Welcome
Welcome.
I created this blog to document the sights of our boating season
for our family and friends to follow.
Enjoy the tour.
So here's the story...
1997 was one of many years that I went downtown Detroit to the boat show at Cobo Hall. I was always attracted to Sea Ray boats and at that point owned a 23' Weekender. I looked at the boats on display and picked up a brochure.
In that brochure, which has had a home in my magazine rack for the last 21 years, was the 330 Sundancer.
I said, "that's the boat I'm going to own someday".
Well, "someday" arrived. Here is our 1997 Sea Ray 330 Sundancer.
I feel SO fortunate to be able to realize this dream.
Here's the details.
I found this boat through "Houseboats Buy Terry" at the Conley Bottom Resort Marina on Lake Cumberland near Monticello, KY.
BTW...the houseboats down there are really something to see. They're basically a mobile home on a barge. Some are little more than that and others are quite luxurious. Docking one of those things in a crosswind must be a challenge.
But back to the subject at hand...MY "houseboat"...
It's a 1997 Sea Ray 330 Sundancer. The tale of the tape...
LOA 33' 6"
Beam 11' 5"
Weight 11,200 lbs.
Built at the Palm Coast Florida Sea Ray plant.
The seller was the original owner and used the boat primarily for day cruising. I have a clean slate for navigation electronics as there are none on this boat. It is unusual to find one of these that also don't come with 20 year old electronics. Another rare feature on this boat is cockpit air conditioning and heat.
The cockpit interior is in remarkable condition. Light use and a covered slip in a temperate climate probably had a lot to do with that.
The co-pilot has her own throne in this boat. An ice maker is under the port side seat with a wet bar behind it.
It's powered by 680 horses. Twin 340 hp 7.4L MPI fuel injected inboards. There's a 4.5KW Westerbeke generator for electrical power when "aweigh" from the dock.
The interior has the layout with the settee to starboard ahead of the mid cabin conversation pit. Both areas make into additional berths. We would have preferred the dinette layout that was available in this model but in the used market, some concessions have to be made. We can live with this arrangement. It actually makes the cabin feel a bit more spacious.
On the port side is the head...
...and then the galley with sink, range, fridge and microwave.
Forward is a queen berth with port and starboard hanging lockers. The A/C unit is located under the berth with ducting throughout the cabin. An "antique" TV/VCR is on a pull out shelf in the forward cabin. The TV was an item that still has the factory stickers on the screen. The sellers obviously didn't use it although there is a TV cable hooked to the boat at their Lake Cumberland slip. Extra cushions and pieces of the canvas top system are still factory packaged as well. It's really quite amazing.
The next hurdle is to have the boat shipped to Michigan. Unfortunately, Lake Cumberland doesn't connect to any of the river systems that are connected to the Great Lakes but a cruise of that length would be more than I'd be comfortable with...on an unfamiliar boat. Kind of like when we took off on a 5000 mile trip with a 15 year old RV that we owned for a week. But then AAA is much more accessible on a highway than a river.
I'm thinking I might enjoy a week or two on Lake Cumberland in the spring before northern Michigan thaws out and get the boat prepped for shipping. That said, I'll be really glad to get the shipping part accomplished. That's the part I absolutely have to rely on professional help to get done.
So another chapter begins. More updates as they develop over the next several months.
We were up at dawn, got ready for the day, dumped the holding tanks and headed for home.
A little after noon we crossed into Michigan and a few hours later pulled into our driveway.
So that's it. Sixty-one days in a 24' motorhome. I have to say, it wasn't all that bad. Not that I want to spend the rest of my days in one of these things, but we made out OK. I can't get enthused with the full timer RV group. That life style wouldn't work for us. The first issue would be Walking Dead or NFL? See the problem?
We did need alternate transportation a few times that it wasn't available, but not enough that it would have been worth dragging around a car behind us. Perhaps something like a Vespa scooter would have been good. The bicycles were worthless. Nearly everywhere we were, it was a hill climb to use a bike. We learned to use Uber and that worked well in Las Vegas and Branson.
My best of the best are:
National Park...it's Glacier, Grand Canyon, Sequoia, Carlsbad in that order. Banff/Lake Louise is over rated. Yosemite is over crowded.
Best food we experienced...the steak at Amarillo was the best tasting piece of meat I've ever had. To put that #1 over crab is saying something. The buffet at the Aria in Las Vegas was a close 2nd. The best value was the $12 Two for Tuesday prime rib buffet at the Route 66 casino. We didn't eat out much but when we did it was always good.
Best RV Park...East Glacier/St Mary KOA and Oasis Las Vegas.
We saw a lot and it will take a year to digest it all. We were concerned about the wild fires when we started out but they were a non issue for the most part except for a few days of compromised visibility in the mountains.
The stats are like this...
61 days
8113.6 miles in the RV (around 1000 miles more in rental cars)
822.21 gallons of fuel
All in, about $110/day for everything.
Time to start planning 2019.
Sorry...no photos today. Picture a windshield with raindrops and the wipers running. That was the view ALL day long.
We made it as far as Terre Haute, Indiana today. It's 44° and raining and we took the last site (a tent site with electric only) at the KOA here. Who camps in this crap? These aren't travelers filling the place up, they're the weekend crowd. Who would of thunk?
