How else can I describe it. I’ve been in hiatus for quite sometime and I’ve finally decided to come out of my cave. It was a hard, long, cold, and dark winter for the Amazing’s, mostly cold. I think I sat by the fire for most of it. Not taking calls, not returning email, just sitting by the fire in a funk, watching Fox News, King of the Hill, and That 70’s Show.
You could call it depression, I think I would.
I used to laugh at my Grandmother for hating the cold winter and snow, but as I get older, it becomes easier to understand.
For the last couple years I’ve been wishing out loud we could sell everything and move to the Caribbean. Once, Marcia said we could do just that, after the kids were out of school. My guess would be, that means college, another 11 years. That’s going to be tough.
In the mean time, I’ll have summers at the lake, and it’s finally summer, I guess. It’s supposed to hit 88 today and 90 the rest of the week, but the evenings have been cool and the lake has been slow to come to a nice temperature. The evenings have been so cool, we’ve been using the heater
Scotty got me over the winter, almost every night at the Amazing Bar & Grill.
Actually its been a really slow start for summer here on the lake. We’ve had the coolest spring on record for 50 years, and a lot of rain, not to mention 3 tornado’s. The weather combined with the high cost of gasoline has really been hard on the lake economy. All the restaurants, bars, and stores, are hurting. I wouldn’t want to be a boat salesman right now and home prices are down 16-20%. It’s a buyers market for both boats and homes, but gas, food, and entertainment will cost you more than ever.
Still I love the lake. It doesn’t cost me much to sit down at the bar with my laptop, in my office on the water. I sit and watch, work, and wait. It usually isn’t too long before something breaks and needs to be fixed or someone needs help. Everyday is a adventure and a story in itself.
As for my watercraft, all the guages read full. I consider it an investment, in fun. Nearly 500 gallons of gasoline purchased prior to Memorial day for mear $4.39 a gallon, compared to todays price of $4.69. Needless to say, I don’t just take the boats out and drive much anymore, I need a reason to go out, like company. So far this year, we have only coved out one day as a family. We idled out to our favorite cove, dropped the anchor and idled back at the end of the day. Now that the kids are older, we don’t really need air conditioning and TV anymore, so that means no generator, which is a good thing. At the end of the day the fuel gauges hadn’t moved and that’s a good thing too. I will probably have to make that tank last all summer long.
The most efficient vehicles in our fleet are the jet-ski’s. They are also the only thing Marcia and the kids can drive. Our 11 year old ski’s are broken more than running these days and it was getting tiresome working on them constantly, so it wasn’t too hard to for the famly to convince me we needed a new one. I bit the bullet just before the Memorial holiday and we now have a nice new 2008 Sea Doo GTI se.
It’s amazing the difference 11 years makes when you’re talking about jet-ski’s. This bike has electronic ignition, so it starts instantly even cold. No more choke and cranking, then letting the engine warm up, it’s just the push of a button and then purr. The engine is 4-stroke, which means it doesn’t burn oil like the old ones did. It’s just like a car, you change oil once a year rather than adding oil constantly. The engine is 155 hp, which means it will go over 60 mph and has enough power to pull a tube, skier, or even a wakeboard. Of course the dash is all electronic as well, conplete with water tempurature guage, which is nice. The feature Marcia likes the best is the retractable ladder on the back which makes it easy to get on from the water. It’s just nice to be able to walk down to the dock, start it up, and take it out, without worrying about being towed back in, so I’m happy with the purchase. And as I said, it’s the cheapest watercraft we own to drive.
Well that’s the update from the lake and all for today. I have a few political issues on my mind for future posts. I’ll try to stay current through the summer.
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