear that my Mother was not going to survive the stroke she suffered, Joan pulled the boat out on her own. There was no time for a thorough clean-up. When we came back after getting my Mother's affairs in order, we only had time to get the boat moved to a covered storage area before we had to head out. It was a dry, windy summer... and all the RVs and boats in the storage area were equally dirty.

In the past, I had referred to a boat (not Wild Blue) as: "the Prom Queen is now a crack whore," seeing how the owner had let the boat deteriorate. Well, Wild Blue is certainly no crack whore, but she is in dire need of some pampering and time at the spa. The layers of dirt are off (after several hours with the shop vac). Tomorrow, I will take her in for service and a thorough check up. When that's done, she'll come home and get her fiberglass waxed and metalwork shined up... then, back in the water, and she will again be the prettiest girl at the dance.