Martha Is Home

We got our old fishing boat, Martha, out of storage yesterday.  She had spent the winter in a barn not far from our house.  I rode along with Scott to pick her up.  It was such a pretty day.  Below is a picture of the farm where Martha spent the past six months.  Isn't it a lovely setting?  Makes me want to live on a farm.  You can see over to the right the barn she was stored in along with a bunch of other boats that were also stored there.  The farmer who rented the storage space charged by the size of the boat.  Since our boat is so small, it only cost us $168.00 to store her all winter.  Not bad.  When Scott dropped her off last October, April seemed almost like an eternity away.  Now, here we are and it's April already.  Time passes so quickly. 

The farmer uses this old tractor to hitch up the boats and bring them out to their owners.  That has to be a vintage model tractor.

While we waited our turn, I took this shot of Martha in the old barn.

We were one of the last to get our boat out of the barn.  After Martha came out, it was pretty much empty.  And it is one old a** barn.  I took a couple pictures of the inside.  The pictures look substantially similar but one is looking one direction and the other is looking another direction.  As you can see, it's not only an old a** barn, it's also a big a** barn.  Perfect for storing a bunch of boats.  The farmer actually has 2 barns that he uses for boat storage in the winter.  I think he had them both filled during the winter.  Not surprising given his fair prices.

There was another guy there to get his boat at the same time we were.  I wish I had taken a picture of his boat.  I had never seen anything quite like it.  It looked super old and had a rather unusual design.  I asked Scott, "what kind of boat is that?"  Scott didn't miss a beat and replied:  "Noah's Ark."  (lol)

While we waited, I made friends with the farmer's dog-- a very sweet boy named Reggie.

Reggie was a big boy and very, very friendly.  A good ol' farm dog.  Scott aptly pointed out that Reggie has probably never been on a leash in his life.

We didn't have to wait too terribly long for Martha to come out of the barn, pulled by the old tractor.

You can somewhat see the farmer in the picture above.  He was a nice guy.  100% farmer.  100% Wisconsinite.  Wisconsinites have a certain look, and the farmer had that look through and through.  Scott said when he shook the farmer's hand, it felt like he (the farmer) had leather gloves on.  I do appreciate a hard working man with rough hands to prove it.

After the farmer brought Martha out, Scott jumped in his truck to pull it around and hitch her up.  Reggie was supervising, as seen in the first picture below.    

Scott's truck looks nice in the picture above.  I dig a man with a nice truck.

Speaking of trucks, Reggie might have been a big old dog but he had no problem jumping up in the back of the farmer's truck when he got tired and wanted to lay down.  Is Reggie cute or what?

And here is our first picture of Martha once we got her back home.  It's nice to see her in the garage again.

We had no plans to actually take Martha out on the water, but it ended up being an absolutely beautiful day, so we couldn't resist.  It was sunny and temps in the low 80's.  That's boating weather.  Scott got Martha all cleaned up, packed a cooler of beer and off we went.

Just a quick side note about beer.  Have you tried Leinenkugel's summer beer:  Summer Shandy?  Damn it's good.  It's like beer lemonade.  That was Scott's first beer on the boat, all tucked in a huggie to keep it cold.

It was a magnificent day. Blue skies.  Fluffy clouds.  Sunshine.  Mild temps.  Perfect.

We weren't the only ones who thought it was a great day to get out on the water.  People were lining up to launch....

...and quite a few people had already launched.

Now that's Wisconsin.  Lots of trucks.  Lots of boats.  Gotta love it.

Our boat is old.  1973.  The outboard is even older.  1969.  (yikes)  (wait, what am I "yikes-ing" about? that outboard and I are the same age.)  Anyhow, Scott was concerned about her running after being in storage all winter.  She fired up like a champion.  Four pulls and we were on our way.

It was an incredible feeling to be out on the water again.  It was pure joy.  Exhilarating even.  The water on Lake Waubesa was really calm, which made the experience that much better.

I thought we would just tool around Lake Waubesa, but we ended up going up the channel to Lake Monona.  This is the channel in early spring.

Even people without boats were out enjoying the beautiful weather.  The patio at Bourbon Street bar/grill on the channel was busy.

One of the things Scott and I enjoy the most when we are out on the boat is putting around looking at all the beautiful houses around the lake(s).  How about this one?  That house is huge and I'm sure the rock retaining wall cost more than the house Scott and I live in.  Stunning.  I'm sure that's a multi-million dollar house. 

If we ever won the lottery, we would buy a house on one of the lakes up here.  That's how much we love it.  Even if we had ample resources to go anywhere we wanted to, I'm pretty sure we would continue to live in Madison on one of the lakes.  Someone I work with recently told me that his spouse has never really taken to Madison.  That blows my mind.  This is truly a fabulous place to live and we consider ourselves lucky to be able to have this experience.  But, to each his or her own.  For Scott and I?  We love it. 

We are happy to have Martha back home and to have a full boating season ahead of us.  We didn't get Martha last year until August, so we just caught the tail end of boating season.  This year, we will be taking full advantage of the entire season.  Yesterday was Day One.