Summer Plans

Sadly we had to say goodbye to our family in Pennsylvania this morning. We headed north to Ithaca, New York to check out the town and the Allan Treman State Marine Park. Our plan is to take The Pearl up the Hudson, through the Erie Canal and into Cayuga Lake for the summer. It's a beautiful place and will give us a chance to explore a new area while staying close to family.

Cayuga Lake is the largest of the eleven Finger Lakes in upstate New York. The area is famous for their wineries, vineyards, breweries, farmers markets, waterfalls, gorge hikes, bike trails, fishing, and outstanding restaurants. Even on a cool, cloudy day we could tell it'll be a fun place to spend the summer. Our original plan was to book a slip for half the season, which wouldn't start until the middle of July, but after visiting the area today we decided to book a slip for the whole season. We're excited and are looking forward to spending the summer exploring this wonderful area.

Our dock for the summer

Our slip for the summer

This will be our view from the flybridge this summer...not as pretty now as it'll be when we return.

First Fishing Trip

"No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child." —Abraham Lincoln  

We're back on the east coast, but before we return to The Pearl we made a stop in Pennsylvania to visit your oldest son and his family. We love cruising and spending time on the water, but the time we spend with our grandchildren is priceless. We've enjoyed seeing our Texas grands regularly the past six months and will truly miss them, but now it's time to see our east coast grands a little more. 

Our grandson, Graham, has been looking forward to fishing with his Paw Paw and he got his first chance to try out his new fishing pole today. The water in the pond is still pretty cold, so they didn’t catch any fish, but they had a great time. It was good practice for more fishing this summer.

We’ll be back in Virginia on The Pearl starting new adventures soon…so stay tuned.

Inspecting the worms

Learning how to tie on the hook

Learning to cast

The Ranch

"The days that make us happy make us wise.” —John Masefield

We spent Monday and Tuesday with good friends from our past...work, children and life put our friendship on the back burner for the past 25 years. It's been fun this year reconnecting.

Pam and William have a family ranch (deer camp) near Hallettsville. A great get away for hunting, fishing and relaxing. The ranch sits on the Lavaca River, but getting down to the river bottom this trip was impossible since we've had so much rain in the past week, but we did enjoy exploring the rest of the property and the guys had fun fishing in the tank.

This is the original camp house at the ranch...now they have a much nicer camp house.

These pictures were taken over 30 years ago sitting on the porch of the "Tilton' Hilton". I think the old camp house has changed more than us...what do you think? 

There are quite a few wineries in the Hallettsville Schulenburg area, but most are closed on Mondays...so we had to settle with visiting just one.

The Moravia Vineyard and Winery 

The ranch has it's very own private "Grand Canyon". It was very pretty and fun to explore. 

Catching dinner...

Fresh catfish, oysters, shrimp, a few cocktails and good friends...not a bad way to end the day.

Sunset at the Lazy S