Less on my mind...

You're a retired guy with no commitments - why would you have stuff on your mind?

Thanks for asking.  Part of getting ready to get out of here for a while is getting stuff put away.  Some stuff takes more effort to put away than others.  Especially in the heat and humidity.  We brought the boat trailer in yesterday, today the boat comes out.

Joan and I are a good team: I pull the boat around, she takes the trailer to the ramp and backs it in.  I drive the boat up onto the trailer, she hooks up the safety strap while I shut down the boat and pull up the motor.  Then, I hop in the CR-V and pull the boat out.  She closes the gate behind us, and we head for home.

My part...

I left our dock at 8:21.  It takes about 15 minutes to go out our canal, take a right on the ICW...

And then to the boat ramp.  In the meantime, Joan drives about a mile to the ramp (by land).  Someone was just departing from the ramp, so she didn't have to unlock the gate - just back right down.  It's a private ramp, part of our "common areas" in our village.  She was just backing in as I lined up for the trailer.  Up on the trailer, and she uses the ladder on the trailer to hook up the forward safety strap...

One of us on the powerwasher, the other with a hose and scrub-brush.  With the warm water, there was plenty of slime on there, but an hour or so with the above tools and we had that taken care of.  Flush the motor, then pull a fuel line and run the fuel out of the motor.  Wash the fences (metal body panels), get the bimini in travel mode, take the GPS off, and make sure things onboard are ready to hit the road.

We were heading towards our storage unit about 11:20, and that was after I took another shower... you could have rung out my shirt, and not from the overspray with the powerwasher.  38 miles inland to our storage unit.  I pulled the motorhome out, then backed the boat into the storage unit.  Put the motor down, a bit of touch-up paint on the motor, open all the storage compartments under the seats, then disconnect the battery.  This boat is small enough that we can maneuver it by hand in the storage unit - we put it in diagonally and the motorhome still fits, too.  Close up the storage unit, then off to Harlingen to pick up a lunch to go.

We were home at 2:30.  The Friday "going to the beach" traffic was building.  I think we'll both be ready for some cocooning for the weekend.  Tropical Storm Cristobal will be moving up the middle of the Gulf.  We are not directly affected, but our tides are going to be higher and the wave action will, likewise, be higher than normal.  Although we have great protection in our canal, I am glad to have the boat inland.

Now, we can leisurely start the rest of the process to going north.