Glacier NP to Alpaca Ranch

Click on any picture to enlarge Glacier NP, MT to Alpaca Ranch #2  06-30-24 to 07-14-24 After leaving Glacier, our next stop was at the East Shore Smokehouse in Polson, MT, another Harvest Host.  But this one cost us more for dinner than any campground had previously.  But we did…

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Yellowstone to Glacier NP

Click on any picture to enlarge Yellowstone NP, WY to Glacier NP, MT 06-14-24 to 06-29-24 After departing Yellowstone via the 8,541’ Sylvan Pass, we spent a couple of nights in Wapiti Campground (with no cell service) before attending a Cowboy Church in Cody, WY. From there we made our way…

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Starting a New Adventure

Click on any picture to enlarge   In the summer of 2023, we took WOW on her maiden 2-month trip through 4 states, visiting 6 National Parks (Canyonlands, Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Great Sand Dunes, and Rocky Mountain) plus Canyon De Chelly and Dinosaur National…

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Guests Come to Cruise

Sometimes renting a car in Seattle is expensive and difficult. Reserving a car to pick up our friends, Mel & Maria, from the airport turned out to be impossible!  There were none available. Tom’s solution, a U-Haul truck. Mel & Maria got a kick out of it and it became…

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Summer in the Puget Sound

May 10, 2022 – The day we were supposed to fly from Phoenix to Seattle to get on The Secret and shortly thereafter begin cruising to Alaska.  May 3 – The day we found out Canada would not allow unvaccinated people to cross their borders.  From Canada’s Immigrations site:    It…

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Finally Beginning to Cruise

9/10/21 – 10/16/21  – F-i-n-a-l-l-y, 9 days short of 1 year after purchase, we pushed off the repair facility dock and cruised out of Seattle. Day 1 began by moving the boat from Thomas Boat Repair to Fishermen’s Terminal (10 min away) to pump out and clean the fuel-coated bilge (see…

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Still Working

7/1/21 – 9/9/21 – We were able to return to The Secret on July 26 after Tom got released by his neck surgeon, allowed to do anything that didn’t hurt. So, it was time to go back to work on our projects to get the boat cruise-ready. The “to do”…

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The plan is coming together

11/01/20 – 06/30/21 – Well, yes, the plan is coming together…just not as quickly as we had hoped. As we told you last (many moons ago), the plan was to leave the boat in Seattle and get the needed repairs done, then spend the summer cruising the San Juan Islands. But…

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End of a season

07/04/20 – 08/25/20 – On July 4th, we returned to the boat at Fort Meyers because there was a couple interested in seeing Life’s TraVails, which you might recall had been for sale for eight months with very little interest…but we were in the middle of COVID-19. Before leaving Marathon, Tom…

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Quarantined in Marathon

Click on any image to expand 03/29/20 – 06/02/20 – When we last talked, we were in Marlin Bay Marina in Marathon with tentative reservations through the end of April, but with plans to head for The Bahamas the beginning of April. Well, April came and went, and our reservation was…

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Canada to Florida Keys

08/13/19 – 03/28/20 – We imagine most of you have noticed we haven’t posted any cruising news lately. It got to be too much of a burden for Tom to format pictures to Paula’s writing, and we just decided to discontinue our blogs. But exceptional times call for exceptions, don’t…

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Thousand Islands, Ontario, Canada

  08/04/19 – 08/13/19 (Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.) We were excited to begin exploring the Thousand Islands with whatever time we could spare before making our way back to the US. We had heard from several cruising friends how beautiful it was. The Thousand…

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Trent-Severn, Ontario, Canada – Part II

07/18/19 – 08/03/19 On July 18, we drove the 120 miles to Toronto to catch our flight to NC for Paula’s Dad’s 102nd birthday party. Unfortunately, many flights were canceled due to thunderstorms in Chicago and on the East Coast. There were hundreds of scouts stranded in the airport bound…

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Rideau Canal, Ontario, Canada

6/16/19 – 6/29/19 OK, OK, we’re a little behind, as you can see by the dates above.  But…we were in Canada, and there was too much fun to be had!  We’re now trying to catch up as we make our way back down the East Coast toward the Chesapeake and,…

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Annapolis to New York City

5/22/19 to 6/2/2019 Last we talked, we were waiting for the Blue Angels show over Annapolis as part of Commissioning Week for the Naval Academy. That next morning, we dinghied into town again (only a 5-minute ride) and after walking a bit, had a sidewalk lunch at Mission BBQ and…

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Norfolk, VA to Annapolis

5/15/19 to 5/21/19 After our return from our home in Phoenix to Life’s TraVails at Atlantic Yacht Basin (AYB) just south of Norfolk, it was time to continue north into the Chesapeake Bay. We left Wednesday morning, May 15, with the goal of Solomons, MD, about 127 miles 2 days…

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