[Rhodes22-list] End Of Summer

[Roger Pihlaja]

On Friday, amidst cold drizzling rain & gusty winds up to 20 knots, with the temperature in the low 40's deg F, I cleaned & prepped Dynamic Equilibrium for winter storage, & then towed it over to the Midland County Fairgrounds.  This year, secure indoor storage inside one of the Midland County Fairground's animal exhibition buildings cost me $192.  Boats & RV's can be stored at the fairgrounds from October 1st until May 1st.  Winter storage at the fairgrounds is such a good deal; that, people come from as far away as Detroit & Grand Rapids & the facility fills up pretty rapidly.  As luck would have it, this weekend I didn't have a lab report to write & the rest of the homework load was not too unreasonable.  So, despite the poor weather, this was definitely the weekend to take care of the boat.  I didn't get the hull & interior as clean as I would have liked under the miserable conditions, but I'll deal with those issues in the spring.  Ever since deciding to go back to college in the last week of July, we haven't used the boat very much, just no time.  We didn't take any sort of cruise on Dynamic Equilibrium this year.  Hopefully, next year, there will be more time to enjoy it.

Putting the boat into winter storage is always the "official" end of summer for me.  As I write this, my younger son, Gary, is attending his high school homecoming dance.  The seasons change & life moves on.  I've been looking wistfully out my rec room window at Sanford Lake as I've doing my homework, wondering what the new year will bring, & finding it somewhat difficult to concentrate.

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium