A Boat from Temperance

Sunday afternoon we left Waukegan beneath beautiful skies, cruising over glass-like water for our next port: 30 miles north to Racine.

I have driven past Racine hundreds of times on my way north to Wisconsin and the UP. Not once have I ever stopped here. Too bad - it's a beautiful town.

"Racine," French for "root," is named in honor of the Root River which flows through town, joining Lake Michigan. The French missionaries who came in the 19th century found a natural harbor created by the tangle of tree roots along the shore where the Root River meets Lake Michigan. For most of the 20th century, the shoreline was industrial, until the late 1980s when the area was rebuilt into a harbor complex.

We pulled into a transient slip, paid the girl at the deli counter, then settled in for dinner on the aft deck.

We are finding that we have two natural conversation starters on this boat. First, our two feline crew members, who jump ship and begin wandering the dock as soon as the engine is off. Nobody expects to see a cat on a boat, especially not a long haired white cat, especially when there's another one who looks just like him peeking around the bow.

The second is the location named on the stern: Temperance, MI. Temperance is located on the otherside of Michigan, near Toledo and Lake Erie. To reach Chicago by boat, you would have to come up through Lake Huron and down Lake Michigan. When we pull into a transient slip, boaters assume we have come from Temperance. "No," Mark tells them, "I just never changed the boat's name when I bought it."

"Oh, good grief," one of our Waukegan neighbors.

Some people assume we are making the Great Loop, the long journey circling through the waterways of Eastern North America, including the Great Lakes.

Now that we're into the cruising lifestyle - glide into a new harbor, meet new people, explore new places, sleep in your own bed - I'm wondering if this short jaunt up the third coast is only an appetizer....