Saturday, June 25, 2005

Second Day, Launch, & Power Island

I got up very early and boiled potatoes and eggs, chopped celery and onions getting ready to make potato salad for the Concord Place picnic tomorrow. I wanted to get everything ready because we have a busy day planned. So all of the ingredients are in the refrigerator and the potato salad is ready to be assembled - probably tomorrow morning.

I went in to town to watch the Estate Sale again. Today everything is 50% off, and it's much much cooler, so I think people will definitely have a more pleasant shopping experience. I was sitting there listening to the radio, and heard that the launching of the sloop Welcome was this morning - so I called Dick, and he came into town, and we went out to the coal dock to watch the launch.

There were historical re-enactors there. The soldiers were all dressed in 18th century British Army uniforms, carrying muskets and looking very spiffy. They were re-enacting the King's 8th regiment which was stationed at Fort Michilimackinac in the 1700s and whose soldiers manned the original Welcome. (See link above).

Two huge cranes lifted the vessel off its resting place, swung her around and lowered her into the water. When her hull entered the water, the regiment fired their muskets in unison as a salute. The Welcome's sister ship, the schooner Madeline, honked her horns and everybody cheered. (http://www.mhatc.net/photow.htm)

It was a fascinating event. We were glad we witnessed it. Those two vessels will look so lovely out on the bay. The Welcome still needs to have its main mast installed and most likely won't be sailing around until 2006.

I went back to watch the Estate Sale. Lights were on in the basement - Mother will notice the increase in her Light and Power bill - take my word for it. From where I was parked, I could see people inside the house through the big windows - I don't know why it was so interesting to me, but it was. Lots of ladies came out with blankets and bedding. One man carried out 3 huge boxes of who knows what! Another had one of Dad's power tools still in the original packaging. Once again, there were tons of people coming and going.

Dick's mission today was to take the pontoon boat to Power Island because there are two caches there. He had previously contacted Ray and Jerry and they planned to meet us at the Bowers Harbor launch site to ride along. We got there at the appointed time, and had a very pleasant boat ride to the island. It was overcast and cool, and the bay was flat - good for boating. They found both caches with little trouble. One of the caches is the oldest cache in the entire State of Michigan. I think the whole project only took about 2 hours from launch to take-out. (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=53) (Scroll down to Basswood Bend)

Dick and I had a very late lunch at the Peninsula Grill, and came home to our computers. When Dick logged on to the geocaching web site, he immediately noticed a new cache over in the Hoosier Valley, so off he went, and he was the First to Find!

I talked to Joan of the Estate Sale people, and they like the location of the Sale so much that they're actually going to open it up again tomorrow morning from 9 to 12. She said that they have sold almost everything of Mother's, and she said that "we think that we've done very well for you". So hooray! They'll clean it all up on Monday.

Right now it seems like a very long time since I chopped those potato salad ingredients (yawn).