First Stop: Washington Island...

I think we have a boating dog! He was tail wagging and taking it all in!

Our first stop was only a three hour run north so we spent our morning at our house cutting grass and making sure everything was set for our travels over the next month. We have a friend staying at our house taking care of the yard and making sure our garden gets eaten!! How lucky are we?? It makes leaving for this amount of time less stressful and our friend gets to see what its like living in the country!! Hopefully the house will be in tip top shape when we return...hint hint!!

Packing for vacation has never been my strong suit. I tend to over pack as I like to have many options with shoes to match. So, how the heck do you pack for a month??? Especially knowing you are traveling to a destination colder than our current location?? The problem for me is that we are making our way north over about 4-7 days and while we will be spending time in colder temps, the stops before our Lake Superior stop will be in northern michigan where temps are still warm during the day. So, yet again I have packed most of my clothes. I've been making secret (well the cats out of the bag now) stops to the boat and stashing my clothes and the seven pairs of shoes that I will need for our trip, hehe! As I'm typing this I can say that I have already worn three different pairs of shoes! Now to figure out how to work the other four pairs in...

Provisioning is also a problem for me as I like to have many options in the food category too. I can not take my garden with us, darn it! Our fridge and freezer have limited space, although in the boating world we air on the larger side. Much like home, I shop for a weeks worth of food and that will be our plan here too. I planned meals for our long days of travel keeping the captain nourished while underway (breakfast and lunch options) with a few dinner ideas as well. Part of the fun traveling is walking into towns trying new restaurants.

As we pulled out of the drive way I had that feeling of "I know I'm forgetting something, just hope it isn't something major!"

We had glorious weather on our run north, we made it to Washington Island at 3:00. We stopped for a hot dog and a bit of sight seeing before calling it a night. We leave in the morning to cross Lake Michigan which will be the longest Sawyer has been on the boat. Wish us luck and hope our little guy will enjoy our travels as much as his brother Crocket did!

Our run north to Washington Island was wonderful!

Docked at Island Outpost on Washington Island

Sawyer is such a good boy hanging with us while we eat and drink!

Waiting for our hot dogs we were served whitefish dip and smoked chicken on the house! Love small town life!