June 22, 2007

• Pontoon!

  We have never bought toys.  In fact, that has always been my explanation for why we are able to travel on teacher’s incomes.  You can afford to travel when your stereo system still has an 8 track player!  Of course, we did replace that stereo when it died about 5 years ago and now have a CD player, but we went right from 8 track to CD with no cassettes in between!  Anyway, now that Dan is retired, we decided that we wanted a toy, so we bought a pontoon.  Well, we didn’t exactly buy it.  Our son Andy bought it, but we are paying for it and will be the prime users of it.

  We launched it on June 8, and that was quite an adventure!  We met Andy in the Twin Cities to pick it up.  We do not have a car that can tow it, so we needed Andy’s help and Andy’s truck.  Here is Andy at the shop where the boat was detailed so it would be beautiful for its maiden voyage.  Andy is getting some last minute pointers from the salesman.

  

  Then Dan and Andy were ready to go.  How did you say we pulled this thing?
  

  

  Dan and Andy headed for the lake while I started over to Andy’s house to pick up our daughter-in-law Jess and their boys.  We were not following behind Dan and Andy in the truck.  We followed them for a short distance the week before when they took the boat lift down to the lake, and it was very nerve-wracking.  We were better off traveling separately!

  In spite of the fact that Andy had to turn back for some things that the dealer had forgotten to put into the boat (I was glad I did not see that!), we arrived at the lake within five minutes or so of each other.  Andy did a great job of backing up to the launch.

  

  That is, it was great until we discovered that the pontoon was hung up on the trailer and was unwilling to float free in the water!  It was a very reluctant boat!  No matter what we did, it clung to one corner of the trailer for dear life!  It looked like we were going to sink Andy’s car instead of launching a pontoon!
  

  

  Some people in the launch area helped us, (I think they wanted to use the launch), and we finally got it in the water, parked the truck, and set out in the boat.  Here is Andy driving.  He says that’s his boating hat.
  

  

  When Jake stepped aboard, the first words out of his mouth were “Where’s the cabin?”  Andy and Jess have a cabin cruiser on the Mississippi and Jake spends most of his time in the cabin when he is on that boat.  Dan told him that our cabin was pretty wet and he would probably prefer to stay on deck when he was with us.
  

  

  We have a grill on the pontoon, so it seemed only right to use it on the maiden voyage.  We grilled hamburgers and I brought salads and brownies to finish off a supper meal.
  

  

  Everybody enjoyed the ride.  Here’s Dan and Will.  Will is a very cheerful baby, isn’t he?
  

  

  Jess tried to convince Will to sleep.  He did settle down and cuddle, but he never did really go to sleep.
  

  

  I took a turn at driving the boat.  I had never been behind the wheel of a boat before, but I figured that I had to learn because we will be spending a lot of time on the pontoon.  Can you see how tense my arm is in this picture?

  

  I don’t know if you can tell, but that’s a Gander Mountain shirt I am wearing.  I thought it was perfect for this occasion because the pontoon came from Gander Mountain.  Andy is the Marine Buyer there.  That’s not actually his title.  I can’t remember what his position is called, but he buys all the marine products for the Gander Mountain chain.  That’s how we ended up with a pontoon.

  Anyway, that’s the maiden voyage of our new pontoon.  Except for being unable to get it off the trailer and losing the license plate from the trailer in the process, it was a very pleasant evening!

  • 9:29 am
  • 11 Comments