Hello Andy and All our fellow GHTA Friends, 

We (“Carolyn Ann”) have spent the winter again in St Petersburg, Florida at the Treasure Island Club along with “Lazy Dolphin” (Barb and Randy Semper). 

 Our Son lives in St Petersburg and has our only grandchild.

 Soooo, St Petersburg is an attractive nuisance for us.  We’ve been doing the “Tour D’ Doctors” while here to get our tune ups for the upcoming cruising season as well as many boat projects.

Last year’s cruising was spent on the Western Erie Canal and finger lakes which was a great relaxing cruise.   Hurricane Irene forced us to make a second loop after shutting down the Mohawk River section of the Erie Canal route to the Hudson River.  We left Watkins Glen on Lake Seneca and travelled  through Buffalo September 9th crossed Lake Erie, up  Lake Heron via the Detroit River, down Lake Michigan, down the Illinois, Mississippi, Ten Tom to the Gulf  and crossed to St Petersburg from Carrabelle.

While not our planned route it was a good cruise and afforded us the opportunity to visit many new places and a few we skipped on out first loop such as Charlevoix, Mi with it’s charming Earl Young designed boulders homes.

and Door County Wisconsin.

   We also took this opportunity to visit Joe’s amazing 90 year old Aunt who lives on the family farm west of Peoria. 

 We and a couple of other GHTA’rs are planning an unusual cruise this year to the Point at Three Rivers Pittsburg, Pa..  The Ohio River is a blue collar river deeply embedded in our country’s history with it’s own interesting scenery, towns and cities to visit.  We have been busy collecting Ohio River information for this cruise.  Feel free to contact us if you are interested in a cruise up the Ohio River.    We hope to cross wakes with all of you sometime soon.  

Until then Cruise without Drama but have fun!

Joe and Punk