The trip was pretty uneventful except for nasty weather and traffic. Our biggest delay was only 15 miles from home on 271 when we were caught in the slow morning traffic. It rained on and off the entire trip, mostly on. Traffic was fairly heavy too so it was not the most pleasant trip. We had a brunch with a Subway Italian sub about 10:30 in New York and an McDonald's yogurt cone about 1:30. We stopped for gas twice.
It was great to see the 1000 Island Bridge.
I thought one side was in the States and the other in Canada. I was wrong as the Canadian border is about 8 miles past the bridge. They did not have a Nexus lane, unfortunately, so we had to wait and go through with the masses. It probably took about 20 minutes to clear Canada customs. Once we were in Canada I remembered that I forgot to pack my machete, which is very useful for cutting weeds off the anchor. Kerry remembered that she forgot to pack wine glasses. Now that is a problem.
We drove right to Houseboat Holiday boat rentals, passing through downtown Gananoque and our motel, the Gateway Motel, on the way. Neal showed us one of the houseboats that we would be renting. It was not new, but pretty nice anyway. We were really pleased to see that it has a gas grill on the bow. We will provision tomorrow morning and now that we know we can grill, we will buy meats to grill while anchored. That will be so great!
Neil gave us a brief tour of the boat today and promised a stem to stern orientation tomorrow. He also gave us a chart to take back to our room to study tonight so we could plan our voyage. We have a propane stove and refrigerator that has a small freezer. Plenty of pots and pans and a coffee pot.
We then drove to the Gateway Motel. We kept our finger crossed as this place is about 40% of the cost of a Holiday Inn Express. Turns out it is OK and fine for one night. Older, but clean and no bugs (so far).
After a quick glass of wine we drove to Canadian Tire, one of my favorite stores, where I bought a machete!
Then we hit the dollar store where Kerry bought 2 wine glasses. Dinner was at the Old English Pub in downtown Gananoque. We had the fried cod dinner and a side Caesar Salad. We split both and it was very good and enough for two. I bought two Gananoque t-shirts, one for me and one for Jim Karpinski. He loves to say Gananoque now that he can pronounce it, as he never could when we first came here.
I was really excited to try the phone navigation program I bought with the GPS I bought that connects to the phone with Bluetooth. It worked! This allows me to use my phone to navigate while not accessing Verizon data which is $25 for 100 mb. This is the same program I had on Excalibur's chart plotter with a few less bells and whistles. It cost me many $$$ for Excalibur, and $14.99 for my phone.
We stopped at the Gananoque Municipal Marina on the way back to our room. It was full. Kerry and I have been here twice with Excalibur. We walked the docks and saw where we docked in the past. I experienced a bit of nostalgia I must admit as many wonderful memories came back to me. Not that this is one of them, but this is where I had to dive under Excalibur to pull weeds out of the engine water inlet hole to stop over heating. I cut my leg on a dock anchor chain.
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