8/10/22 - ‘Happy Destiny’ - The end of this chapter - Michigan City Indiana to St Joseph Michigan

 The final blog post in each of our yearly adventures traveling along Americas Great Loop are always bitter sweet.  As we close out this chapter we’ve decided it should be appropriately named ‘Happy Destiny’.  

The winds and rain that had dominated yesterday had all passed or subsided.  When we awoke the wind directions had changed from what had been the NW to the S/SE and they had subsided substantially.  Viewing the lake from our binoculars we could see that the lake was a MUCH nicer animal this morning; now akin more to a koala 🐨 than a grizzly bear 🐻.  

Looking like a “go” day!

Riva really wants to play with her new friends!

Time had come to assess what perishable food we had in the fridge and attempt to use it up.  For quick breakfasts Derek had the one remaining coffee yogurt and granola,  Renee polished off the end of a box of Lucky Charms (the generic version with marshmallows as something other than yellow stars, blue moons and green clovers) and the last of our milk, Erik finished a semi fresh (but not yet moldy) loaf of bread by having toast with the remainder of the yummy guacamole. Fine dining on more of ‘what’s in the fridge’ would be on the menu for the remainder of the day.  

After our morning routines Derek embarked to drive our SUV from Michigan City Indiana to St Joseph Michigan.  Our AGLCA friends had delivered the car to us here at Washington Park Marina yesterday late morning since we had gotten laid over for an extra day.  Renee, Erik and Riva climbed aboard the boat for what would be their final leg to this years journey; a 35 mile run across the bottom of Lake Michigan.  After exiting the city harbor to get out into the lake the throttles were pushed down a bit in order to make decent time and not leave Derek waiting too long for us in the other end.  Although MUCH smoother than it had been yesterday, and even what we traveled with on Sunday, there were still 1’ or so slow moving rolling waves coming at our front and port side beam.  Not uncomfortable at all, but did have us slowing down a bit from Erik’s planned speed.  As the three hour, 36 mile trip went along the waters did calm even further to just a minor chop with almost no rollers.  Erik quenched his need for speed by briefly opening up the engines (and the checkbook!) to achieve our high speed of travel for the trip at 28 mph.  A debate ensued as to whether we should consider competing in the Michigan City Nautical Grand Prix upon our return to the area next year…nah…we’ll probably just keep things at our comfortable and “affordable” 8-12 mph.   Co Captain Renee took the helm as we entered the break walls off of the lake into the St Joseph River.  Erik and Riva rode on the bow to handle photography and videography.  

I’m here for the photo shoot! 📸

          Coming into St Joe, Renee bringing us to our winter          

                                            home

The last two miles of this years trip was a slow, no wake, cruise up the river past three bridges, one of which was a low railroad bridge which was already turned and open for us, and into our temporary slip at Pier 33 Marina.  ‘Happy Destiny’ will sit in this slip until the marina staff put her up on stands for an 11 month rest.   We actually learned the morning after our arrival as we were planning to depart that they won’t likely take it out of the water until after Labor Day weekend! Could there be a road trip back up to Michigan in store for Labor Day? 

Entrance to St Joseph river

View of the beach we would visit later

Welcome!

After checking in with staff and getting marina keys for bath houses and gates we pretty quickly suited up and headed off to check out the Beach.  The town beach was not huge in length (maybe 1/4 mile long) but is very deep and has nice, fine sand.  Being a beautiful, sunny day the beach was crowded with lots of people enjoying themselves.  Before laying out we went into the water, Renee only up to her calves, as the water was a little chilly!!!🥶 After laying in the sun on the beach for a while we all cooled off in the chilly water, even Renee all the way up to her shoulders! 

Lots of folks enjoying the beach 🏖 

Boat hair… don’t care!!!

Following our beach visit we drove through the downtown area a little and spotted an ice cream shop! Kilwin’s smelled delicious as they made their own homemade waffle cones. 🤤 Then back to the boat.  Erik and Renee loaded up the towels and laundry that was staying on the boat and headed to the laundromat.  While clothes were washing we went to Walmart and got a tarp to wrap the Bimini, then while clothes were drying took Riva to a dog park.  Riva made a new friend in the small dog park, a little yorkie named Atticus(about 3 pounds!) Riva did not know how to play with someone smaller than her.  In the big dog park she ran and romped with Jelly Roll, Maggie, and Bradbury. After retrieving the laundry we returned to the boat to begin the packing up, storing, and stowing process.  We removed all of the Isenglass panels, removed flags, the grill, organized for packing in the morning.

In the morning we stripped the beds, laid out the isenglass in the bow, packed, emptied the fridge into the cooler, loaded the fuel bladder into the car, folded and wrapped the bimini tops to protect them from the weather, and stowed away all of the many things we would not need again till next year 😢

Happy Destiny all wrapped up to be tucked in for a long winters nap 😴 

Car all loaded and ready to roll