Early 2017 – Gulf Coast

We spent a lot of time early in 2017, visiting Sue’s mother in Chattanooga several times, knowing that her time with us was shortening.  But we also tried to take advantage of being close to other family members, especially the New Orleans crowd.  In January we brought our granddaughter Madeleine to Orange Beach to do some ice skating (for the first time in her life), enjoy the Christmas petting zoo, see the fantastic light show every night at the Wharf, and ride the giant ferris wheel.

The 100 acres of Bellingrath Gardens had so many
lights you couldn't count them all!

Sue & I made several trips to nearby Bellingrath Gardens, just south of Mobile.  This has always been a favorite spot of ours to tour the grounds & admire whatever flowers are in bloom at that time.  But for the first time, we went while they had their Christmas Lights on display, to the tune of a couple million twinkling little stars. 

New Orleans celebrates New Year's Day with cabbages

As we got into the month of March, we realized that we had a lot of work to finish on the boat’s sundeck, if we wanted to go cruising soon.  We had the wet bar rebuilt by a contractor who also laid new carpeting, but we ourselves stripped & varnished all the teak doors to the cabinets, salon cabin door, and side wing doors.  Sand, tack cloth, varnish, hang to dry for 2 days, sand tack cloth, varnish, hang to dry for 2 days, ad infinitum.  Very tedious & time consuming, and very much needed.

Helping out at the Boat Show in Chattanooga

Tape, sand, tack cloth, varnish