We've got another 6 hours to get home so that should be no problem tomorrow. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to handle a house where it's more than two steps from one room to the other. Kathy and I are going to have to adjust to separation again.
My next post will be the final post for the trip and I'll summarize the whole experience.
We juggled our schedule and attended two shows today. The first one was a group called "SIX".
This is a group of six brothers singing acapella.
They first performed as youngsters on the Donnie & Marie TV show years ago. Since it's a family act, it makes sense that the Osmonds might find them. This show was outstanding. It was absolutely amazing the amount of music that six voices could make. These guys were definitely worth the ticket.
In the evening, we went to a Legends show. We saw acts such as the Blues Brothers.
And Wynonna and of course, Elvis.
The act also included Barry White and Elton John. They were all talented.
We have nothing else we want to accomplish here so are heading toward Michigan tomorrow. We should arrive home Saturday or Sunday.
We needed to find something to keep busy yesterday and I really didn't see anything that I wanted to rent a car to get to so it had to be within walking distance. Kathy knew there was an outlet mall down the street so we went on a hike to the mall.
It had been a while since I had a hike up and down hills so this was an opportunity to get back into the swing of things. Everything in Branson is built on the side of a hill.
I'm a little disappointed in the Branson stop. Shows, motels, and amusements spread over about 7 miles of road and everything designed to empty your wallet. It's too spread out and not at all pedestrian friendly.
Our RV site is on the side of a hill as well. It's a climb to the shower.
We had another show scheduled for last night. We went up on the "strip" and walked to the theater.
We went to see a Beatles tribute show.
It was entertaining, but we didn't think it was as good as the Beatlemania show we've seen on a cruise ship.
Maybe the other shows we have booked will be better, but our opinion so far, is this entertainment has been very amateur. My guess is the country acts may be a bit more polished as that is the Branson theme but there's no way Kathy is going anywhere near a country act.
A couple more days here, then it looks like we'll move out as the rain moves in.
Today we traveled to Branson...the entertainment mecca of the Ozarks. It was a relatively quick trip of about 100 miles.
We turned south out of Springfield and ran into the hills and valleys after several days of flat desert and plains.
We stopped at a "Branson Visitor Center" looking for travel information.
There's not much travel information there. It's a place that sells show and attraction tickets. Anything else and they were useless. We had our show reservations already.
So we continued on to Branson, stopped at the downtown Branson Travel Office to pick up our show tickets then found the local...
...you guessed it, quilt shop!
This place was large.
I was impressed with all the quilts hanging around the rafters. That's the stuff I go in for. Many of these quilts are really nice. Here's a sampling.
Last but not least...
We arrived at the RV park a few miles away, had lunch, hopped an Uber ride to the theater and caught a 5:00 pm show.
It reminded us of sitting in a cruise ship theater waiting for a show. The only difference was the curtain wasn't swaying with the movement of the ship.
The show was real good, but not quite what I expected. I was expecting a group kind of imitating the ABBA group. This was just four singers performing ABBA music. It lasted about two hours.
We're here for a few more days and have three more shows booked. I think they'll be a bit more of a production, but time will tell.
In the meantime, we're hunkered down in the RV tonight waiting for the rain to pass. All that Oklahoma storminess has caught up to us again.
Today's route plan was to be a direct shot of about 300 miles.
Kathy had a different plan so we didn't do that. In order to hit more quilt shops, we needed to add a couple hours to the trip. I won't even guess how many extra miles, but it was a few. The good news is that we bypassed most of Oklahoma City and Tulsa altogether and avoided all the toll roads.
Driving across Oklahoma looked much like driving across Michigan. Even the clouds looked like home.
When I checked into the RV park yesterday afternoon, I asked about tornado shelters since we heard severe weather was predicted. The woman that checked us in said not to worry about that, they don't get tornadoes this time of year and even indicated May 6th as THE day for Oklahoma tornadoes. Well...guess what? We watched a couple hours of weather coverage after dark where they were tracking a tornado about 30 miles east of us. So much for the excellent local advice.
Back to today's travel, we arrived at stop #1 about noon.
I ate lunch while Kathy shopped.
She came out with a package and it was on to our next stop at the corner of Rte 86 and P.
Must be there's only 26 cross streets. Anyway, we pulled into quilt shop #2 for the day, the Bittersweet Quilt Shop.
I haven't seen one of these in a while.
A wringer washer.
This was a nice store. Kathy came out with an arm full.
Outside the quilt shop hop, there was a mission to today's destination. I needed a wheel simulator to replace one that I lost somewhere in New Mexico. I received a tip that a place here in Missouri was a big RV salvage yard and they might be able to help. Well, I didn't get the salvage part, but they did stock the new part at a reasonable price.
That will dress up the ugly wheel.
We moved on to tonight's RV park. It's called the Red Barn RV Park. Wonder why?
It's a real nice park. Clean and quiet. The manager even gave me a couple chocolate chip cookies for showing up.
So tomorrow we move on to the final significant destination, Branson, MO. It's just a short hop from here...unless Kathy dictates the route again and we take a series of detours.
