Wednesday - July 28

 Up and going early leaving the dock at 6:05 AM.....34.5 miles to Ashtabula and going into the wind, made for a chilly ride.    Very light winds, though and arrived at the yacht club at 8:35 after an 8:30 bridge opening .     This is quite an old yacht club (at least the facilities) but happy to have a spot for the next 3 nights.    We had the help of Sherry (she called herself the "maintenance" gal who was out pulling weeds) take our lines as we backed into an end slip we were good to go.

We walked downtown - short jaunt but along the way, it started to rain!    Arghhhh - no umbrella as hadn't expected this.   We ducked under some trees and waited out 2 separate showers and then on our way to "Harbor Perk" - cute coffee shop with great music, brick walls, wood floors, etc.    Enjoyed our coffees and pastries but Mark was hoping for something a bit heartier (breakfast sandwich, etc.)    Sat and enjoyed our goodies and used our I-pad and tablet.   We walked around downtown (mainly 1 block on Bridge Street) - some cute shops and a few restaurants.

Back to Catrina, Mark checked in with the Commordore (another friendly face) the sun came out and a nice day.    After lunch we walked back to town - Mark got some ice cream and I hit some shops.   Nice job of restoring these old buildings.

The dockmaster, Niles who was so nice and friendly yesterday when we made our reservation drove past as we were walking and stopped to chat.    He had been out fishing but not much luck today.    The limit is 6 fish per person and this is all walleye.   In fact, he said there's not much perch at all and the supply has really dwindled in the last 10 years while the walleye population has exploded.    

Read and took naps this afternoon - this is the life!!!    Plenty of boat traffic (sailors and fishermen) cruising by,

Twice since we've been on this trip we've seen charter boats go out full of Amish men/boys wearing their blue shirts, suspenders and straw hats.    And today Mark saw 2 Amish men and 1 woman out in their own boat?    Not a common sight.

Ashtabula is derived from "Ashtepihele" which means "always enough fish to be shared" in the Lenape language.   We noticed bumper stickers, baseball caps, etc. that just say "bula" and "1803" when this town was founded.    We are in the rust belt and the population has been going down due to closing of  many industries.  It is currently around 18,000.

As we came into the Ashtabula River this morning, we passed piles of gravel and coal + a big freighter.

Mountains of black coal

Huge freighter

Piles of gravel

 

Sweet little coffee shop

and luscious flowers everywhere!

Tonight we walked downtown to the Bascule Bridge Grille (named after the bascule bridge in town that has to lift on the 1/2 hour and hour for boats to pass thru.)     We had a wonderful meal (pork chop for Mark and walleye for me).    Excellent place and ambiance!    Walked another 6/10 of a mile to find the post office and mail some cards.    Strange that we never saw a blue mail box anywhere till we got to the post office.   Oh well....we needed the exercise!

Our family is on the move doing this and that these busy summer days.    Ryan is in Germany, Drew in FL, Connor playing in a 2-day golf tournament in Peoria, Liam in a baseball tournament in Indianapolis this weekend, Brady is in a golf tournament (he shot a 76 a few days ago) in NC.