Tug For Two in Water

We launched the boat today. While cleaning and sevicing we found a bad galley (kitchen) and head (bathroom) water pump. I'll replace that this morning and we should be able to go crabbing and fishing.

Getting Ready

Working on a new coat of bottom paint on the 'Tug For Two'. Took two hours to put it on, six hours to recover, and 600mg of ibuprofen. Today we're going to launch it and after stocking it head for our favorite crab spot.

Dog Kennels

We made it to Ketchikan AK last night (after my bedtime). We made advanced reservations on the ferry and then had to hurry across British Columbia to catch it. We had been over most of that road 4 or 5 times before anyway. We saw 3 bear coming across and got a picture of this one. It was out in a field near the road. I know, you can barely see it but I couldn't get Nancy to walk out closer.





We stopped at a rest area in Alberta for breakfast an saw this facility. I couldn't pass up a photo. You might have to enlarge the image to read the captions.

Canada Canola

We just crossed into Saskatchewan. Lots of farm land across Manitoba. This is a field of Canola, the most prominent crop in this part of Canada. Had lots of rain and wonderfully cool weather. We'll post again when we find another free WI FI.

Monday Uncle Don and Cousin Nancy took us wild blueberry picking. It's a good thing they were along or we wouldn't have enough berries to even whet our appetite. This is in a state forest between Sturgeon Lake and Willow River MN.









Cousin Nancy baked this 'berry good' pie for us before she had to leave for home. We took it along to Ruby's as a desert with her wonderful dinner. Today we have sworn to begin our diet. Tonight we're in International Falls MN and will start across Canada to Alaska tomorrow. Not sure if we'll have internet service for the next few days so if you don't see our blog update, that is our excuse.

Willow River is also the birthplace of Flynn Naylor (Guess they just forgot to list me on the sign). We're at my uncle Don's just few miles from here.










We're on our way to the bar in Willow. In fact, This is the bar my dad bartended at when he first came out of the service in 1945. I think it was called Burns Bar then. I have memories of going to the bar with my parents and they would give me a bag of potato chips to eat while they had a drink.







Waiting patiently with Uncle Don and his freind (and ours) Ruby, Aunt Betty and Nancy for our dinner special to come. They serve alaskan halibut on Fridays and it was very good. So was the amber bock.

The last few days we've had a great time visiting with our friends Gene and Jan near Mora MN. Yesterday we took a drive to Taylor Falls MN and St. Croix Falls WI on the St. Croix River. There were lots of what they call "Potholes" in the rocks along the river. They were formed by whirlpools in the river when the river was fed by receding glaciers and was much larger than it is now.






Here is a picture of the four of us at an overlook on the St Croix river near the dam.

Time to catch up. We spent time last week with our friends Ray & Carolyn near Glenwood MN. Ray hitched up his team of haflingers and gave everyone a ride around the farm.










Saturday we helped Carolyn celebrate the "BIG Six Oh" by taking a cruise around Lake Minnewaska on a large Pontoon boat with a bar. Her children arranged the outing and we were asked to join the festivities.









Later we joined them for a big outdoor feed with lots of wonderful food. Later still, some of Carolyn's granddaughters, a son-in-law and his brother played a variety of music including a waltz for Nancy and I.

We just left Des Moines this morning after a reunion (after about 50 years) with my cousin John. We had a great visit talking about "olden days", intervening years and future get togethers. Even talked them into visiting our great grandmothers and grandfathers grave in Perry Iowa.







Here's a picture of John, his lovely wife Diana and Nancy exploring downtown Perry. Pretty impressive sculpture made of scrap parts of a little bit of everything.

Iowa

Another history lesson. We spent some time in the Amana Colonies in east central Iowa. The Amanas were a German religious group that believed God spoke to them through a human "prophet". They were driven from Germany in about 1846 during the height of Lutheranism and originally settled in upstate New York. When it got too crowded there they sold out and came to Iowa. They practiced communal living so the set up 7 small villages on the property they had purchased so that everybody was close to the fields they had to work. Each village of had their own store, communal kitchen, barns, brewery (they had more fun than the Mormons), gardens, etc. This picture was the store in High Amana (the town was on a small hill) and the interior was still the way it originally was. In about 1930 they reverted to capitalism and sold all their property except the farms which is still operated by the "Amana Society". There still are many adherents to the Amana religion in the area. They have a large manufacturing plant in the community that makes the Amana refrigeration stuff.

The evening we found ourselves in Grinnell IA which had a very nice fireworks display. I stayed awake long enough to take this picture but it didn't focus very well.

Yesterday we visited Nauvoo, IL historic district. For those not familiar with Nauvoo, it was one of the communities the early Mormons formed but were later driven out of by the locals who had about as much religious tolerance as the modern day middle easterners. For our mormon friends, the locals do seem remorseful they treated ya'll so badly. They'd probably be sorrier if it weren't for all the Utah tourist spending their money here.





There are a lot of the original homes and businesses still in the town but the most impressive building is the temple that was rebuilt several decades ago. We rode around the town in a horse drawn wagon with a guide. Very interesting.








Day before yesterday we spent around Peoria IL where, amoung other things, we visited the "Wheels of Time" museum which was started by several Caterpillar engineers. Very interesting. This picture is one of three buildings the museum is housed in.

We've spent the last couple of days in Delaware County, near Muncie Indiana delving into my roots some more. This headstone is in a small rural cemetery with less than 30 graves, the latest that we saw was buried in 1882. This tombstone says: WILLIAM NAYLOR DIED 23 JULY 1863 AGED 79 YRS 3MOS 3DYS. I have now found enough evidence that I am convinced this is my G G grandfather. I know my G grandfather Lemuel and he bought property less than 3/4 mile from William in 1851 after both moved to Indiana from Adams county OH. There is other evidence also but most records were burned in a courthouse fire in OH in the early 1900s. Nancy says we've looked into dead people enough for now and we're now in Illinois