Day #17+ -- A Surprise Fourth

Saturday morning was nice with more visiting. That afternoon was the wedding. Everyone left but us....peace and quiet in the neighborhood! The river was a bit busy with weekend boat traffic, which caused some high waves lapping above the bottom of the boathouse. The cloud cover made it a perfect time to wash the RV, which needed it after being rained on in 3 states. I got 3 sides done and ran out of steam. It was getting warm, and a late lunch lead to a late nap. I awoke refreshed and finished it. Now it can rain (which it did).

Sunday morning, we awoke to Julie's text saying if we were going on the boat ride, it was leaving at 9:30. Pete and Barb (Jim's folks) and Jim and Julie and Jack, now a seasoned boater at 13 months old, had towed their boats from Marquette to Tawas and put in there, then boated to Harsens. 

They were renting a cottage about 8 miles further down the channel with a protected cove for the boats. The water here is so high, it's slapping the bottom of the boathouse with any significant wake.

Some of the wedding revelers had not returned until 12:30 AM and were slow to appear. Bryan and Anne and their three, were returning to Virginia (is for lovers) which is almost a 500 mile pull for them. 

Eventually Christie, Jim and Jenny and RGL loaded onto the 2 boats with Pete and Barb and Jim, Julie and Jack and set off across Lake St Clair in search of fuel. We also got some food, which was a good thing as for the next several hours we continued down the Detroit river until we hit Lake Erie! Little did we know, this was their plan all along! A perfect boating day as partly cloudy and not too hot. Water was a bit choppy with all the wakes, but the clouds were not rain clouds. There was some chatter about continuing across the lake to Cedar Point to ride the roller coaster, but only lasted about 20 seconds as we still had the 50 miles to go back!  So now it's 4 Great Lakes on this trip!

Detroit Yacht Club and Belle Isle Bridge

RenCen at the heart of downtown Detroit

Looking up river with the RenCen under the Ambassador Bridge

US Steel

 The dredged channel as it enters Erie with buoys

Pete on the FeatherDuster which he has had for 44 years

Southpaw deckhand!

We saw the Grosse Pointe shoreline and parks, The Detroit skyline with the Renaissance Center (which houses GM), The Rouge River plant, Boblo Island (an amusement park in years past), Belle Isle and under that bridge, and the Ambassador Bridge, the only privately owned international bridge in the world! A lot of the way we were looking south into Canada at the sites of Windsor. A wonderful day!