We left St. Paul on Tuesday morning, with an iffy weather forecast—showers and thunderstorms on and off. Since the worst weather was expected later in the day, we got an early start down to our storage lot in Hager City, WI, and hitched up Dragonfly under light sprinkles. We drove through more frequent rain, but nothing too strong down to Madison, WI, where we planned to spend the night at Tony’s childhood home.
We took a walk around the neighborhood in lovely weather, knowing that another wave of strong storms were on the way. That wave ended up including tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings, and we spent three nervous hours while the worst of the storm came through. The house lost power at least three times, but only for a few minutes before coming back on.
Kathleen and I, the house, truck and boat survived the night just fine, but we got lucky, since a neighbor’s tree branch and the nearby streetlight came down not far from our parking spot.
The mess in the pic below was three doors down, and we saw many more like it as we left town the next morning, convinced that since we escaped unscathed, the universe meant for us to continue our journey.
On Wednesday, we drove 550 miles under clear but breezy conditions, to Austinburg, OH, between Cleveland and Erie, PA, and spent the night, then drove to Buffalo, NY today, arriving around 11:00 AM. We checked in at Sun Life Marina—Buffalo Harbor, an enormous, 1,100-slip facility that’s part of a state park, where we launched Dragonfly, filled the fuel tanks, then parked in our assigned transient slip, almost completely without incident (it was windy, so maneuvering off the launch ramp and out of the shallows was a slight challenge, but nothing that harmed the boat’s new wax job, or the bottom paint).
Kathleen and I spent the afternoon loading and stowing our gear and getting the boat re-rigged for cruising, inside and out.
We had dinner at the marina’s restaurant, Charlie’s Boat Yard, then took a walk around the harbor and state park. On our stroll, we saw a couple of gophers (groundhogs?, woodchucks?) along the path.
This photo of our dock was taken from the inner harbor breakwater. Dragonfly is on the left and the other three boats are law enforcement vessels. The marina gate is also locked, so we’re feeling pretty safe here!
Our first sunset back on the water.
Map link: Buffalo Harbor
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